"Compromising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before the date of Van Buren's letter, Henry Clay, writing upon the same subject, expressed the opinion that annexation at this time, without the assent of Mexico, would be a measure "compromising the national character, involving us certainly in war with Mexico, probably with other foreign powers, dangerous to the integrity of the Union, inexpedient to the present financial condition of the country, and not called for by any general expression of public opinion." ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... himself two dare-devils between twenty and thirty years of age, allied by some common responsibility, the sequence, perhaps of some misdeed, or, by a more delicate and generous interest, the fear of compromising their family name. Then you will know of Guyon and Amiet all that I can recall. The latter had a sinister countenance, to which, perhaps, he owes the bad reputation with which all his biographers have credited him. Hyvert was the son of a rich merchant of Lyons, who had offered the sub-officer ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... representing that conception of Eternal Law which has been replaced since by the conception of Evolution. Wagner, an older, more experienced man than the Shelley of 1819, understood Wotan and pardoned him, separating him tenderly from all the compromising alliances to which Shelley fiercely held him; making the truth and heroism which overthrow him the children of his inmost heart; and representing him as finally acquiescing in and working for his own supersession and annihilation. Shelley, in his later works, ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... ignoring the authority of the military chiefs; it had no reference to the graver evil of yielding to the representations of irresponsible subordinates. Considering the circumstances, as he believed them to exist, his advice was doubtless prudent. But it found Jackson in no compromising mood. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... whose noble and inspiring words on this subject, embodied in verse form, I have frequently quoted to the growing youth about me. I realised instantly that to be seen in the apparent act of leaving or entering the establishment of a tobacconist would, in a sense, be compromising; so I retreated to the sidewalk just as Mr. Pottinger and the Misses Pottinger arrived at that ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... present strength of the followers of justice was overpowering, and the only mode of saving Robertson (which the old sinner was well disposed to do, providing always he could accomplish his purpose without compromising his own safety), must be by contriving that he should have some signal of their approach. It was probably with this view that Ratcliffe had requested the addition of Madge to the party, having considerable confidence in her propensity to exert her lungs. Indeed, she ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that all sin may be covered, and every sinner find a way of escape from the power and the penal consequences of transgression. These conditions meet in the Lord Jesus Christ and in Him alone. That God might, without compromising His attributes, be enabled to bring man back into fellowship with Himself, He spared not His own Son, and the Son freely gave Himself to suffering and ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... and that this, therefore, did not give the Cadets any good reason for leaving the Ministry. Tseretelli accused the Cadet leaders of practising a centralistic doctrinairism, of failing to understand the necessity for compromising with the Ukrainians, etc., etc. The total impression was pitiful in the extreme: the hopeless doctrinaire of the coalition government was hurling the charge of doctrinairism against the crafty capitalist politicians who seized ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... upsetting the conjectures which he had encouraged himself only twenty-four hours previously. Heaven only knows how anxiously I listened to his slightest word! And it can be easily understood why I did so. My strange and compromising connection with him drove me nearly frantic. It was not strange that people's suspicions were aroused. True, he had changed all his servants before my arrival here; but he had requested Madame Leon to remain with me, and who can tell ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... by the parade with which, from political motives, the king and his ministry received at that period all persons coming from the court of France, and the attention which was paid them. The Marquis de Noailles, the ambassador, was his uncle. Lafayette felt no scruple in compromising the diplomatic character of this representation of the King of France, so that the maximum of the favourable effect that his departure could produce was obtained ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... departments, and dexterously managed, without compromising Fouche, to ruin those from whom that Minister had received his power. There was no time to lose; and Fouche said to me on the 14th Brumaire, "Tell your General to be speedy; if he ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the Revolution. She loved to think that she had followed the best course, that she had saved her darling and her darling's fortunes; and to this secret thought she made such concessions as the misfortunes of the times demanded, without compromising her dignity or her aristocratic tenets, and enveloped her sorrows in reserve and mystery. She had foreseen the difficulties that would beset her at Carentan. Did she not tempt the scaffold by the very fact of going thither to take a prominent place? Yet, sustained by a ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... for other purposes. For the photographic work of Mr. Collins was strictly commercial—and peculiar. There were fingerprints to be photographed and identified for purpose of private revenge, photographs of people to be merged and repictured in compromising closeness for reasons of blackmail. And even X-Ray photography was included in the scope of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... dress and trips to the city, and seeing Eugenia's smart crowd there, a sign of mental dry-rot? Was it a betrayal of what was alive in her own personality to go on adapting herself to the inevitable changes in her relations with Neale, compromising, rather than ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... establishment of the second,—a period of remarkable effervescence and even fertility,—will be best illustrated by a sketch of the writings and career of M. Sainte-Beuve. He is, it is true, one of a group, compromising such critics as Villemain, Cousin, Vinet, Planche, Taine, and Scherer; but his name is more intimately associated than any of these with the progress and fluctuations of opinion and of taste. His notices of his contemporaries have been by far the most copious and assiduous. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... days are all too short for him. All his faculties give their consent to his work; say "yes" to his occupation. He is a man; he respects himself and is happy because all his powers are at play in their natural sphere. There is no compromising of his faculties, no cramping of legal acumen upon the farm; no suppressing of forensic oratorical powers at the shoemaker's bench; no stifling of exuberance of physical strength, of visions of golden crops and blooded cattle amid the loved country life in the dry clergyman's ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... From a sincere desire to preserve the harmony of the Union, and in deference for the acts of my predecessors, I felt constrained to yield my acquiescence to the extent to which they had gone in compromising this delicate and dangerous question. But if Congress shall now reverse the decision by which the Missouri compromise was effected, and shall propose to extend the restriction over the whole territory, south as ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... tell this father," he went on in a more compromising vein of thought, "I shall tell him that his daughter's happiness is at stake, and that he must not allow personal considerations to interfere with that happiness. Then he will have me flung out of his house. No, thank you, Barwig, you will not speak; but none the less that is what ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... remedies which they applied to one disease of the State were certain to generate another disease, and to render another remedy necessary. Their knowledge was inferior to ours: nor were they always able to act up to their knowledge. The pressure of circumstances, the necessity of compromising differences of opinion, the power and violence of the party which was altogether hostile to the new settlement, must be taken into the account. When these things are fairly weighed, there will, we think, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Rome—that was the truth of the matter. He thought of nothing, day or night, but of how he might see Hedwig, and his heart writhed in his breast when it seemed more and more impossible. He dared not risk compromising her by another serenade, as he felt sure that it had been some servant of the count who had betrayed him to the baroness. At last he hit upon a plan. The funeral of the baroness was to take place on the afternoon of the next day. He felt sure that the Graf von Lira would go to it, and he was ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... your story, will you? I tell you it's useless. If he wouldn't let me see your compromising letter, I've seen a letter from him to you to-night that gives the whole ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... is decided on. We shall make no concessions. My son has retained O'Hagan, the strike breaker. To- morrow morning the mills start up as usual, with new men. We have them camped in the yards now. There shall be no compromising. When we have the strikers whipped into their places we'll talk ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... large blue eyes and two young men as self-appointed guardians, I was prepared for a certain amount of heart trouble later on. One of these heroes she married at the age of seventeen, and, after various innocent but compromising vagaries (including a flight to Paris after the death of her son in order to study art), she followed the other one, still innocently, to Ireland, because he had been in prison and she was sorry for him. Both these guardians ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... Constitution prove very clearly, not only that they were satisfied with the preservation of that principle in the Federal Senate, but that they did not understand the Constitution, in any of its features, as compromising the "sovereignty, freedom, and independence" which she had so especially cherished. The ratification of their Convention is ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... not want an infidel woman in his harem; and, seeing Abdulla smile sceptically at that last objection, he remained silent, not trusting himself to speak more, not daring to refuse point- blank, nor yet to say anything compromising. Abdulla understood the meaning of that silence, and rose to take leave with a grave salaam. He wished his friend Almayer "a thousand years," and moved down the steps, helped dutifully by Reshid. The torch-bearers shook their torches, scattering ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... seemed to him now to bring with it all the dregs, all the filth of its impure and slimy source. That being so, there was but one thing for him, de Gery, to do, and that was to go, to leave as soon as possible the place where he ran the risk of compromising his name, all that there was of his patrimony. Of course. But there were the two little brothers down yonder in the provinces,—who would pay for their schooling? Who would keep up the modest home miraculously restored by the handsome salary of the oldest son, the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... no doubt that, on returning from the Elysee that night, Mademoiselle Stangerson had tried to destroy that compromising paper. It was in vain that Monsieur Darzac denied that that letter had anything whatever to do with the crime. I told him that in an affair so filled with mystery as this, he had no right to hide this letter; that I was persuaded it was of considerable importance; that the ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... these is a weakness easy to conceal.... Thus we, who should always be in a state of readiness to supply arms to improvised forces, and to colonial levies, have never enough for the purposes of the home army. We are always compromising between the popularity of a Government and the safety of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way, was much struck by the novelty of this idea; but, as it would have been compromising her dignity to have said so, under existing circumstances, she merely inquired, with much sharpness, why such an obvious suggestion had not presented itself to her husband's mind before? Mr. Sowerberry rightly construed this, as an acquiescence in his proposition; it was speedily determined, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... that you have entirely grasped the ideas of the leader who has given the order and that you take every possible means of satisfying him. Discipline does not mean silence, abstention, only doing what appears to you possible without compromising yourself; it is not the practice of the art of avoiding responsibilities. On the contrary, it is action in the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... necessary—and here we have a situation in which the diplomacy and the good humor of the conductor must be exercised to the utmost, especially if the offending voice belongs to a prominent member of, and perhaps a liberal contributor to, the church. In such a case, one may sometimes, without unduly compromising one's reputation for veracity, inform the offending member that his method of singing is very bad indeed for his voice, and if persisted in ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... Fenwick, however, was not yet taken: Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend died with firmness and with honour, compromising no man. Sir George Barkley had escaped; the Earl of Aylesbury, though implicated by the testimony of several witnesses in the lesser offences of the conspiracy, was not arrested; and not a word had yet been spoken of the ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... said to his youthful consort, "Madame, every one is noticing and censuring your imprudent conduct; even the young Spaniard himself finds it compromising." ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... feminine perfection. Yet she is a silly little woman, too. Her husband died after a very short illness, and, to my great surprise, made me executor under his will. I think he had an idea that he could trust me with his papers, which were important and compromising, for he seems to have had no time to go over them and destroy what were best out of the way. So, you see, I am left with his widow and child to look after. Luckily, they are ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... To this demand the court acceded; but the precaution of way-laying the courier and searching his person was very wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announced Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of Prince Lodovico, who also got himself ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... creations of Europe, should have remained unknown until our own days. The cause is doubtless to be ascribed to the dispersed state of the Welsh manuscripts, pursued till last century by the English, as seditious books compromising those who possessed them. Often too they fell into hands of ignorant owners whose caprice or ill-will sufficed to keep them ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... good sense to keep aloof during the storm, for fear of still further compromising Madame de Longueville by exhibiting himself openly as her champion: but a few months having elapsed, he thought that he might at last show himself, and, as a certain authority[3] tells us, "the imprisonment of the Duke de Beaufort having deprived that noble ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... direction of the little group in the corner; and the young man had reassured her hastily, before misgivings had time to assail him, and when they did, he hoped for the best. For a painter's portfolio is, after all, hardly less confidential than a diary, and may be on occasion almost as compromising, in spite of the fact that the records it ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... something for me. Find out—I know you can, and that, too, without arousing suspicion or compromising either of us—where Mr. Moore, of Waverley Avenue, buys his groceries, and when you have done that, whether or not he has lately resupplied himself ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... caught with compromising jewels in their possession. The last guest gone, the house searched from top to bottom, not a single pearl had been found.... I arrived just when the investigations had terminated: at the moment when they were about to take the Princess home. She had regained consciousness ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... about a million apologies coming from everybody in Granville for the shabby way they treated you. Shortly after you left, somebody on one of the papers ferreted out the truth of that Bush affair, and the vindictive old hound's reasons for that compromising legacy were set forth. It seems this newspaper fellow connected up with Bush's secretary and the nurse. Also, Bush appears to have kept a diary—and kept it posted up to the day of his death—poured out all his feelings on paper, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... we can carry Jeff off without compromising the safety of the prisoners, I'll join you heartily. But first of ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... seriously in return. Gradually a slight change for the better occurred, the writings of Captain Mahan playing no small part therein. We built some modern cruisers to start with; the people who felt that battle-ships were wicked compromising with their misguided consciences by saying that the cruisers could be used "to protect our commerce"—which they could not be, unless they had battle-ships to back them. Then we attempted to build more powerful fighting vessels, and as there was a section of the public which ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... feet. "It isn't fair," said he; "the letters were distinctly compromising. It isn't fair you should shoulder the blame for a woman who was nothing to you. It isn't fair you should be placed in such ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... Oh, the scoundrel! the thief! the vagabond! the worthless fellow! the seditious scamp! It is his speeches about the government that have sent him there. He is a rebel. I was harbouring a rebel. I am free of him, and lucky for me; he was compromising us. Thrust into prison! Oh, so much the better! What excellent laws! Ungrateful boy! I who brought him up! To give oneself so much trouble for this! Why should he want to speak and to reason? He mixed himself up in politics. The ass! As he handled pennies he babbled about the taxes, about ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... of the Mussulmans, who as often as not declined to give him anything, and finding at Fez no representative of France but an old Jew named Ismail, who acted as Consular Agent, and who, being afraid of compromising himself, would not let Caillie embark on a Portuguese brig bound for Gibraltar,—the traveller eagerly availed himself of a fortunate chance for going to Tangiers. There he was kindly received by the Vice-Consul, M. Delaporte, who wrote at once to the commandant of the French ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... that he does us so much honour, and makes, as it were, Ariostos of us all. He is Shakspearian in going all lengths with Nature as he found her, not blinking the fact of evil, yet finding a "soul of goodness" in it, and, at the same time, never compromising the worth of noble and generous qualities. His young and handsome Medoro is a pitiless slayer of his enemies; but they were his master's enemies, and he would have lost his life, even to preserve his dead body. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... porch melee Danton's side had been painfully slashed. Despite the pain, he recognized his little preserver and thanked her. Still holding his hand to his side and half-reeling, he moved to go. Now that all seemed quiet, he proposed to rid her of the compromising presence of a ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... adjustment of so many ancient and irritating subjects of contention; and it reflects no ordinary credit on his successful administration of public affairs that this great object was accomplished without compromising on any occasion either the honor or the peace ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... cried. "In the first place I should be compromising with my conscience, and in the second place I should be ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... society young people are to remain in the world, and yet not be swayed by its spirit: on one side not prudish, nor fanatical, nor extreme, but cheery, and radiant, and full-lived, and yet free of those compromising entanglements that are common to society everywhere, they must have a ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... he completely failed; but he led the French government to believe, first, that the English treaty would not be made, then that it would not be ratified, and finally that the House would not make the appropriations necessary to carry it into effect; and all the time he was compromising his own government by his absurd efforts to involve it in an offensive alliance with France. The upshot of it all was that he was disowned at home, discredited in France, and brought our relations with that nation into a state of dangerous complication, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... bona fide workmen who took the initiative in the petition of March 28th, 1899, called forth by the murder of their fellow-workman, Edgar. We see, from Mr. Rouliot's report, that the Chamber of Mines regarding the petition as compromising, disassociated itself from it. Nor was that all. The President of the South African League in the Transvaal, Mr. W. John Wybergh, a consulting engineer by profession, was dismissed by one of the ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... your rivals, or your enemies; the chances and changes of life require this. Maintain an attitude which is neither cold nor hot; find the medium point at which a man can safely hold intercourse with others without compromising himself. Yes, believe me, the honest man is as far from the base cowardice of Philinte as he is from the harsh virtue of Alceste. The genius of the poet is displayed in the mind of this true medium; certainly all ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... been in close business relations for almost as many years as Lucinda had been established on the hearthstone of the Watkins home. Perhaps one reason why Mr. Stebbins endured so well was that he had a real talent for compromising, and that he had skillfully transformed Aunt Mary's inherited taste for driving a bargain into an acquired pleasure in what is really a polite form of the ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... very annoying, this letter from Selah,' Herbert Le Breton murmured to himself, as he carefully burnt the compromising document, envelope and all, with a fusee from his oriental silver pocket match-case. 'I had hoped the thing had all been forgotten by this time, after her long silence, and my last two judiciously chilly letters—a sort ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... rival systems debated their merits with suavity and mutual respect, but they met with scornful silence a compromising spirit who held that it was better to throw off your coat and boots, but keep your pantaloons on. Meanwhile, the steamer was hanging idle upon the current, against which it now and then stirred a careless wheel, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... therefore doubly difficult of explanation; first, as being, like all reactions, a fact not to be accounted for except by the imaginative appeal to "affinity," and secondly, as being one of those peculiar reactions provoked by an element which stands outside and looks on without compromising itself. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Gordon hopes to establish a similar institution near her home in the South; where so many of our countrywomen, rendered destitute in consequence of the late war, need training which will enable them to do faithful remunerative work, without compromising their feminine refinement. While in Europe she inspected various industrial organizations; saw Kaiserswerth, and the Training Schools for Nurses, even the Swedish 'Naas Slojd', and her visit here is solely to verify the flattering accounts she has received of the success of the eclectic ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... She would tell nothing of importance. She denied everything. She sulked, she cried, she availed herself of a woman's favorite defense in suddenly attacking those who had attacked her. She brought counter charges against Tyrwhitt, and put her enemies on their own defense. Not a compromising word could ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... distract you from your insane fancies. The more I think of what you told me the more is my sympathy aroused. But I am compelled to tell you the truth, cruel as it is; beyond doubt the duke has placed Fernand in some compromising situation, so as to make it impossible for him to retrieve his position in the world to which you belong. The young man you saw cannot ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... it was less for herself, than because, in addition to her anxiety to be the sole possessor of his heart, she could not coldly contemplate the injury which he inflicted upon his person and dignity by becoming the rival of his own subjects, and thus compromising his kingly character; and that if she insisted with vehemence upon the exile of Madame de Verneuil, her excuse must be found in the fact that in no other way could her peace and honour be secured, or the welfare of her children be ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... minute precautions, and unwilling to let Florent enter the premises through the shop, though there was no one there. It was evident that he felt great pleasure in dabbling in what he considered to be a compromising business. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... as he wiped his sword, but it was not possible to say which in the group of spectators was the man who had given that compromising cry; it might be one of several who, to Stokoe's extreme discomposure, seemed to look at him rather intently. Time to be out of this, thought he; the farther he was from London the more freely he would breathe just at present, and the less chance was ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... and compromising, these arguments seemed conclusive. But there was another class that did not so judge. The fact that these customs "tended to bridge over the chasm between Rome and the Reformation,"(430) was in their view a conclusive argument against retaining them. They looked upon them ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... is not the greatest loss," said Mistigris. "The work is sure to be a masterpiece, but he can't sign it, you know, for fear of compromising her." ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... her curiously powerful, curiously capable of influencing persons of larger and finer spirit than herself—witness her ascendency over Charles Verity during a long period of years, and that without ever giving, or even seriously compromising, herself. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... your own judgment," wrote President Lincoln, "and do the best you can. I doubt if the States will ever come back." Fremont's policy differed from Lincoln's essentially; it lacked that patient, conciliatory spirit with the South which made it hard for many at the North to approve of the compromising policy of the Chief Executive, seeking to hold the neutral States from seceding. Fremont's hatred of the rebellion led him to deal with it just as he would have done with a mutiny on a perilous expedition. He proclaimed martial law. Rebels ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... I said in a compromising tone, "having made the mistake, and it being now nearly five, perhaps you will be able to find your way back to your ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... of compromising Castaldo, who is alone with her; and she ends the act by requesting the Austrian to murder Martinuzzi; to which he is so obliging as to consent, the more so, as an order comes from the Secretary of State for foreign affairs, of his own government, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... and forgetting all about compromising, he dashed at one of his assailants, hitting out furiously, getting several blows home, in spite of the stick, and the next minute would have torn it from the young scoundrel's grasp if the other had not attacked him so furiously behind that ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... returned to his senses only to curse his imprudence bitterly. Yet, by degrees he reassured himself in thinking that the duchess could not speak of this interview without gravely compromising herself. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... a father of a family, for a man whose youth was past, compromising himself in a love affair, getting melancholy in the twilight, kissing a white hand like an enamored troubadour! Good God! How his friends would have laughed to see him in that posture! He must purge himself of that romanticism which sometimes mastered him. Every man must follow ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... man realised the full extent of his mistress' treachery. Feeling himself dangerously ill, dying perhaps, M. de Saint Pierre had told the widow to bring from his rooms to the Rue de Boulogne the contents of his private desk. It contained some letters compromising to a woman's honour. These he was anxious to destroy before it was too late. As he went through the papers, his eyes bandaged, he gave them to the widow to throw into the stove. He could hear the fire burning and feel its ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... him, who is celebrated for piety, learning, and a steady adherence to the interest of Charles the First; in whose cause he seems to have lost every thing he possessed, but his life. He was remarkable for compromising quarrels among his neighbours, often at an expence to himself; also for constantly carrying a charity box, to relieve the distress of others; and, though robbed of all himself, never thought he was poor, except when his box was empty.—He ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... How does a student get peace of mind? He finds it when he gets hold of some stable truth. It may not be a large truth, but it is a real truth, and therefore it is a comfort. How does a man in his moral struggles get comfort? He gets it not by swerving, or dodging, or compromising, but by being true. The only permanent comfort is in the sense of fidelity. You are like a sailor in the storm; it is dark about you, the wind howls, the stars vanish. What gives you comfort? It is the knowledge that one thing is true. Thank God, you have your compass, and the tremulous ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... to Knapwater the next day, and for nearly a week lived in a state of indecision. I could not hit upon a scheme for proving my wife dead without compromising myself. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... entirely new to him. He was quite confident that he had never seen the commander before. There was something rather ludicrous in the situation, and he felt as though he was taking part in a farce; at any rate, there was nothing serious or compromising in it, and in spite of the confusion in his mind, ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... know? But a fire doesn't break out like that, for no reason at all, at the very moment when a man wants to burn compromising papers." ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... only in the flushed hands clasped loosely on his knees, his eyes turned upon his hostess with a look of almost infantile candour. It was as if he mutely implored her to forget yesterday's encounter, and on no account to mention in what compromising company he had been seen. His engaging smile seemed to take for granted that she was a lady of pity and understanding, who would never have the heart to give a poor prodigal away. His eyes intimated that Mrs. Majendie ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Bothwell, Francis Stewart (nephew of Mary's Bothwell), began to rival his uncle in turbulence. Knowing that Anglo-Scottish plots to capture him again were being woven daily by Angus and others, James, in February 1584, wrote a friendly and compromising letter to the Pope. In April, Arran (James Stewart) crushed a conspiracy by seizing Gowrie at Dundee, and then routing a force with which Mar and Angus had entered Scotland. Gowrie, confessing his guilt as a conspirator, was executed at Stirling (May 2, 1584), leaving, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... just as effective as larger ones in a nation, in producing discord and strife; and the Puritans as a people were distinguished by all that determination to insist upon their rights, and that scorn of compromising difficulties, which men of earnest and honest but narrow natures have manifested in all ages of the world. Selfishness and uncharitableness are never so dangerous as when they assume the character of a conscientious devotion to ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... silence that fell between them, far from raising an obstacle to the understanding of their hearts, became the common ground for mutual thoughts. But after a while the many looks in which their eyes encountered each other warned Marie de Verneuil that the silence was compromising her, and she turned to Madame du Gua with one of those commonplace remarks which open the way to conversation; but even in so doing she ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... mere suggestion enough to be very agitating. To avoid the possibility of a meeting with Hamlin, as well as to acquit her conscience of a goading conviction of unfairness to him, she had already once risked compromising herself by sending that midnight warning to Lee, nor did she grudge the three weeks' sickness it cost her, seeing it had succeeded. Nor was the idea of meeting him any less terrifying now. The result of her ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... for him; there was not the slightest chance of it. And, supposing even that he could? And here came in the delicacy and scruple of the man who had been married himself. He thought he wouldn't even wish to spoil, by the vulgarity of compromising, or by the shadow of a secret, the serenity of her face, the gay prettiness of that life. No, he wouldn't if he could. And yet how exciting it would be to rouse her from that cool composure. She was rather enigmatic. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... virtuous, prudish, incorruptible uncle—say when he learns of it? If he does not demand a heavy price from you for so dishonouring him, he is not the man I deem him. Now be sensible, child, and open that door while there is yet time, and before anybody discovers us in this most compromising situation." ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... hitherto proclaimed their neutrality, assist her by assisting to maintain the European policy of peace and the law of nations? I shall be surprised if they do not, the more so as they could do it without seriously compromising themselves. If their intervention by force of arms were necessary, it would undoubtedly be at once effective; but any such necessity is quite out of the question; the neutral Powers are stronger than they themselves are perhaps aware, and their moral strength is amply sufficient. Let them ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... further notice of him, but turned around to my original position in the ranks. What was said subsequently I do not know, for I paid no further attention to either party. I heard nothing said at any time about taking my eyes away, or of Cadet Anderson compromising his dignity. Having thus reviewed the circumstances which gave rise to the charge, may it please the court, I wish to say a word as to the witnesses. Each of these cadets testifies to the fact that they have discussed the case in every particular, both with each other and with ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... substance, serving him for foothold and background, and assisting him to attain self-consciousness. God, on the other hand, finds in nature the means of revealing Himself to His creature without compromising the creature's freedom. Man supposes the universe to be a physical structure made by God in space and time, and in some region of which He resides, at a safe distance from us His creatures: whereas, in truth, God is distant ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... you are compromising them," said Finot. "Felicien, you must undertake it; Dauriat will bring it out, and we ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... it let go with the object of coating the inside of the venison with honey had two drawbacks: I should be compromising the lingering vitality which saves the insect that is being devoured from going bad and, at the same time, I should be disturbing the delicate art of the devouring insect, which, if removed from the lode which it was working, would no longer be able to recover it or to distinguish between ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... two men, so little known to one another on certain sides. How could it last without a shadow down to the very death of Francis, when we always find Ugolini the very soul of the group who are compromising the Franciscan ideal? No answer to this question is possible. The same problem presents itself with regard to Brother Elias, and we are no better able to find a satisfactory answer. Men of loving hearts seldom have a perfectly clear intelligence. They often become ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... Scott had now attained a celebrity unrivalled among his contemporaries, and it was in the apprehension of compromising his reputation, that, in attempting a new species of composition, he was extremely anxious to conceal the name of the author. The novel of "Waverley," which appeared in 1814, did not, however, suffer from ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... company he was with (the two Hays), and here George Hay's evidence makes Gowrie ask Henderson 'who was with the King at Falkland?' Hay said that Gowrie then took Henderson into another room. Henderson says nothing about a question as to the King's company, asked in presence of Hay, a compromising and improbable question, if Gowrie wished to ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... insisted afterward, and willing to undertake the life he suggested, but she had not broken with the old atmosphere completely, or if she had it was still not believed that she had. There were those who could not only charge, but prove. A compromising note of some kind sent to some one was involved, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... are you going to do?" she demanded. "Are you going on forever being honest neither with him nor with yourself—compromising on the one hand with your womanhood, on the other with your selfishness? How long has it been since you made the slightest effort to see him, or to ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... of playing in private parties, with as much eagerness as though he had still been a young man with a reputation to make. His old admirers were at first delighted to greet him; but they soon saw with unfeigned regret that he was compromising a great and well-earned name. His tone, once so pure and beautiful, had become uncertain; his bow was as timid as his fingers, and he no longer dared to indulge fearlessly the suggestions of his imagination; in short it was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... we would avoid aiming after needless singularity, we desire to go on simply according to Scripture, without compromising the truth; at the same time thankfully receiving any instruction which experienced believers, after prayer, upon scriptural ground, may have to give ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... to-day broken up into multiplying fragments. If there be any unity remaining in it it is the unity that comes from the compromising denial of the convictions that led to the original break into fragments; a unity that hopes to maintain itself by classifying many of its former convictions as "non-essentials" and thus constitutes a combination ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... was determined to tell her so. To continue living in this uncertainty, with the memory of her pressed against him always compelling him to put out his arms and draw her again to himself, was intolerable. He would speak, and settle it once for all, nor would he take any compromising negative as a reply. That tone she had used could indicate but one thing, she loved him, and whether she knew it or not, whether she wanted to know it or not, should not matter. He would argue it out with her, showing her with the inexorable ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... There is surely nothing compromising in an elderly gentleman spending a contemplative morning alone at the Metropolitan Museum. It might well be his daily custom; but the knowledge that it was not, the consciousness of the rarity of the mood that had brought him ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... own letter. She would admit of no dictation. She must say her own say, let her say it ever so badly. As to the manner of saying it, Lily's aid would have been invaluable; but she feared that she could not secure that aid without compromising her own power of action,—her own individuality; and therefore she said no word about the letter either to Lily or ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Hippo did not share his views. They blamed Augustin's scruples. They accused him of compromising the interests of the Church. One day he had to explain ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... impervious to public opinion, but were also ready enough to disregard the views of the Home Government itself when those views failed to coincide with their own plans for self-aggrandizement. Some of the evidence taken was of the most compromising character, while the refusal of leading members of the Compact to answer certain questions propounded to them did not tend to place matters in a more favourable light. Archdeacon Strachan's response to many of the questions ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... where Don Juan was garrisoned. The latter, as an old soldier in the wars against Napoleon, sympathized in a general way with liberal ideas; yet, placed as he was in a very difficult position, he must have found his son's escapades compromising. His record shows that he was "purified," that is his loyalty to the crown was certified to, on August 8, 1824. He seems to have maintained a "correct" attitude toward his rulers to the end, with all the unquestioning ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... quotations found are from British authors. In the introduction to the second series of The Biglow Papers, Mr. Lowell wrote: "We have given back to England the excellent adjective lengthy ... thus enabling their journalists to characterize our President's messages by a word civilly compromising between long and tedious, so as not to endanger the peace of the two countries by wounding our national sensitiveness to British criticism." Lengthy is used chiefly of discourses or writings, and implies tediousness. Long is used ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... of view there is more that I might say, but perhaps that is damning enough, and I have no desire to be abusive. It is on my conscience to add, moreover, that I find you a sophist, and your sophistry a little vulgar. I find you compromising with your ambitions, which in themselves are not above reproach from any point of view. I find you adulterating what ought to be the pure stream of ideality with muddy considerations of what the people are pleased ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... may as well come to the point at once, man, and bring up my reserve into the front of the battle. Here is Davy Muir, the quartermaster, disposed to make your daughter his wife, and he has just got me to open the matter to you, being fearful of compromising his own dignity; and I may as well add that half the youngsters in the fort toast her, and talk of her from ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Without compromising herself, and with that abominable skill which is peculiarly her own, Sarah, coquetted just enough with this young man, M. de Font-Avar, to tempt him to pay her some attentions. But that very night she ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... in his arms, but I threatened to go away at once unless he kept quiet, and did as I told him. There was a packet of papers, he admitted, but he vowed to me that they were only business papers. They were compromising to John Heron, and would do him immense harm—worse than ever, now that he'd just come successfully through the courts—if they passed into enemy hands. I insisted that there must be something about my father. There could be no mistake, and unless Louis would let me look, I'd never marry ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... serenity of temper when he was out of the housekeeper's sight. One important discovery he had made, in spite of the difficulties placed in his way. A compromising circumstance had unquestionably occurred in Stella's past life; and, in all probability, a man was in some way connected with it. "My evening has not been entirely thrown away," he thought, as he ascended the stairs which led from the housekeeper's ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... trouble is that the model's consent is so seldom asked. I'm bound to say, if I were a woman, I shouldn't thank a man for telling the world ... (Sharply.) In decent society we call that ... compromising a woman. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... mankind to grant, he left him a poor outcast, whose errors would be first condemned by his professed friends. That which seemed worthy of praise was forgotten, his errors were magnified; and the seducer made himself secure by crushing his victim, compromising the respectability of his parents, making the disgrace a forfeiture ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... association in each of these denominations make it the less difficult to adjust terms of mutual cooeperation and union. Suppose that the various Baptist organizations were to discover that under their like congregational government there were ways in which, without compromising or weakening in the slightest their protest against practices which they reprobate in the matter of baptism, they could, for certain defined purposes, enter into the same combination, the result would be a body of nearly five millions ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... had the papers, he asked me lightly for 'those compromising letters,' remarking that a good price would be paid, and adding my liberty as a pleasant gift. I instantly refused, and told him I would not be the weapon of La Pompadour against her rival. With cool persistence he begged me to think again, for much ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... apparent, that at this early period, the design was entertained by those in Canada, whose control over the Indians was well nigh supreme, to gain through them possession of Western New York, and without compromising the government of Great Britain, sever it from the United States, connect it with the territory of the North-west, and hold it by Indian possession, in a sort of quasi allegiance, to the crown ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... Sir Thomas," interposed Holden. "I hold it my duty to tell you, you are compromising justice in listening to the base proposals of this man, who, while offering to betray his mistress, will assuredly deceive you. You will equally deceive him in feigning to agree to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... factions and republican clubs the Directory had to make a perpetual war: but their power and means failed to give them the victory in the strife. It was a constant oscillation and vacillation, a constant compromising and capitulating with all parties—and the natural consequence was, that these parties, as soon as they had secured the ear of the Directory, and gained an advantage, strove hard to obtain the ruling authority. Corruption and mistrust universally prevailed. Every thing ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... subjection of the Negro to the arrogant and oppressive will of those who held peculiar notions about his "proper status," the Federal Government hesitated to go the full length of its duty. It stopped midway. The war seemed not to have convinced it of the futility and fatality of compromising with the South. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The Negro was thereby given the right which his Southern guardians proudly refused him—the right of citizenship—but not the right which is alone the guarantee of the ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love
... wife—seemed only to accent her purity and suffering and his own wilful recklessness, and how it had stirred all the chivalry, generosity, and affection of his easy nature to take the whole responsibility of this innocent but compromising intrigue on his own shoulders. He had had no self-accusing sense of disloyalty to Blandford in his practical nature; he had never suspected the shy, proper girl of being his wife; he was willing to believe now, that had he known it, even that night, he would never have ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... of seduction and deceit. The one and safer for the operator is the suggestive, in which appearances are made by consummate tact and artful flattery to excite the imagination of the buyer so that he is led to believe what he desires without compromising the agent. The other is positive intrigue and absolute lying, so nicely done that the wealthy amateur is fleeced often in a fashion that confers a pleasure, and which, though he may subsequently detect it, gives ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... commissioned to betray and capture the Marquis de Montauran, the Chouan leader. [The Chouans.] In 1806 he caused Senator Malin de Gondreville to be kidnapped by masked men in order that the Chateau de Gondreville might be searched for important papers which, however, proved as compromising for Fouche as for the senator. This kidnapping, which was charged against Michu, the Simeuses and the Hauteserres, led to the execution of the first and the ruin of the others. In 1833, Marsay, president of the ministerial chamber, while explaining the mysteries of the affair to the Princesse ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... made it distressing to him to inflict pain on any one. The conflict of these elements in his nature sometimes made his actions seem inconsistent and indecipherable even to those who knew him. He would be long-suffering, compromising, disinclined to strike; but when he was at last roused the blow would be as staggering as it was unexpected. It was as if he struck the harder to have done with it and to spare himself ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... interest from a gold-mine; and his office was besieged in consequence by all that numerous class of persons who have still some reputation to lose, and find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those who have made undesirable acquaintances, who have mislaid a compromising correspondence, or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In private life Michael was a man of pleasure; but it was thought his dire experience at the office had gone far to sober him, and it was known that (in the matter of investments) he preferred the solid to the brilliant. ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... morning, he said, and he thought that he had gone away, but he did not know. Gone away? Janetta sat down to her work with a heavy heart. It seemed to her that she must speak either to him or to Margaret. He was compromising her friend, and for Margaret's sake she must not hold her peace. Well, it was the day for Miss Adair's singing lesson. When she came that afternoon, Janetta made up her mind that she would say a ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... be done? Queen Mary's letter to him begged him so far as was possible to give her French protection, and avoid compromising "that excellent Talbot," and he thought it would be wisest for her to await the coming of the Envoy Extraordinary, M. de Pomponne Bellievre, and be presented by him. In the meantime her remaining on board ship in this winter weather would be miserably uncomfortable, and Richmond and Greenwich ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... presence there of the girl herself. While considering this it had come to Stuart, like a flash of inspiration, that here was a way by which he could test the responsibilities and conditions of married life without compromising either himself, or the girl to whom he would suppose himself to ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis |
