"Reprehensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... voice hardened suddenly; his sound, white teeth snapped together. "You are getting exactly what you deserve. You betrayed me by spying upon me while you broke bread in my house. I see nothing reprehensible in Mr. Marsh's conduct; but even if I did, I would not censure him; any measures are justifiable against ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... Bonaparte, "the red and yawning cavity was above me, and the reprehensible paw raised to strike me. My nerves," said Bonaparte, suddenly growing faint, "always delicate—highly strung—are broken—broken! You could not give a little wine, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... and is content to be ruined with her, let us shoot him, if we can, but allow him an honorable burial in the soil he fights for. [Footnote: We do not thoroughly comprehend the author's drift in the foregoing paragraph, but are inclined to think its tone reprehensible, and its tendency impolitic in the present stage ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of many of the settlers, who considered themselves gentlemen, and would have been very much affronted to have been called otherwise, was often more reprehensible than that of the poor Irish emigrants, to whom they should have set an example of order and sobriety. The behaviour of these young men drew upon them the severe but just censures of the poorer class, whom they regarded in every way ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... patient. Sometimes he was firm, sometimes gently bantering. He seized every opportunity for a little humorous by-play. One might almost say that he tactfully teased some of his patients, giving them an idea that their ailment was absurd, and a little unworthy; that to be ill was a quaint but reprehensible weakness, which they should quickly get rid of. Indeed, this denial of the dignity of disease is one of the characteristics of the place. No homage is paid to it as a Dread Monarch. It is gently ridiculed, its terrors are made to appear second-rate, ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... which seems cruelly efficient in turning out beings moulded after all the standards society abhors. Fortunately the psychologists have made it unnecessary to explain that there is nothing willful or personally reprehensible in the vagrancy of these vagrants. Their histories show that, starting with the long hours and dreary winters of the farms they ran away from, through their character-debasing experience with irregular industrial labor, on to the vicious economic life of the ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... but sat there in speechless terror, as, out of sheer obstinacy, and partly out of a desire to scare his new companion, Kenneth kept the sheet fast—the most reprehensible act of which a boatman can be guilty in a mountain loch—and the boat under far more pressure of sail than she ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... midst of the Life. There is one marked distinction between the two works. Most of the Tour was seen by Johnson in manuscript. It does not appear that he ever saw any part of the Life.' This is to say that Croker's action is reprehensible not because it is an offence against art but because Johnson on private and personal grounds might not have been disposed to accept the Life as representative and just, and might have refused to sanction ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... not the question. It's the whole circumstance from beginning to end. I consider Dick's behaviour most reprehensible." ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... refusing to take serious things seriously. In particular the review objected to Goethe's perversion of history in representing Egmont not as a married man with a large family of children but as a bachelor with a bourgeois sweetheart. Not that Schiller regarded the departure from history as reprehensible in itself. The dramatist has a right to pervert facts for the purpose of exciting sympathy for his hero; but in this case, Schiller argued, the effect is to degrade the character of Egmont and thus ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... those supposed to be competent; but as a rule, not without rare, striking exceptions, these proceedings are smitten with the same sterile and complacent artificiality that was so long the curse of woman's life. I deem it almost reprehensible that, save a few general statistics, the women's colleges have not only made no study themselves of the larger problems that impend, but have often maintained a repellent attitude toward others who wished to do so. No one that I know ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... glass of wine, Francis Ardry followed my example, and then proceeded to detail to me the treatment which he had experienced from Annette, and from what he said, it appeared that her conduct to him had been in the highest degree reprehensible; notwithstanding he had indulged her in everything, she was never civil to him, but loaded him continually with taunts and insults, and had finally, on his being unable to supply her with a sum of money which she had demanded, decamped from the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... that this wholesale wanton destruction of bird life, however painful it may be to lovers of nature, however reprehensible from a moral point of view, is sanctioned by law, and cannot therefore be prevented. This is not quite so. We see that the Wild Birds Protection Act is continually being broken with impunity, and where public opinion ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... your nerves, too, didn't they? Such layers upon layers of covers for everything! It brought me to such a pass that I went to the other extreme. I wouldn't protect ANYTHING—which was very reprehensible, of course. Well, now she has pretty dishes and solid silver—but she hides them in bags and boxes, and never uses them except for company. She doesn't take any more comfort with them than she did with the ingrain carpets and cheap chairs. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... little to do with this story, and yet it may be fully warranted by the occasion. And at least it is justifiable to say that the full of the moon may have made Joe Harris madder than usual and readier than ever to indulge in frolics of the most reprehensible character. What we began to indicate, especially, was that no portent loomed in the heavens above the doomed city or even above the house of Judge Owen, and that still an earthquake was muttering and rumbling under it, destined to tumble it into the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the "Barbier de Seville," he said, "Faith, gentlemen, I don't know who is deceived here; everybody is in the secret." They then came to the point, and begged him to tell the Queen positively that all which had been pronounced reprehensible in M. de Beaumarchais's play had been cut out. My father-in-law contented himself with replying that his situation at Court would not allow of his giving an opinion unless the Queen should first speak of the piece to him. The ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... of music, speaks even more bitterly of Meyerbeer's irreverence and theatric sensationalism: "'Les Huguenots' and the far weaker production 'Le Prophete' are, we think, all the more reprehensible (nowadays especially, when too much stress is laid on the subject of a work, and consequently on the libretto of an opera), because the Jew has in these pieces ruthlessly dragged before the footlights two of the darkest pictures ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... was where, for three nights running, great fids of wire were cut out of some artillery cables connecting them with their observers—a most reprehensible deed. So I had patrols out to spy along the lines,—no result, except that next morning another 100 yards had gone. So I made St Andre publish a blood-and-thunder proclamation threatening death to any one found tampering with our wires. Spies were plentiful, ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be considered as very reprehensible, if I have suffered it to play some freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, those changes may be safely offered, which are not considered even by ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... which was pressed upon him by his counselors. Having accepted it, however, he proved to be a valiant champion, though his major interest was undoubtedly in the protective tariff. To him nothing was more reprehensible than attempts "to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the rich,' or interest against interest." Such was the language of his acceptance ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... not their two horns regularly set in, but the five spiky calyx-ends stick out between the petals—sometimes three, sometimes four, it may be all five up and down—and produce variously fanged or forked effects, feebly ophidian or diabolic. On the whole, a plant entirely mismanaging itself,—reprehensible and awkward, with taints of worse than awkwardness; and clearly, no true 'species,' but only a link.[2] And it really is, as you will find presently, a link in two directions; it is half violet, half pansy, a 'cur' among the Dogs, and a thoughtless thing among ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... willed also the necessary means of its perfection. He willed, therefore, the state—He willed its connection with the source and original archetype of all perfection. They who are convinced of His will, which is the law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this, our corporate realty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory paramount—I had almost said this oblation of the state itself—as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed with modest splendour and unassuming state. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... worst was that circumstances might go on making demands, and she might have to do yet more reprehensible things—things that weren't merely almost like wrong-doing. Some day she might ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... you're dying to know. You want to know whether Mr. Snow is in the same depths of mourning as when our acquaintance first began. This, my dear child, is very reprehensible of you. Young girls with braids down their backs—and by the way, Linda, you did not tell me what happened "after the ball was over." Did you go to school the next morning with braids down your back, or wearing your coronet? Because on that depends what I have to ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... is not only not a reprehensible form of government, but I do not know whether it is not far preferable to all other simple constitutions, if I approved of any simple constitution whatever. But this preference applies to royalty so long only as it maintains ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... was an object of envy to all the young peasant-girls within a circuit of ten miles, although her conduct, from a religious point of view, was supremely reprehensible. Flore, born in 1787, grew up in the midst of the saturnalias of 1793 and 1798, whose lurid gleams penetrated these country regions, then deprived of priests and faith and altars and religious ceremonies; where marriage was nothing more than legal coupling, and revolutionary ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... France. Altho' the last couplet was generally suppressed, so evident was its partial tone towards me, in the midst of it all I could not help being highly amused with the simplicity evinced by the good people of France, who, in censuring the king's conduct, found nothing reprehensible but his having omitted to select his mistress from elevated rank. The citizens resented this falling off in royalty with as much warmth and indignation as the grandees of the court; and I could enjoy a laugh on the subject of their angry displeasure as soon as my presentation was decided ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... "I have a plan to lay before you. There have always been some Hallowe'en plays and tricks that often seem both childish and reprehensible. I am going to propose you lay aside all these and instead let me give you a party with music, dancing and some refreshments. I will invite the young gentlemen of the neighborhood, many of whom you have met at church and ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... darkened the sunshine of his spirit, and clouded the world before his eyes. He passed hours in his painting-room, though he tore up what he did there. He forsook his usual haunts, or appeared amongst his old comrades moody and silent. From cigar-smoking, which I own to be a reprehensible practice, he plunged into still deeper and darker dissipation; for I am sorry to say, he took to pipes and the strongest tobacco, for which there is no excuse. Our young man was changed. During the last fifteen or twenty months, the malady had ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Boston were party to the conspiracy; nor did they then or afterwards justify their own conduct by showing that Christ ever counseled treason, abetted conspiracy, or led rebellion against established government. From beginning to end, the whole act was reprehensible, and fraught with evil result. Modern civilization and republican government require that beyond the self-defense necessary to the protection of life and limb, all coercive reform shall act by ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... upon his swarthy features a stamp of care and melancholy, foreshadowing the greater wrongs and trials in store for him. But the chief figure in the group is the just man who rose and rebuked the harsh and reprehensible procedure of the powerful landholder, neighbor and friend though he was. The manner in which the arbitrary trooper bowed to the rebuke, if it does not mitigate our resentment of his conduct, illustrates the extraordinary influence of Nathaniel Ingersoll's character, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... They clearly understood the distinction between coarseness and immorality. The young women who read "Tom Jones" with enthusiasm were not less moral than the women who now avoid it, they were only less refined. They did not think vice less reprehensible, but were more accustomed to the sight of it, and therefore less easily offended ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... puzzled—she had never before seen a gentleman of Verty's candor, and could find no words to reply. She thought of saying to our friend that visiting a young lady at school was highly criminal and reprehensible, but a glance at the fat turkey lying on the grass at her feet, caused her ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... attacked in books, pamphlets, and newspapers, but he came out victorious from all contests. In vain did Szechenyi himself, backed by his great authority in the land, assail him, declaring that he did not object to Kossuth's ideas, but that his manner and his tactics were reprehensible, and that the latter were sure to lead to a revolution. The great mass of the people felt instinctively that revolution had become a necessity and was unavoidable if Hungary was to pass from the old mediaeval order to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... standpoint of journalistic ethics, the only thing more reprehensible than selling your opinions is offering them for sale. This is editorial prostitution. The mere getting out of winter-resort numbers, automobile numbers, financial numbers, and Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition numbers is not at all to be condemned, though the motive may be commercial, ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... It cannot be questioned that the greater activity of the affections and happier state of feeling, maintained in children by the discipline we have described, must prevent them from sinning against each other so gravely and so frequently. The still more reprehensible offences, as lies and petty thefts, will, by the same causes, be diminished. Domestic estrangement is a fruitful source of such transgressions. It is a law of human nature, visible enough to all who observe, that those who are ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... conditions in those days were very reprehensible. Though Boaz was high-born and a man of substance, yet he slept on the threshing-floor, so that his presence might act as a check upon profligacy. In the midst of his sleep, Boaz was startled to find some one next to him. At ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... scathing retort couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for the want of the ploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is second nature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must dispense his balm of Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste to restore to health a generation of unfledged profligates let his practice consist better with ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... tone and lisped) said: "Okh! whom hast thou mentioned! And at nightfall, into the bargain!—Don't utter that name!" I was amazed; what significance could that name possess for such an inoffensive and innocent being, who would not have known how to devise, much less to execute, anything reprehensible?—This alarm, which revealed itself after a lapse of nearly half a century, induced in me reflections ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... fast, however. What I meant to say was that the murder was premeditated. In the case of a reprehensible murder I know this would be considered an aggravation of the offence. Of course, it is an open question whether all the murders are not reprehensible; but let that pass. To my own mind I should have been indeed deserving of ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... indeed," said Mr. Punch. "Wery reprehensible. Wery. Hi carn't s'y as I ever 'eard of a thing so hextremely reprehensible. Now when Hi was ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... the face of the passer-by, at the corner of every principal thoroughfare, the prices varying from two to six cents. These, as may be supposed, contain, together with the current news, every description of scandal and trash imaginable, their personality being highly offensive, injurious, and reprehensible. Thus the freedom of the press is abused in every part of America, and this powerful engine of "good or ill" converted from a benefit (as it is if managed with propriety) into a ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... his sister, in the square of moonlight cast like a block of silver through the window, "I have been weak enough to love this girl whom we both knew as an infant, when I was old enough to be a worse man than I shall ever be again; and, still more reprehensible, I have told her of it within the last half-hour; a pleasant piece of business, which Lord Hope will be likely to relish. Don't ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... York the other night. And I will own that I've had a real struggle with myself sometimes, lately, not to mind—his giving so much time to his portrait painting. And of course both of those are very reprehensible—in an artist's wife," ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Judge, "you have committed an act of grievous impropriety. You have been guilty of one of the most reprehensible offences that any citizen of a Commonwealth founded upon order and justice could commit, an act of such flagrant culpability that the Court, in the maintenance of its dignity and in the interest of the Commonwealth found it necessary to visit upon you punishment of great severity and incarcerate ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... and necessary that the inexperienced collector should be put on his guard against the reprehensible and dishonest practice of some professional vendors in advertising or offering for disposal books of which the leaves are not entirely genuine, which are deficient in supplemental matter recognised as part of the work, or whose bindings are sophisticated in a manner only capable of detection by a ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... little everyday vexations, we shall be left quite without resource when something really serious does occur. Children are very sensitive to such exaggerations, and their attention is so much taken up with the injustice of making a big ado about such trifles that they overlook what is reprehensible in their ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... severely; and as he did not notice the tone of parody, which nevertheless lay in the notion, he declared the great expenditure of divine means for such an insignificant human end in the highest degree reprehensible; inveighed against the use and abuse of such mythological figures, as a false habit originating in pedantic times; found the expression now too high, now too low; and, in divers particulars, had indeed not ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... house, we looked into the dark and squalid dining-room, where a lunch of cold meat was set out; but having no associations with the house except through this one dead man, it seemed as if his presence and attributes pervaded it wholly. He appears to have been a man of reprehensible habits, though well advanced in years. I ought not to forget a brandy-flask (empty) among his other effects. The landlady and daughter made a good impression on me, as honest and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the facts in reality. These meetings of Mr. Carlyle's and Barbara's, instead of episodes of love-making and tender speeches, were positively painful, especially to Barbara, from the unhappy nature of the subject to be discussed. Far from feeling a reprehensible pleasure at seeking the meetings with Mr. Carlyle, Barbara shrank from them; but that she was urged by dire necessity, in the interests of Richard, she would wholly have avoided such. Poor Barbara, in spite of that explosion of bottled-up excitement years back, was a lady, possessed ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... offered to him an hour ago, he would without doubt have decided that he ought not to keep it. Even now, looking at it as an abstract principle, he did not deceive himself in the least. But Nature has the reprehensible habit of not presenting these questions to us squarely and fairly, and it is remarkable that in most of our offending the abstract principle is never the direct issue. Mr. Harkutt was conscious of having been unwillingly led step by step into a difficult, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... German mind she was more than a spy; Her conduct was reprehensible, because in the capacity of nurse she had won a degree of confidence. She was therefore held as a spy and traitor. And though Brand Whitlock, America's Minister to Belgium, and other diplomats sought to save her, she was shot by ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... Evidently force and bloodshed, when contrary to the interests of the possessing class, is a monstrous crime, but when it is in their favour it becomes a duty and a necessity."[1095] "We believe the 'potting' of the 'heads' of States to be a foolish and reprehensible policy, but the matter does not concern us as Socialists. We have our own quarrel with the Anarchists, both as to principles and tactics, but that is no reason why, as certain persons seem to think, we should put on sackcloth and ashes, and dissolve ourselves in tears ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... guarantee' by which it was not intended that every Power was bound single-handed to fight any Government which violated Luxemburg. Although this gross disregard by the Germans of their solemn pledge did not entail the same consequences as the subsequent violation of Belgian neutrality, it is equally reprehensible from the point of view of international law, and the more cowardly in proportion as this state is weaker than Belgium. Against this intrusion Luxemburg protested, but, unlike Belgium, she did not ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... among those whose word and example are encouragements to every kind of sin. Society ought to be a kindly matrix in which incipient life is nurtured into health and beauty; but it may be a malignant nurse, by whom the stream of life is poisoned at its very source. If this be so, then it is as reprehensible in those whose vocation is to watch over the moral and spiritual development of their fellow-men to be indifferent to the conditions by which life is surrounded as it would be discreditable to the physicians of a city swept year after year ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... up by allowing the mind to dwell upon the subject until a desire is created. This rule works both ways, as many people have found out to their sorrow and misery. Not only may one build up a commendable desire in this way, but he may also build up a reprehensible one. A little thought will show you the truth of this statement. A young man has no desire to indulge in the excesses of a "fast" life. But after a while he hears, or reads something about others leading that sort ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... being distributed in ever greater numbers throughout China form an admirable force and are superior to Japanese police in the performance of nearly all their duties. It is monstrous that Japan, as well as other Powers, should act in such a reprehensible manner when the Chinese administration is doing all it can to provide efficient ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the matter is, Albert, I have devoted my unfortunate life to two arts: the military and the potatory. As you may have noticed, most of the miserable creatures on the wrong side of a bar adopt one of two reprehensible courses: either they treat drinking as though the aim of blending liquids were to imitate some French chef's fiddlefaddle—a dash of bitters, a squirt of orange, an olive, cherry, or onion wrenched from its proper place in the saladbowl, a twist of lemonpeel, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... harridan," said I, "I grant you it is utterly impossible to defend my behaviour in this matter, and, believe me, I don't for an instant undertake the task. To the contrary, I agree with you perfectly,—my conduct is most thoughtless and reprehensible, and merits your very severest condemnation. For look you, here is a young man, well born, well-bred, sufficiently well endowed with this world's goods, in short, an eminently eligible match, preparing to marry an 'ostensible actress' a year or two his senior,—why, of course, you are,—and ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... determined to make her complaint to the king; but she was told that it would be all in vain, because so spiritless and faineant was he that he not only neglected to avenge affronts put upon others, but endured with a reprehensible tameness those which were offered to himself, insomuch that whoso had any ill-humour to vent, took occasion to vex or mortify him. The lady, hearing this report, despaired of redress, and by way of alleviation ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... that this practice of calling a halt in her labours for a cup of tea was a highly incorrect one on Mrs. Mappin's part, and that my share in the transaction was to the last degree reprehensible. But I was also to learn that faithful, selfless, honest, and diligent scrub-ladies are none too common; and the Sister who discovers that she has been allotted such a jewel as Mrs. Mappin is seldom ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... rulers convince themselves that, while petit larceny is criminal, grand larceny is patriotic; that, while it is reprehensible for one man to kill another for his money, it is glorious for one nation to put to the sword the inhabitants of another nation in order ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... projects contemplated enquiry and reform. Dickson, having accomplished his own ends, desired no further reform; and as for enquiry, he had excellent reasons for burking it, as it would probably lead to the disclosure of certain reprehensible transactions on the part of himself and Claus, the Indian agent. He therefore presented a sudden change of front, and, so far from continuing to act with Mr. Gourlay, he became that unfortunate ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... with startling exceptions to this rule, which astonish any one accustomed to see the high regard to outward decency observed by the same cloth at home; for instance, it would be considered most reprehensible at home, for any clergyman to keep a mistress; and if the fact became known, would occasion his instant dismissal from his cure, and his expulsion ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... complimentary. These, all industriously copied into the evening papers, the people were carefully reading over again, some with honest regret, some deriving a great moral lesson from an attempt exceedingly reprehensible in every point of view, but most, we are sorry to acknowledge, with a feeling of ill concealed pleasure. Had not they always said how it was to end? Was there anything more absurd ever conceived? Scientific men ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... the admiration, was reprehensible. She was a woman of the world, and should have thought; and this she realized as her eyes fell upon his face, where a revelation was unfolding itself. There was something in this life which he had never thought about, never dreamed of; and the light which shone out of his dark eyes was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... this mixed-up state of affairs, is to ask whether it be simply reprehensible and pathological, or whether, on the contrary, we must treat it as a normal element in making up our minds. The thesis I defend is, briefly stated, this: Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... uniting in our own persons the incompatible characters of accuser, witness, judge, and executioner, let us decide, without trial, testimony, or form, that certain motives of those who are "there sitting where we dare not soar", are reprehensible. Let us assume that Homer was a drunkard, that Virgil was a flatterer, that Horace was a coward, that Tasso was a madman, that Lord Bacon was a peculator, that Raphael was a libertine, that Spenser was a poet-laureate. It is inconsistent with this division of our subject to cite living poets, but ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... not, in fact, stimulated by these exhibitions and performances in the slightest degree to draw, paint, carve, play an instrument, sing, recite, or act for themselves. But observe that directly they form clubs of their own, although they may develop many reprehensible tendencies, and especially that of gambling, they do at once begin to act, sing, recite, and dance for themselves. What we want them to do, then, is to begin for themselves, or to fall in willingly with those who begin for them, the pursuit of Art in its more difficult and higher branches. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... very small bottle; short measure being among the many means used by the keepers of those houses, to gain what they call an honest livelihood: indeed this is one of the least reprehensible; the less they give a man of their infernal beverages for his money, the kinder ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... independent of the will. Though this or any other state of the understanding may be involuntary, the manifestation of such a state is not so, but is a voluntary act, and, 'being neutral in itself, may be commendable or reprehensible according to the circumstances in which it takes place.' (Bailey's Essay on Formation of ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... The writer was verdant, to be sure, and self-conscious, and partial in his view of the relations of the sexes, but there was withal a serious purpose in the writing. He meant to expose and correct what he conceived to be reprehensible conduct on the part of the gentler sex, bad feminine manners. Just now he sees the man's side of the shield, a few years later he will see the woman's side also. He ungallantly concludes "to lead the 'single life,' and ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... the breasts of the lookers-on that peace may soon be restored; and indeed, after a sob or two from Mabel, and a few passes of the most reprehensible sort from Tommy (entirely of the facial order), a great calm ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... of reason, shrunk like a delicate plant from the very shadow of guilt, and was all-imbued with zeal for God's glory. Idleness, levity, vanity, and falsehood, even in trivial matters, were censured by him as faults severely reprehensible. And when his efforts to check sin drew upon him the hostility of others, he was so far from losing patience, that he therein only discovered a fresh opportunity of practising virtue. Towards the poor he overflowed with tenderness, reserving for them the choicest ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... her, withal, as of the fairy-kind, bound to this earth-bondage by some law of the Universe not yet explored; not pitiable because not self-pitying, and (what is more important) not reprehensible because impossible to be bound, as we are, soul to body. I know that now, but did not know it then; and yet—extraordinary thing—I was never shocked by the contrast between her two states of being. This is to me a clear ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... easily understands that in this world the esteem and affection of others are necessary for his happiness, and that life is but a burden to those who by their vices injure themselves, and render themselves reprehensible in ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... kindness of her, who had come to visit him. She looked at him with admiration and pity, and having endeared herself to him by the most affectionate words and caresses, on her bidding him farewell, he cried most pitiously to go along with her. Unused at any time to resist temptations, whether to reprehensible, or to laudable actions, she yielded to his supplications, and having overcome a few scruples of Miss Woodley's, determined to take young Rushbrook to town, and present him to his uncle. This idea was no sooner formed than ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... which the killing of a wild animal may be so wanton, so revolting and so utterly reprehensible that the act may justly be classed as murder. The man who kills a walrus from the deck of a steamer that he knows will not stop; the man who wantonly killed the whole colony of hippopotami that Mr. Dugmore photographed in life; the man who last winter shot ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... who were so excited at the first glimpse of the watch-tower of the fort that they dashed forward, as Rigaud says, "like lions." Hence one might fairly expect to see the fort assaulted at once; but by the maxims of forest war this would have been reprehensible rashness, and nothing of the kind was attempted. The assailants spread to right and left, squatted behind stumps, and opened a distant and harmless fire, accompanied with ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... to myself that he had formerly considered it reprehensible, in any woman, and especially in members of his own family, to dare to avow that they knew any thing about legislation. Then he explained to me with volubility the article in the law prohibiting any change in the ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... theory be true, how falsely has the admiration of mankind been given! If the most obscure woman is best, the most conspicuous must undoubtedly be worst. Tried by this standard, how unworthy must have been Elizabeth Barrett Browning, how reprehensible must be Dorothea Dix, what a model of all that is discreditable is Rosa Bonheur, what a crowning instance of human depravity is Florence Nightingale! Yet how consoling the thought, that, while these disreputable ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... of compulsion by the authorities is absolutely foreign to the free society, and cannot be taken into consideration at all. The modern opinion concerning the population question, the opinion that is gradually acquiring the force of a moral principle—viz. that it is reprehensible to beget a large number of children—must prove itself to be sufficiently powerful for the purpose, it being taken for granted, of course, that means of prevention were available which were absolutely trustworthy, and did not ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... to America was already planned, and October 7, 1883 is the last date from Cobham, "New York" succeeding it without any; for Mr Arnold had the reprehensible and, in official persons, rare habit of very constantly omitting dates, though not places. The St Nicholas Club, "a delightful, poky, dark, exclusive little old club of the Dutch families," is the only place in which he finds peace. For, as one ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed as though she were going to a ball; and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... had to content myself. I speculated upon the subject for that evening, and came to the conclusion that he had invented the whole story, to see whether I would believe it (for we had all a reprehensible habit of that kind), and very soon the whole circumstance ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... apparent to the people & to the whole country that a gallant soldier, and a faithful public servant has been stricken down because of the place of his birth." This was certainly shrewd, and, measured by the tone of American public life, not altogether reprehensible, politics. Douglas anticipated that the Whigs would nominate Lincoln and "stick to him to the bitter end," while the Free-Soilers and anti-Nebraska Democrats would hold with equal persistence to Bissell, in which case either Bissell would ultimately get the Whig vote or there would be ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... staring at a cipher message that she was satisfied was some criminal plot, and have refused to decode it simply because she was afraid a sense of duty would involve her in an effort to frustrate it. To have sat idly by under those circumstances would have been as reprehensible—and even more cowardly—than it would be to sit idly by now that she knew what was to take place. And on that latter score to-night there was no argument with herself. She found herself accepting the fact that she would act, and act promptly, as the only natural corollary ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... tail-piece, the characteristic Sphinx (iii. 383), is as badly drawn as it well can be, a vile caricature. Khalifah the Fisherman wears an English night-gown (iii. 558) with the side-locks of a Polish Jew (iii. 564). The dancing- girl (iii. 660) is equally reprehensible in form, costume and attitude, and lastly, the Fellah ploughing (iii. 700) should wear a felt skull-cap instead of a turband, be stripped to the waist and retain nothing but a rag around ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... exile of Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less eminent than his zeal, was found to be the only measure capable of restoring peace to the distracted church of Rome. [169] The behavior of Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been still more reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal palace; and though it was somewhat early to advance any claims of ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to deliver him up to the officers of justice. For this treasonable resistance, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... set once more, preparations were again made to capture the vessel, and this time occurred what was called the Lake Erie Piracy, nearly everything connected with which was so disgraceful to the United States service, that although the government hastened to remove all the reprehensible officers, and retain those who deserved well of their country, yet seems to have endeavored to keep some of the facts connected with it, from being made public. About one week before the time set for the second ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... adjuncts, i.e. the internal organ, the sense-organs, and the body. Brahman indeed is without parts and omnipresent; but through its adjuncts it becomes capable of division just as ether is divided by jars and the like. Nor must it be said that this leads to a reprehensible mutual dependence—Brahman in so far as divided entering into conjunction with its adjuncts, and again the division in Brahman being caused by its conjunction with its adjuncts; for these adjuncts and Brahman's connexion with them are due to action (karman), and the stream of action is without ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... unused to all the risks of command." This indictment is to a large extent deserved, and had his fleet been out in the Atlantic or outside the limits of the vigilance of Nelson's ships, the putting back to Toulon or anywhere to refit the topmasts, sails, or rigging would have been highly reprehensible. But in any case, I question whether the British would have shown the white feather or lack of resource under any circumstances. On a man-of-war they were supposed to have refits of everything, and men, properly qualified, in large numbers to carry out any prodigious feat. On the other hand, the ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... temporary repulse of the German vanguard from Fort Fleron, so a large body of depositions testify to the fact that a sudden outburst of cruelty was the response of the German Army to the Belgian victory at Malines. The advance of the German Army to the Dyle had been accompanied by reprehensible, and, indeed, (in certain cases,) terrible outrages, but these had been, it would appear, isolated acts, some of which are attributed by witnesses to indignation at the check at Haelen, while others may have been the consequence of drunkenness. But the battle of Malines had results of a different ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had conversed with many distinct classes of men, had surveyed their ways with very diligent observation, and marked, with great acuteness, the effects of different modes of life. He was a man in whose presence nothing reprehensible was out of danger; quick in discerning whatever was wrong or ridiculous, and not unwilling to expose it. "There are," says Steele, "in his writings many oblique strokes upon some of the wittiest paen of the age." His delight was more to excite ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... have been written so late as the Captivity, for the marriage of Ruth, who is a Moabitess, to Boaz, is mentioned as if it were a matter of course, with no hint of censure. In the latter days of Israel such an alliance of a Jew with a foreigner would have been regarded as highly reprehensible. Indeed the Deuteronomic law most stringently forbids all social relations with that particular tribe to which Ruth belonged. "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... make a mistake like that. You are bringing a single mind to the consideration of this matter, but that will never do. This lady is a true and much-wronged wife; that is—let us hope so!—to whom our law has given its protection and remedy; but she is also, in its eyes, somewhat reprehensible for desiring to avail herself of that protection and remedy. For, though the law is now purely the affair of the State and has nothing to do with the Appointed, it still secretly believes in the religious maxim: 'Once married, always married,' and feels that however ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... higher criticism to the urchin's nearest ear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himself out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon his original critique, in a series ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... sea-going creatures from moving vessels, without any possibility of securing them if killed or wounded, is cruel, reprehensible, and criminal, and everywhere should be forbidden by ship captains, and also ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... to see a lady or gentleman, however well dressed they may otherwise be, with unclean nails. It always results from carelessness and inattention to the minor details of the toilet, which is most reprehensible. The nails should be cut about once a week—certainly not oftener. This should be accomplished just after washing, the nail being softer at such a time. Care should be taken not to cut them too short, though, if they are left too long, they will frequently get torn and broken. They ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... said I,' he continued, shaking his head as he spoke, '"these are terrible reports!" "What, sir?" says she, affecting to be ignorant of my meaning. "It is my—duty—as—your pastor," said I, "to tell you both everything that I myself see reprehensible in your conduct, and all I have reason to suspect, and what others tell me concerning you."—So ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... make up the "Four Worthy Sisters" of the reprehensible author of that "truly coarse-titled Tom Jones" concerning which Richardson wrote shudderingly in August 1749 to his young friends, Astraea and Minerva Hill. The final entry relating to Fielding's little daughter, Louisa, born December 3rd, 1752, makes it probable that, in May, 1753, he was staying ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... document, signed by upwards of a hundred and fifty of the respectable inhabitants of Alcantara—upon whom excesses had been committed in no way less reprehensible than at Maranham—had been forwarded to me on the 6th of December; but, as the complaints were of the same nature, it is unnecessary to do more than advert to the circumstance. In addition to these, I received a statistic list of the murders ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... genuine nickname it is as natural as the sobriquet of Hawkeye which Natty Bumppo received from the Hurons. German has the much less pleasing Gansauge, goose-eye; and Alan Oil de larrun, thief's eye, was fined for very reprehensible conduct in 1183. To explain Crowfoot as an imitative variant of Crawford is absurd when we find a dozen German surnames of the same class and formation and as many in Old or Modern French beginning with pied ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the new theatre in the Landstrasse, and about the French teacher who was to have come at that time to Estoras. You need, therefore, be under no uneasiness, dear lady, either as regards the past or the future, for my friendship and esteem for you (tender as they are) can never become reprehensible, having always before my eyes respect for your elevated virtues, which not only I, but all who know you, must reverence. Do not let this deter you from consoling me sometimes by your agreeable letters, as they are so highly necessary to cheer me in this wilderness, ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... had been base enough to shirk alone. If there was any shirking to be done they had always done it together. As the hours passed and she didn't appear, Anna-Rose had tried to persuade herself that she must have motored into Acapulco with Mr. Twist, strange and unnatural and reprehensible and ignoble as such arch shirking would have been; and now that the car had come back empty except for Mr. Twist she was convinced the worst had happened—her beautiful, her ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... disloyalty towards his Sovereign." She wrote to Disraeli to tell him that in her opinion it was "VERY IMPORTANT that the book should be severely censured and discredited." "The tone in which he speaks of royalty," she added, "is unlike anything one sees in history even, and is most reprehensible." Her anger was directed with almost equal vehemence against Mr. Reeve for his having published "such an abominable book," and she charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey to him her deep displeasure. Mr. Reeve, however, was impenitent. When Sir Arthur told ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... were small, sunken, baleful and rather piggy, the exigencies of Mr. Hennage's profession had never even warranted recourse to his two most priceless possessions—his hands. Yet, despite this fact, and the further fact that he had never accomplished anything more reprehensible than staking his coin against that of his neighbor, Mr. Hennage had acquired the reputation of being the worst man in San Pasqual. In the language of the country, he was a hard hombre, for he looked it. When one ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... that, reprehensible as their father's conduct may be, common humanity, and a regard for your own character, will hardly warrant their being left thus destitute. They, at least, are your relations, and have neither offended nor deceived you; on the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... and rose at once to go on deck. He observed in passing that young Hayward, the mate of his watch, had lain down to take a nap on the arm-chest. Mr Hallet, the other midshipman of the watch, had also gone to sleep somewhere, for he was not to be seen. Whether the seriously reprehensible conduct of these two officers roused his already excited spirit to an ungovernable pitch, or their absence afforded a favourable opportunity, we cannot tell, but certain it is that Fletcher Christian opened his ear at that time to ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... common with some theological writers, of drawing dark pictures of heathenism, in which not one luminous spot is visible, in order to exalt the revelations given to the Jews, is exceedingly unfortunate, and highly reprehensible. It is unfortunate, because the skeptical scholar knows that there were some elements of truth and excellence, and even of grandeur, in the religion and civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and it is reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Pagan miracles are to be found in abundance. Why should Bible miracles be severed from their relations all over the world, so that belief in them is commendable faith, while belief in the rest is reprehensible credulity? "The fact is, however, that the Gospel miracles were preceded and accompanied by others of the same type; and we may here merely mention exorcism of demons, and the miraculous cure of disease, as popular instances; they were also followed by a long succession ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... wounded pride and shame. It appeared that North had watched her out of the house, returned, and related—in a "stumbling, hesitating way", Mrs. Field said—how he disliked Mrs. Frere, how he did not want to visit her, and how flighty and reprehensible such conduct was in a married woman of her rank and station. This act of baseness—or profound nobleness—achieved its purpose. Sylvia noticed the unhappy priest no more. Between the Commandant and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... it does not secure the continuance of the existing slavery! Is it not obviously inconsistent to criminate it for two contradictory reasons? I submit it to the consideration of the gentleman, whether, if it be reprehensible in the one case, it can be censurable in the other? Mr. Lee then concluded by earnestly recommending to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... presume to point out that the simulation by a policeman of the ordinary character of a friend of the family and fellow-rejoicer, is a rather reprehensible trap to catch a sleeping weasel, since those whose honesty is not invariably above par may be lulled into the false security by his civilian get-up. And I did assure him, privately, that it was totally unnecessary to keep an eye on myself, who was ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... Federal chief, to throw the blame upon the Executive of the United States. By ascribing to those who administer the government the atrocities committed by Transatlantic rulers, you aim a deadly blow at the character of our system; and your conduct, base in any view we can take of it, is particularly reprehensible in the delicate state of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... suffered dreadfully—particularly on Sundays, when they had for some time expected the earth to open and swallow the public up; but which desirable event had not yet occurred, in consequence of some reprehensible laxity in the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... for, as he and his future bride could never be confidential with each other, they managed an appearance of intimacy by discussing with great freedom the private affairs of their friends. Agnes, in the fervour of godliness, had even seen much that was reprehensible in Lady Fitz Rewes's devotion to a man who had no idea of marrying her. She had declared that she could not understand it—an attitude pleasing to her fancy and gratifying to her pride. Reckage had thought it was not quite clear that the danger was immediate. Such was ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... to Lady Alice," said Maurice breaking from him. But when he got into the dark little entry, he did not look outside for anything or anybody: he only relieved himself by exclaiming. "Oh, d—n the fools!" and shaking his first in a very reprehensible way at some imaginary crowd of auditors. For Maurice was half an Irishman, and his blood was up, and on his friend's behalf he was, as he would just then have expressed it, "in a devil of a rage." While he was ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Trenck had acquired, I expended a hundred and twenty thousand florins of my own money, including what devolved to me from my uncle, his father, in the prosecution of his suits. Trenck had paid two hundred ducats to the tribunal of Vienna, in the year 1743, to procure its very reprehensible silence concerning a curator, to which I was sacrificed, as the new judges of this court refused to correct the error of their predecessors. Such are the proceedings of courts of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... incident that had happened to me under his roof. I could recollect nothing, except the affair of the mysterious trunk, out of which the shadow of a criminal accusation could be extorted. In that instance my conduct had been highly reprehensible, and I had never looked back upon it without remorse and self-condemnation. But I did not believe that it was of the nature of those actions which can be brought under legal censure. I could still less persuade myself ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... damage suffered in the house called English set on the Etna for the reprehensible conduct of some persons there recovered, the following provisional regulations are prescribed, authorized, and granted to M. Gemmellaro[1], who has the key of the mentioned house for his labour, honour, and money spent to finish ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... of Mr. Wright appears to have been reprehensible in the highest degree. It is clear that Mr. Burke, on parting with him at Torowoto, relied on receiving his immediate and zealous support; and it seems extremely improbable that Mr. Wright could have misconstrued the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... and obtained Abelard's absolution, i. 146; buried with Abelard, ib.; a fine lady, 147; Pope's reprehensible lines found in original letters ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... good king Thibault.] "Thibault I. king of Navarre, died on the 8th of June, 1233, as much to be commended for the desire he showed of aiding the war in the Holy Land, as reprehensible and faulty for his design of oppressing the rights and privileges of the church, on which account it is said that the whole kingdom was under an interdict for the space of three entire years. Thibault undoubtedly merits praise, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... he was an inhabitant of that fortress. At Greenwich, which palace Florac informed us was built by Queen Elizabeth, George showed the very spot where Raleigh laid his cloak down to enable Her Majesty to step over a puddle. In a word, he mystified M. de Florac; such was Mr. Warrington's reprehensible spirit. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have won a niche in the temple of fame. In dealing with Southern prejudice against the negro, we Northerners could do it with better grace if we divested ourselves of our own. We irritate the South by our criticisms, and, while I confess that there is much that is reprehensible in their treatment of colored people, yet if our Northern civilization is higher than theirs we should 'criticise by creation.' We should stamp ourselves on the South, and not let the South stamp itself on us. When ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... allow her to guide herself by means of the olfactory sense? This view is pretty generally accepted. The Ants, people say, are guided by the sense of smell; and this sense of smell appears to have its seat in the antennae, which we see in continual palpitation. It is doubtless very reprehensible, but I must admit that the theory does not inspire me with overwhelming enthusiasm. In the first place, I have my suspicions about a sense of smell seated in the antennae: I have given my reasons before; and, next, ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... committed by a single civilian would be a crime for which the law provides arrest and punishment. It is all the more reprehensible in that it might serve as a pretext for measures of repression resulting in bloodshed and pillage or the massacre of the innocent population with ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... wealth, and cold-blooded exploitation of the weak; or, if they are laborers, the form of laziness, of sullen envy of the more fortunate, and of willingness to perform deeds of murderous violence. Such conduct is just as reprehensible in one case as in the other, and all honest and farseeing men should join in warring against it wherever it becomes manifest. Individual capitalist and individual wage-worker, corporation and union, are alike entitled to the protection of the law, and must alike obey ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a most reprehensible act of slyness. She turned full upon him the batteries of her lustrous dark ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... day this would not be so reprehensible. We are comparatively an unbelieving generation; and what are called "spiritual circles" are common, though not always unattended with mischievous results. But at that time when it was considered a deadly sin to seek intercourse with those who claimed to have "a familiar spirit," that such ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... desideratum in works that treat de re culinaria, that we have no rationale of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors: as to show why cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant-jelly, the shoulder civilly declineth it; why loin of veal, (a pretty problem,) being itself unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter,—and why ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... then, let us talk of converting Hindoos and regenerating the Jews! Our duty, Mawley, as I hold my commission, is to preach Christ's gospel in all its truth and simplicity and love. We do not want to run down this or that creed, however reprehensible we may think it. Let us be judged by our deeds, and acts, and words. Let us show forth our way of salvation, as we have learnt it: another authority, greater than us, will tell the world in his own good time which is ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... not yet fully measured little Jim's ambition that stopped at nothing. Hitherto it had been that pernicious ambition that desires, and at the same time, lazily refuses to put forth the exertion necessary to attain, or it had been that other scarcely less reprehensible ambition that exerts itself simply to outshine others, and Mrs. O'Callaghan had had good cause to be anxious about Jim. Tonight it was the right sort of ambition, backed by a remarkably strong will and boundless energy. ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... character. The judge stated that I had taken the greatest possible care of the child, but decided that the mere fact of my refusing to give the child religious instruction was sufficient ground for depriving me of her custody. Secular education he regarded as "not only reprehensible, but detestable, and likely to work utter ruin to the child, and I certainly should upon this ground alone decide that this child ought not to remain another day under ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... that may be to lift vp his courage, and to make him stout and fearelesse (augent animos fortunae) saith the Mimist, and very truly, for nothing pulleth downe a mans heart so much as aduersitie and lacke. Againe in a meane man prodigalitie and pride are faultes more reprehensible then in Princes, whose high estates do require in their countenance, speech & expense, a certaine extraordinary, and their functions enforce them sometime to exceede the limites of mediocritie not excusable in a priuat ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... eating-house, cleverly disguised, I own, trying to glean information, no doubt as to the probable fate of Sir Percy Blakeney. As chance would have it, my friend Heron, of the Committee of General Security, chanced to be discussing with reprehensible openness—er—certain—what shall I say?—certain measures which, at my advice, the Committee of Public Safety have been forced to adopt with ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... Half-Way Covenant, and urging the revival of the early personal account of conversion. In this preface he excuses his hesitation in publishing the work, on the ground that he feared the Separatists would seize upon his arguments to encourage them and strengthen them in many of their reprehensible practices. These, Edwards reminds his reader, he had severely condemned in his earlier publications, notably in his "Treatise on Religious Affections," 1746, and in his "Observations and Reflections on Mr. Brainerd's Life." ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to a man's soul, an aid to meditation and repose. I insist upon a pipe—within moderation, of course. Do you like parrots? Sophy, are you capable of supporting a parrot? I have already perceived your reprehensible fondness for cats." He looked at his ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... have chosen for his fall the Christmas season of all times was reprehensible, a fact which Mary and Humpy impressed upon him in the strongest terms. The Hopper was fully aware of the inopportuneness of his transgressions, but not to the point of encouraging his wife ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... relations with Pope Gregory, their stay together at Canossa, at the time of Henry's humiliation, being particularly mentioned as an instance of their too great intimacy. Such aspersions have still to be proved, and there is nothing in all contemporary writings to show that there was anything reprehensible in all the course of this firm friendship. Gregory was twice the age of the great countess, and was more her father than her lover. During her whole lifetime, she had been of a mystic temperament, and it is too much to ask ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... that the conduct of the yellow hen was reprehensible in the extreme. The comments passed upon her would have been sufficient to make her wince, had she been a hen of any sensibility. But regardless of the disapproval so openly expressed, she continued to scratch and ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... hear that the old immoral amusements have been suppressed. People who used to go down from New York to sit in the sand and dabble in the surf now give up their quarters to squeeze through turnstiles and see imitations of city fires and floods painted on canvas. The reprehensible and degradin' resorts that disgraced old Coney are said to be wiped out. The wipin'-out process consists of raisin' the price from 10 cents to 25 cents, and hirin' a blonde named Maudie to sell tickets instead of Micky, the Bowery Bite. That's what ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... cisterns or tanks, situated below ground, where it becomes impossible to clean them out thoroughly. A custom that is almost universally followed in the Swiss cheese factories, here in this country, as in Switzerland, is fully as reprehensible as any dairy custom could well be. In Fig. 7 the arrangement in vogue for the disposal of the whey is shown. The hot whey is run out through the trough from the factory into the large trough that is placed over the row of barrels, as seen ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... Now this reprehensible youth who left me, a little hurt and put back, might for aught he or I knew have been one of the crew of the Argo—had been certainly slave or comrade to Thorfin Karlsefne. Therefore he was deeply interested in guinea competitions. Remembering what ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... when the district ceased to be maintained as the Military Frontier. Since that time crime has been very much on the increase all along the border-country. The lawlessness that is rampant at the extremities of the kingdom shows a weakness in the Central Government which is very reprehensible. But for this laxity on the borders, the recent Szeckler conspiracy for making a raid on the Russian railway could never have ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... without being so; for it is to appear to know what one does not know. For no one knows but that death is the greatest of all good to man; but men fear it, as if they well knew that it is the greatest of evils. And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance, to think that one knows what one does not know? But I, O Athenians! in this, perhaps, differ from most men; and if I should say that I am in any thing wiser than another, it would be in this, ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... blame should be apportioned it is difficult to say. Jackson laid it upon Hill. And that officer's conduct was undoubtedly reprehensible. The absence of Major Dabney, struck down by sickness, is a possible explanation of the faulty orders. But that Jackson would have done better to have accepted Lee's hint, to have confided his intentions to his divisional commanders, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... week, it is a fair conclusion that a lodger with references should obtain floor space for, say, from eightpence to a shilling. He may even be able to board with the sublettees for a few shillings more. This, however, I failed to inquire into—a reprehensible error on my part, considering that I was working on the basis of ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... child," said Susan, as she wrapped the little figure in a loose gown, and gave her such a kiss as parents seldom permitted themselves, in the fear of "cockering" their children, which was considered to be a most reprehensible practice. Nor could she refrain from closely pressing Cicely's hand as they passed through the corridor to the Queen's apartments, gave the word to the two yeomen who were on guard for the night at the head of the stairs, and tapped at the outmost door of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Poor old fellows! had their bearers been disorderly and trodden upon the flower-beds? Bowls was the favourite and a very common diversion among them; but in the opinion of Archbishop Peckham, as appears by his letters, there were other diversions of a far more reprehensible character. Actually at the small Priory of Coxford, in Norfolk, the prior and his canons were wholly given over to chess-playing. It was dreadful! In other monasteries the monks positively hunted; not only the abbots, but the common ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp |
