"Regrettable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Our ears are sick with all this bastard English. Also, more quietly speak. Do not put me to the regrettable necessity ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... feverish preparation, an ultimatum—England at war. The navy mobilized, the army mobilizing, auxiliaries warned to be in readiness, overseas battalions, batteries and squadrons recalled, or re-distributed, reverses and "regrettable incidents,"—and outlying parts of India (her native troops massed in the North or doing garrison-duty overseas) an archipelago of safety-islands in a sea of danger; Border parts of India for a time dependent ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... beginning to become so accustomed to the spiced dishes of Continental Problem drama,—reaction against which has set in there long ago,—that fears may well be entertained that the rude simple fare of the Historic Drama will be rejected with scorn. This would indeed be regrettable, as tending to show that we are still far from a sober catholicity of taste, and still in the leading-strings of the Old World, not yet having obtained that independence and maturity of judgment which consists in being ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... of biblioklepts, a man who carried his passion to the most regrettable excesses, was a Spanish priest, Don Vincente, of the convent of Pobla, in Aragon. When the Spanish revolution despoiled the convent libraries, Don Vincente established himself at Barcelona, under the pillars of Los Encantes, where are the stalls of the merchants ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... The worst of these consists in the difficulty of catching the exact moment at which the turbidity of the basic liquid is at the proper point for arresting the operation. In addition to this capital defect, it is regrettable that it is necessary to shake the flask that contains the solution after every insufflation of air, and also that the play of the valves soon becomes imperfect. Finally, Mr. Wolpert rightly sees one serious ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... and unable to appear—was Premier and Minister of War, and in his regrettable absence his wife, her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, presided at the sessions of the Council, and a more energetic, autocratic President could not have been found in Europe. Friedrich, Count von ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... be drawn from that royal career?—for which I myself feel the greatest respect. Louis XVIII. was not a citizen king. He granted this Charter, but he never consented to it. Born nearer to the throne than the prince whose regrettable tendencies I mentioned just now, he might naturally share more deeply still the ideas, the prejudices, and the infatuations of the court; in person he was ridiculous (a serious princely defect in France); he bore the brunt of a new and untried regime; he succeeded a government which ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... him fixedly, struck by these last words, he added with his expressive smile: "Unfortunately I'm not the master, and it was to talk to you of the situation that I ventured to disturb you. Barroux, who was here just now, seemed to me in a regrettable frame of mind." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... crimes of passion. Even in cases where self-interest is the motive, the important thing is to prevent the crime, not to make the criminal suffer. Any suffering which may be entailed by the process of prevention ought to be regarded as regrettable, like the pain involved in a surgical operation. The man who commits a crime from an impulse to violence ought to be subjected to a scientific psychological treatment, designed to elicit more beneficial impulses. The man who commits a crime from calculations of self- ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... dwelt a little overmuch on this regrettable affair, but to assess my disappointment it is necessary to think back to the period in question and recall the important position occupied by battalion commanders in the imperial army, which resulted in several instances of colonels who refused promotion to general and asked ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... happened—the course of true love running smooth for once—that Antony's letter reached Tika Singh on the eve of a great festival, and of course he couldn't possibly open it. But he took a squint inside, or the messenger told him the drift of it, or something, and by some most regrettable leakage the contents got to Arbuthnot's ears. The fellow is like you, Bob; he don't let the grass grow under his feet. He married the lady that night by Mohammedan rites under the auspices of her mother, who ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... the protection of the pinnated grouse, or prairie chicken, and others of their tribe. These laws have been enforced and have aided materially in the great work of bird-protection. They have also, it is regrettable to state, been violated and ignored. Too often the land owner is too lenient; being blinded to his own interests or being keenly alive to the need of protecting the grouse within his realm, is powerless to act because of ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... looks forward to seeing his ninety years. In Holland octogenarians are not few. The climate is propitious; above all, the absence of hurry and worry. To see The Hague without visiting this collection would be a regrettable omission. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... were over against each other, and close by. Pigs were cooking. Well-oiled braves, with well-oiled muskets, strutted on the paepae or sat down to feast. No business, however needful, could be done, and all thoughts were supposed to be centred in this mockery of war. A few days later, by a regrettable accident, a man was killed; it was felt at once the thing had gone too far, and the quarrel was instantly patched up. But the more serious wars were prosecuted in a similar spirit; a gift of pigs and a feast made their inevitable end; the killing of a single man was a great victory, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... withdrew the legion from his command and put it under a legate whom he sent out for the purpose. As each had an equal amount of patronage and their functions overlapped, Caligula thus caused a state of friction which was further aggravated by regrettable quarrels. The greater permanence of his tenure[363] gradually strengthened the legate's position, and perhaps an inferior is always anxious to vie with his betters. The most eminent governors, on the other hand, were more careful of their comfort ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... the dastardly outrage at the Indian Spring Academy on Thursday last—which, through unfortunate misrepresentation of the facts, led to a premature calling out of several of our most public-spirited citizens, and culminated in a most regrettable encounter between Mr. McKinstry and the accomplished and estimable principal of the school—has, we regret to say, escaped condign punishment by leaving the country with his relations. If, as is seriously whispered, he was also guilty of an unparalleled ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... Prima, contains the Pontifical Bull, Quod a nobis, of Pope Pius V. (1568). It states:—1. That the cause of the new edition was to remove the regrettable variety in the public liturgy. 2. It recalls the labours of Pope Paul IV., Pius IV., and Pius V. for the same end. 3. It announces the abolition of the too-abbreviated Breviary of Quignonez and of ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... toleration which should prevail everywhere and which can be cultivated to great advantage in these rural, social centers. It makes, too, for the fullness of life in rural communities. It makes country life more pleasant and serves in some degree to counteract the strong but regrettable urban trend. ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... is regrettable that Christianity did not change other parts of the Roman law of persons which ought to have been reformed. The chief example of this failure is slavery, which the law of Justinian fully recognized. The inertia of past centuries as to slavery was too ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... sneered, and a man said, pityingly: "She was pretty, that little one. It is regrettable that ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... proceeded to the museum to examine Number Five with renewed interest. The resemblance was remarkable. It was plainly traceable even in the skull and in the proportions of the skeleton generally, while in the small, dry preparation of the head the likeness was ridiculous. It was most regrettable that he should have refused my invitation to come in. As a companion preparation, illustrating the physical resemblances in degenerate families, he would have ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... will be more successful than I was in teaching them Bible stories. I never got farther than Noah, at which stage their questions became so searching as to completely confound me; and as no one likes being confounded, and it is especially regrettable when a parent is placed in such a position, I brought the course to an abrupt end by assuming that owl-like air of wisdom peculiar to infallibility in a corner, and telling them that they were too young to understand these things for the present; and they, having a touching ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and the rest of them would manage to stay in till five. They couldn't help it. All they had to do was to play forward to everything, and they must stop in. He himself had got out, it was true, but that was simply a regrettable accident. Not one man in a hundred would have caught that catch. No, with luck he ought easily to be able to do the distance and get back in time to go out with the rest ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... that sex. But a sense of the distinction between camps and courts restrained the soldier. He spoke of a discharge of cuttlefish ink at the character of the girl, and added: 'The bath's a black one for her, and they had better keep it private. Regrettable, no doubt, but it 's probably true, and he 's out of his mind. It would be dangerous to check him: he'd force his best friend to fight. Leczel is with him and gives him head. It 's about time for me to go back to him, for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... admitted. "I look upon it as a most regrettable necessity. Still, you must not make it sound worse than it is. We have a housekeeper who is the very essence of respectability, and Isobel ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Miss Waddleton, announced to us that a new member had been added to our little band. Continuing in this strain, she explained that a young person, until now a stranger to us all, had been engaged for the position of athletic instructor made vacant by the recent and regrettable resignation of Miss Eleanor Scuppers. With these words she presented Miss Scuppers' successor in the person of a Miss ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... 'phone communication with Sippiac since the regrettable occurrence. It perhaps didn't occur to you to find out that the woman, who is now under arrest, bit the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... minister and the documents which accompany it give, as I believe, an unexaggerated statement of the lamentable incident, and present impressively the regrettable circumstance that the proceedings, in the name of justice, for the ascertainment of the crime and fixing the responsibility therefor were a ghastly mockery of justice. So long as the Chinese minister, under his instructions, makes this the basis of an appeal to the principles and convictions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... was to blame for the professor's regrettable explosion and departure, and he ought by all laws of justice to have suffered for it. As it was, I was the only person materially affected. It did not matter to Ukridge. He did not care twopence one way or the other. If the professor ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... It was regrettable she had not more time to talk with her sons and daughters separately. Confidences were shy and volatile things that could not be delivered in a hurry or hastily fitted into the chinks of a busy day. Confidences depended on mood and could not be regulated so that they would be forthcoming ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... The major paused. He had been studying Drew, and now there was a faint shadow of uneasiness in his own expression. He might be slowly realizing that he was not fronting a repentant schoolboy rescued from a piece of regrettable youthful folly. A veteran was being forced against his will to recognize the stamp of his own experience on ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... was soothed still further. Ascending to his drawing-room, the thick carpet underfoot completed his tranquillity. Surely nothing disconcerting could happen to a man who owned such a house as this. But alas! regrettable episodes have a habit, like migrant birds, of arriving ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... She was a new young lady, who had been with Madame at her Villa—I have not seen her. At the time of the regrettable accident she was with her aunt, and doubtless remains there. Thank you, Monsieur. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Minister shook his head sadly. "I fear it will be the same thing. What we call illness the ordinary man will interpret as intoxication. It is a most regrettable necessity, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... constancy is not. This perspicuous proverb from the Persian (which I made up myself for the occasion) is cited in mitigation of the Tyro's regrettable fickleness, he—to his shame be it chronicled—having practically forgotten the woe-begone damsel's very existence within eighteen short hours after his adventure in knight-errantry. Her tear-ravaged and untidy plainness had, ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and I gathered the impression that he was much more of a farmer than a pastor, for he deplored his inability to obtain imported nitrates owing to the blockade. The only question on which he was at all unorthodox was that of the Junkers and their regrettable power of holding potatoes, pigs, and other supplies while small men like him had been obliged to sell. He had a good collection of modern scientific agricultural works, of which ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... frustrated by the work of scientists. It wasn't necessary for a large force to march in. A special detail took over at the lake itself. Curiously enough, it seemed to be already there when the question arose. It would report a regrettable absence of alien artifacts by which the monsters might be kept ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... regrettable fact that many people use the name of Theosophy and of our Organization for self-interest, as also that of H.P. Blavatsky, the Foundress, to attract attention to themselves and to gain public support. This they do in private and public speech and in publications, also by lecturing ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... even produced more marvelous results by the application of the same principles to the vegetable kingdom. In his haste to civilize himself, however, he has failed to apply the principles that are essential to self-preservation. It is regrettable, also, to know that, while the government has spent many thousands of dollars in sending out literature to the farmers, instructing them how to raise profitable crops and to breed prize horses and pigs, absolutely none of the public money has been used in instructing ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... 80: Mr James Abercromby, afterwards Lord Dunfermline. He remained in the Chair till 1839. He had little hold over the House, and many regrettable ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... "That was regrettable, of course, Mr. Hamilton. It must have been distressing in the extreme to Miss Lawton, coming just at this time, but it would have had to be revealed sooner or later, you know—such a stupendous fact could not be hidden. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... conditions of human thought—number and definition and class and abstract form. But these things, number, definition, class and abstract form, I hold, are merely unavoidable conditions of mental activity—regrettable conditions rather than essential facts. The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... suppression of the egoistic in books and speeches. I have nothing of this modesty to be proud of. I know that I am cleverer than the man in the street, though I take no credit to myself for it, as it is a mere accident of birth, and on the whole a regrettable one. It was this absence of modesty from my composition that recently enabled me to propose the toast of literature coupled with the name of Mr. Zangwill. I said that I could wish that some one more competent and distinguished than ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... of which are not notoriously brittle. They withstand a certain weight, beyond which they snap. Why do these otherwise highly intelligent birds so overstrain branches with groups of nests that "regrettable incidents" cannot be averted? First there came to the ground a group of four, and then twenty nests, all containing eggs or helpless young. By these and similar mishaps during the season the colony suffered loss to the extent of at ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Promotion of Steam-heating in Kaffir Kraals) displayed a regrettable lack of judgment in choosing Christmas Day for the laying of its foundation pipe, Christmas being ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... forgiven; but the fact that when the country was wild a young fellow had gone on the road—that is, become a highwayman, or had been chief of a gang of desperadoes, horse-thieves, and cattle-killers, was scarcely held to weigh against him, being treated as a regrettable, but certainly not shameful, trait of youth. He was regarded by his neighbors with the same kindly tolerance which respectable mediaeval Scotch borderers doubtless extended to their wilder young men who would persist in raiding English cattle even ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... the vicious attempts made by some to embarrass the Government in carrying on the War. A scene in the House of Commons is fully reported; the good work done, especially by certain useful committees, passes almost unnoticed. It is true, however, that the character of many of the debates has been regrettable, and that as regards what is perhaps its most important function, namely, the control of expenditure, the House has not been able to exercise its ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... case,' replied Quen; 'and on that account it would indicate a most regrettable want of foresight for you to conduct your affairs in the manner indicated. The only undeniably safe course is for you to entrust the amount you will require to a person of exceptional piety, receiving in return his written word to repay the full sum whenever you shall claim ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... intended that the name of the new state should be left to the selection of the Queen, and this was provided for in the first draft of the bill. But the proposal was soon dropped. It revived the memory of the regrettable incident of 1858 when the Queen had, by request, selected Ottawa as the Canadian capital and her decision had been condemned by a vote of the legislature. The press had discussed a suitable name long before the London delegates assembled. Some favoured ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... the saints, Madame," said Monsieur Fromagin, warmly taking up the cudgels for his best customer, "as in the matter of second marriages, prior to their arrival in heaven, have had regrettable experiences. Equally, I venture to assert, a like qualification applies to a like attitude on earth. That Madame has her prejudices, incident to ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... on thy slippers and goloe-shoes, go to thy father, who has been told of thy misbehaviour, and who will reprove thee for it." And with this last damper on the "lightness of young people," as Mrs. Meredith phrased it, she once more left the room. It is a regrettable fact that Miss Janice, who had looked the picture of submission as her mother spoke, made a mouth, which was far from respectful, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... "Take care not to similarly transgress again. We all are constantly committing regrettable actions, but so long as we are careful not to repeat them we may ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... in domination, and in power. It accepts as inevitable, and welcomes as desirable, the perpetual armed conflict of nations for territory and trade. It does not believe in, and it does not want, a durable peace. It holds that all peace is, must be, and ought to be, a precarious and regrettable interval between wars. I do not discuss this view. Those who hold it are not accessible to argument, and can only be met by action. There are others, however, who do think war an evil, who do want a ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... unfortunate combination is a question which can be answered only by the diplomatists whose business it is to be intimately in touch with the susceptibilities of the various nations concerned. In the meantime, however, on the assumption that this state of things is productive of regrettable results, I may perhaps venture to indicate, recommending their adoption, the steps which appear to be required for the reformation of the Treaty as drafted. My suggestions would run ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... the station we intended her to occupy. I think her guardian must be convinced now, even though he had little suspicion of it before, that this lady would not easily be influenced by any considerations we might place before her. The regrettable incidents of this conference have probably instilled into her mind a ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... somewhat similar lines. The whole trouble, he protested, was due to an anti-Christian, illiberal, and inhuman system. It seems that he was referring to Prussia, and it is regrettable that he did not feel called to explain why that system prevails in the year of the Lord 1915, or how it finds an instrument of its ambition in a militarism that ought to have been denounced and abolished centuries ago. Mr. Shakespeare, another distinguished Nonconformist, follows ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... the habits of his youngest days, which has a direct significance in the case of ordinary individuals, and is known by a very familiar name. That he should tragically declare that only across his bleeding corpse will the Uitlander ever come into his own, is merely the extravagant and regrettable melodrama of an overheated mind. The general desire is quite averse to encountering any stepping-stones of that kind, and most of all averse to Mr. Kruger's taking any such place. Our quarrel is with principles and systems, and never yet has a note ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... of the nurses in the Crimean hospitals. The situation had been embittered by rumours of religious dissensions, while the Crimean nurses were Roman Catholics, many of those at Scutari were suspected of a regrettable propensity towards the tenets of Dr. Pusey. Miss Nightingale was by no means disturbed by these sectarian differences, but any suggestion that her supreme authority over all the nurses with the Army was, no doubt, enough to rouse her to fury; and it appeared ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... German mail flag.... Fifthly, we proposed that all points in dispute should be submitted to arbitration.... Lastly, the English Government have given expression to their regret for what has occurred. We cherish the hope that such regrettable incidents will not be repeated. We trust that the English naval authorities will not again proceed without sufficient cause, in an unfriendly and precipitate ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... along breath of relief, though Ephraim was of the opinion that the first citizen should have been scored as he deserved, and held up to the contempt of his fellow-townsmen. The dismissal of the teacher, indeed, was put down to a regrettable misconception on the part of "one of the prudential committee," who had confessed his mistake in "a manly and altogether praiseworthy speech." The article was as near the truth, perhaps, as the Clarions may come on such matters—which is not very near. Cynthia ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... because it confirmed an impression of Rowland's from which he had derived a certain consolation. He knew that Mrs. Hudson considered her son's ill-regulated passion for Christina Light a very regrettable affair, but he suspected that her manifest compassion had been all for Roderick, and not in the least for Mary Garland. She was fond of the young girl, but she had valued her primarily, during the last two ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... with two very regrettable incidents. The steamer Furious was sent to Odessa early in April, to bring off the British consul. Having anchored in the bay with a flag of truce at her mast-head, she sent off a boat, also with a flag of truce flying, to the shore, when, against all the ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... be abundantly evident, Soames was not a criminal of the daring type; he did not believe in reaching out for anything until he was well assured that he could, if necessary, draw back his hand. This last venture, this regrettable venture—this ruinous venture—had been a mistake. He had entered into it under the glamour of Gianapolis' personality. Of what use, now, to him was his ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... absence of good guns was everywhere deplored. At Ladysmith the position was merely saved by the hasty arrival at the very last moment of the Naval Brigade with their formidable weapons, and at Colenso the regrettable evacuation was obligatory solely on account of the lack of guns. The depressing effect of retreat on the unhappy colonists who had their homes in the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... regrettable fact," he went on, "that I must leave, as I shall, a sadly troubled country. But for that—" he paused. But for that, he meant, he would go gladly. He needed rest. His spirit, still so alive, chafed daily more and more ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... forget one regrettable passage in Mr. Seward's letter, in which he said that "if the safety of the Union required the detention of the captured persons, it would be the right and duty of this Government to detain them." I sincerely grieve to find this sentence in the dispatch, for the exceptions to the ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill
... Pumpherston is now Sergeant-Major of the Battalion. Mucklewame is a corporal in his old company. Private Tosh was "offered a stripe," too, but declined, because the invitation did not include Private Cosh, who, owing to a regrettable lapse not unconnected with the rum ration, had been omitted from the Honours' List. Consequently these two grim veterans remain undecorated, but they are objects of great veneration among the recently joined for ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... inevitably, an anti-British bias has been generated, one of the noteworthy and regrettable changes in the Indian mind within the last half-century. Probably many would declare that the unifying national consciousness of which I have spoken is nothing more than a racial anti-British bias. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... arose between them at the close of a long day's enthusiastic friendship. The Misses Conroy, though deficient in beauty, were not slow in retort, and but for the fine clothes in which all four were attired, it is to be feared that the quarrel would have been pushed to extremes. It was a regrettable incident, but fortunately took place in a retired corner of the grounds, and ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... "I'll be within sight of the dorm so that I can manage to be passing when you drive up, several hours late, with Speed. What happens after that will be regrettable but hardly any fault of yours. Automobiles do break down ... even in ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... regrettable to be obliged to record it, but Escombe's threatened invocation of Britain's might and majesty seemed to discompose those obstinate Indians not at all; to use his own expression when talking of it afterwards, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... had all but left Jack Benson's lips, though he tried to keep it there. Hal Hastings made the most successful attempt at looking wholly unconcerned. Eph's face was growing redder every minute. It is a regrettable fact that Eph was really beginning to want ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... straight mile boarded by the shilling enclosure Mr. Tanquery McBrail, who had been playing with marvellously decorative effect, had his ball blown into the bunker at the tenth by the laughter of the less well-informed onlookers, while a regrettable incident was the contribution of several empty ginger-beer bottles to the natural difficulties of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... died of a broken heart {69} in consequence of the furious attacks which had followed upon his unhappy quarrel with Wilkes. It was a pity that the closing hours of Hogarth's life should have been occupied with so petty and so regrettable a squabble. Hogarth was entirely in the wrong. Hogarth began the quarrel; and if Hogarth was eager to give hard knocks he should have been ready to take hard knocks in return. But the world at large may very well be glad that Hogarth did lurk in the court by Justice Pratt and did ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... thoroughgoing independence and he went among the partisans of Crucho and the Minister of the Republic telling both parties what he thought of them. M. Bigourd maliciously declared that he told each party what the other party thought of it. In truth he had on several occasions been guilty of regrettable indiscretions, which were overlooked as being the freedoms of a soldier who knew nothing of intrigue. Every morning he went to see Chatillon, whom he treated with the cordial roughness of a brother ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... hundreds of innocent people to beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his cruel bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of obscurity, and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, about John Gabriel Borkman, but on the whole it is a work of lofty originality and of poignant ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... him. Cho[u]bei burst out into phrases of admiration—"What a splendid fellow! Ah! Waste of material! If a woman Kazuma San would be a fortune to himself and to Cho[u]bei.... Taki, note the skin of the Sensei. It has the texture of the finest paper. How regrettable!" He drew back for the better inspection of the sum total of his subject's charms. O'Taki drew closer for the same purpose. Cho[u]bei sighed—"It is plain enough that Kazuma San is not a woman. An error of Nature! ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... The regrettable modern neglect of those free and very interesting forms of the Roman letter, Italic and Script, seem to authorize consideration of them in a separate chapter, even at the risk of appearing to give them ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... elements should be identical? Ought it, indeed, to be assumed that the lives of all men should show identical religious elements? In other words, is the existence of so many religious types and sects and creeds regrettable? ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... regrettable fact that there exists some reason to believe that his sympathy was not purely disinterested. Aguinaldo claims that Pratt wished to be appointed "representative of the Philippines in the United States to promptly ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... that it was hopeless to attempt to reconstruct her, and she was broken up at a later date. The failure of this ship was a most regrettable incident, and increased the prejudice against the rigid airship to such an extent that for some time the Navy refused to entertain any idea ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... exactly as much and exactly as little as you would worry about the manners of a kindhearted, keen-brained friend who was dangerous to carpets with a tea-cup in his hand. The friend's antics in a drawing-room are somewhat regrettable, but you would not say of him that his manners were bad. Again, if an author's style dazzles you instantly and blinds you to everything except its brilliant self, ask your soul, before you begin to admire his matter, what would be your final opinion of a man who ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... replied the young man, with, however, a sense of its not being at all well. It was to him a regrettable fact that he seldom saw much of the various members of the household, and of one particular member so little that he was tempted to wonder if she ever took the trouble to evade him. But, of course, there ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... exceedingly regrettable affair, and it placed me, as I perceived at once, in an extremely awkward position. My first impulse was to send the caretaker for a doctor and a policeman; but a moment's reflection convinced me that there were serious objections to ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... will recollect those regrettable incidents on the North Sea belonging to the eighteenth century, when we had to chronicle the names of Captains Mitchell and Whitehead in that connection. Unhappily there were occasional repetitions of these in the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... see the picturesque distinguishing lines and colours gradually disappear as railroads, steamboats and electric trolleys penetrate remote districts. With any influx of curious strangers there comes in time, often all too quickly, a regrettable self-consciousness, which is followed at first by an awkward imitation of the ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... with his own personality. He says that the speaker draws inspiration from the audience in the form of mist and pours it back in a flood. It need hardly be added that this refers to speaking without manuscript, but reading, while always regrettable, is sometimes necessary—especially when accuracy is more important than the ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... of Mercury, and her confidential friend still resident upon the inferior planet. The translator has thought it best to preserve, as far as possible, the spirit of the original by the employment of mundane colloquialisms; the result, in spite of many regrettable trivialities, will, it is believed, be of interest to students of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... verse as the best of you?" The attitude was perhaps natural to jealous rivals, but it should never have been used to show that Shakespeare was destitute of a decent school education. Perhaps the most regrettable outcome of this notion is that Milton should have written the amazing line ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... said Linda. "But since I am the daughter of the finest gentleman I ever knew, I should not do hasty, regrettable things. On the living-room table I found a note sweeter than honey, and it contained a cheque for me that wouldn't pay Eileen's bills for lunches, candy, and theaters for a month; so in undue heat I reduced it to bits and decorated the rug before ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... that the regrettable incident of Mr. Henley's attack on the memory of Stevenson occurred—an incident that attracted a great deal more attention in England than in America, where it was forgotten almost as soon as it happened. Mrs. ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... lately, is identical with that of the New English Art Club, and the two societies are in a measure affiliated. Nearly all the members of the Glasgow school are members of the New English Art Club, and it is regrettable that they do not unite and give us an exhibition that would fairly stare the Academy out of countenance. Among the Glasgow painters the most prominent and valid talent is Mr. Guthrie's. His achievements are more considerable and more personal; and he seems ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... of the Seigneurie, or Old Palace, which by its imposing mass and severe elegance at first attracts the attention, occupies a corner of the Place, instead of the middle. This idea, a happy one, in our opinion, regrettable for those who only see architectural beauty in geometrical regularity, is not fortuitous; it has a reason wholly Florentine. In order to obtain perfect symmetry, it would have been necessary to build upon the detested soil of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... kind of timidity." And he agreed that, if Peyton should go away without an explanation, it would make her throw aside other expectations, and would, in the end, "cut her to the heart." Valentine hinted at regrettable things that had ensued from a jilting of which himself had once been guilty, and urged on Peyton an immediate unbosoming, adding, "She'll be so took aback and so full of wrath at you, she won't mind the loss of you. She'll abominate you and get over ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... had been completely eradicated, under the influence of our insular climate and our insular customs. No matter how often the strain of the lively French blood might assert itself, at inconvenient times and under regrettable circumstances, he never recognized this foreign side of his character. His excellent spirits, his quick sympathies, his bright mutability of mind—all those qualities, in short, which were most mischievously ready to raise distrust in the mind of ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... 'sad one,' thank you, and I prefer not to be spoken of as having seen 'better days' by people who haven't. There! Don't rap your desk with your pencil when you speak to me, or I shall call out 'Cash!' before the whole class." So regrettable an exhibition of temper naturally alienated certain of her compatriots who were unduly sensitive of their origin, and as they formed a considerable colony who were then reveling in the dregs of the Empire and the last orgies ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the final hours of a 14th of July in Paris that must ever be memorable. My own birthday, it is also chosen by the French as one on which to celebrate with carnival some one of those regrettable events in ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... the Major. "My good man, I assure you that I have not the slightest disposition to interfere. These scenes are regrettable, of course. I have heard of them, but never actually assisted at one before; still, I quite see the necessity of the realm demands it, and the realm's necessity is—or should be—the supreme ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the correction was justified, since it is a regrettable fact that the taxi-cab driver's wife made "Hermione" rhyme with "bone," and laid no stress on the second syllable. Strong in her superior knowledge, for she was an omnivorous reader of fiction—and Greek names were fashionable last November—she ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... for the observant traveller, the strange wildness of nature is so attractive in physical nature—thus, and for the same reason, every soul capable of enthusiasm finds even in the regrettable anarchy found in the moral world a source of singular pleasure. Without doubt he who sees the grand economy of nature only from the impoverished light of the understanding; he who has never any other thought than to reform its defiant disorder and to substitute harmony, such a one could not ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... could rule others, but could not be ruled; and his official career left many heart-burnings behind. His equally passionate brother, Sir William, who wrote his life, took up the feud as a legacy and pursued it in print for many years. It is regrettable that such men cannot work without friction; but in all things it was devotion to the public service, and not personal ambition, that carried Charles Napier to such extremes. From his youth he had trained himself to such a pitch of self-denial and ascetic ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... a similarly large number of legs and hands, and the like. This sort of thing has been put down, not without probability, to the Oriental suggestion which would come so readily into Spain. It may be so or it may not. But it certainly imports an element of puerility into romance, which is regrettable, and it diminishes the dignity and the poetry of the things rather lamentably. Whether it diminishes, and still more whether it originally diminished the readability of these same things, is ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... root out this nest of pirates, someone suggested that a more comprehensive and binding arrangement was necessary between the American and Red Guard forces, to prevent such regrettable occurrences in future. It was common talk that a conference between the Red Guard commander and General Graves, the American G.O.C., was actually arranged, but was dropped when the Supreme Governor's representative in the Far East declared to General Graves personally ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... enamoured of what I saw of England. And I found I was reluctant to go to my own home. I suppose it had so many regrettable memories. Anyhow, voyage after voyage I put off my visit, and so one trip, coming home to Tyne Dock, I found I had put it off once too often. My mother, who had been living at Brighton, was dead. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... been clerk in the bank? Well, naturally, the moment suspicion began to fasten on his father his position in the business became untenable. I think every one was very kind to him. Mr. Sutherland French, who was made acting manager 'during Mr. Lewis Ireland's regrettable absence,' did everything in his power to show his goodwill and sympathy to the young man, but I don't think that he or any one else was much astonished when, after Mrs. Ireland's extraordinary attitude in the case had become public property, he quietly ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... has heard that Mrs. Cleeve holds regrettable opinions on some points. If so, he may feel surprised that a ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... (lament) 839; repine, cast a longing lingering look behind; rue, rue the day; repent &c. 950; infandum renovare dolorem [Lat]. prey on the mind, weigh on the mind, have a weight on the mind; leave an aching void. Adj. regretting &c. v.; regretful; homesick. regretted &c. v.; much to be regretted, regrettable; lamentable &c. (bad) 649. Adv. regrettably, unfortunately; most unfortunately. Int. alas!; what a pity! hang it! Phr. 'tis pity, 'tis too true; "sigh'd and look'd and sigh'd ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... without any very serious disarrangement, to clear all that objectionable stuff out of the story, and so a little ease my conscience on the score of this ungainly lapse. I have also, with a few strokes of the pen, eliminated certain dishonest and regrettable suggestions that the People beat Ostrog. My Graham dies, as all his kind must die, with no certainty of ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... present to you a letter of introduction from me is the nephew of our dear Penitentiary, a lawyer with some literary ability. Carefully educated by his uncle, he has very sensible ideas. How regrettable it would be if he should become corrupted in that sink of philosophy and incredulity! He is upright, industrious, and a good Catholic, for which reasons I believe that in an office like yours he will rise to distinction in his profession. Perhaps his ambition ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... treatment this play received (note his preface), but of it may be said, as in the case of its predecessor, that it makes better reading than it must have made acting, for the scenes are loosely constructed and often illogical. Our playwright yet betrays the amateur touch. It is regrettable, too, for he chose an excellent theme and setting. The time is near the close of the sixteenth century, under the rule of Philip II. of Spain and the much-dreaded Inquisition. An inventor, a pupil of Galileo, barely escapes the Holy Office because ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... necessitated the splitting-up of forces, and in more than one recent instance a commander of less foresight than Major English had failed to realise the responsibility of his position, with the result that more additions were made to the already-far-too-long list of 'regrettable incidents.' ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... mischances" or "unfavourable conditions" or merely to "pressure of circumstances." Would it not have been better, while he was about it, to claim boldly that he was luring us on? This is a question on which one naturally refers to the maps, and it is therefore all the more regrettable that these contain no scale of mileage, an omission which renders them almost meaningless. How many readers, for instance, will realise that German East Africa was almost twice the size of Germany? The translation on the whole is good, though some phrases such as "the at times ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... maintenance, they could not honestly advise his entering upon another term. It would only be a deplorable throwing away of money on a useless scheme. His son Michael had no thoroughness, no practical ability, and no grasp whatever of theoretic detail. From Herr Harrison's point of view this was the more regrettable inasmuch as the young man had colossal decision and persistence and energy of his own. He was an indefatigable dreamer. Very likely—when his dreams had crystallized—a poet. But the idea Herr Harrison had had that his son Michael would make ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair |
