|
|
|
More "Improper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on you as I could," he told the young driver. "You're charged with improper use of the thruway. That's a minor violation. By rights, I should have cited you for illegal usage." He looked around slowly at each of the young people. "You look like nice kids," he said. "I think you'll grow up to be nice people. ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... to his own statement; namely, that of converting his heart, which, he says, had been frivolous and inclined to gallantry, and even to licentiousness, until he received our poet's advice. He was about forty-five years old when he went to Milan. Petrarch made him sensible that it was improper, at his age, to lose his time in courting women; that he ought to employ it more seriously, and turn towards heaven, the devotion which he misplaced on earthly beauties. This conversation is the subject ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... the Borough a very improper place for the king's, or any other, college?—Is it not the very mart of trade, and consequently ever noisy and in confusion?—And what a magnificent improvement would its erection near Westminster Abbey be to that ancient and very sumptuous pile. Could it not be erected from Tothill Street, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... are those horrid improper-looking gods and goddesses in clouds and chariots on the ceilings at Belforest," observed that lady, in a half-puzzled, half-offended tone of voice, that most perilously tickled the fancy of Mother Carey and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... small cottage, by way of lodge, or laborer's tenement, should be located at or near the entrance. Such appendage is not only ornamental in itself, but gives character to the place, and security to the enclosure; in guarding it from improper intrusion, as well as to receive and conduct into the premises those who either reside upon, or have business within it. It is thus a sort of sentry-box, as well as a ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... leaders. We have made Cathelineau our General, and desired him to select his officers, and when he selects you as one, you object. If you object from a proper modesty, it argues that those who accept, shew an improper degree of assurance. You should ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... seventh, or almost to the eighth month. The symptoms of the approach of abortion, unless the breeder is very much among his stock, are not often perceived; or, if perceived, they are concealed by the person in charge, lest he should be accused of neglect or improper treatment. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... of the ship, reinforced by the great silent stillness of the world, said to himself that there was something mysterious in such beings as the absurd Franklin, and even in such beings as himself. It was a strange and almost improper thought to occur to the officer of the watch of a ship on the high seas on no matter how quiet a night. Why on earth was he bothering his head? Why couldn't he dismiss all these people from his mind? It was as if the mate had infected him with his own diseased ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... country adjoining this lake was fertile, and by means of it, and natural or artificial channels, there was a communication with the Delta and Upper Egypt. Between this lake and the Canopic branch of the Nile, Alexander built his city: to less sagacious minds this site would have appeared improper and injudicious in some respects; for the sea-coast from Pelusium to Canopus is low land, not visible at a distance; the navigation along this coast, and the approach to it, is dangerous, and the entrance into the mouths of the Nile, at some seasons, is extremely ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... clutching at the railings of the arena. She was promptly removed by the police. Under the circumstances the woman's conduct was pardonable, perhaps, but we suggest that such exhibitions interfere with the decorum which should be preserved during the performances, and are highly improper in the presence of the Emperor. The Parthian prisoner fought bravely and well; and well he might, for he was fighting for both life and liberty. His wife and children were there to nerve his arm with their love, and to remind him of the old home ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ought to have been pretty to fit her pretty name, Juana de Espinosa. Besides, De Cotes caroused miscellaneously, he ran the streets at night, in bad company, and singing bad songs. In 1591 he was officially reproved for these habits, and for singing improper words to sacred music (y cantan muchos rezes letras ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... nervous prostration sure! Yet, I know it is very effective! It was just like some picture you read about, and it was beautiful, striking, down to the smallest detail. But situations effective, and details pleasing, are not in my line, and they are just as much a mystery as improper fractions used to be when I was a schoolgirl. I hated my school! It was called a "Young Ladies' Seminary." It was a fashionable, intellectual hot-house, where premature, fleeting blooms were cultivated regardless of any future consequence. ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... when treating on the subject of repentance, said, "My dear hearers, you must repent; if you do not, you will go to a place which it would be improper to mention ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... with your mother, sister or best girl and some one passes a slighting remark or uses improper language, won't you be ashamed if you can't take her part? Well, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... most pressing problems to come to light in the past four years has been improper hazardous waste disposal. The Administration has moved on three fronts. First, we proposed the Oil Hazardous Substances and Hazardous Waste Response, Liability and Compensation Act (the Superfund bill) to provide comprehensive authority and $1.6 billion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... said the colonel thoughtfully, and bit his lip. The arguments of Lieutenant D'Hubert, helped by his liking for the person, had convinced him. Yet it was highly improper that his intervention, of which he had made no secret, should produce no visible effect. He kept Lieutenant D'Hubert a little longer and ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... arose and backed himself away from the golden throne, for it would have been very improper for him to turn his coat-tails ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... doctor of the Aristotelian school. He maintained that it was improper to speak of the "form of a hat," because form "est la disposition ext['e]rieure des corps qui sont anim['e]s," and therefore we should say the "figure of a hat," because figure "est la disposition ext['e]rieure des corps qui ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... "I don't have to play chaperon for you two. Every one knows she is visiting us; what's there improper in your taking her out to supper? Why"—regarding him critically—"she's young ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... and impatient. A very contradictory and improper condition to remain in. I can read to him at once, after I have seen if mamma ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... did little to relieve Jim's bewilderment, who still thought it a very improper thing to receive money from a woman. He did not examine himself far enough to learn that Benedict's independence of his own care and provision was partly the cause of his pain. Five hundred dollars in the woods was ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... arguments like these? He would have said, "Sir, I acknowledge that the people were never more free than under your government. I acknowledge that those who talk of restoring the old Constitution of England use an improper expression. I acknowledge that there has been a constant improvement during those very years during which many persons imagine that there has been a constant deterioration. But, though there has been no change in the government for the worse, there has been a change ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... away his legs he buys either fins or wings with them; this is a generally-understood law, invariably respected. But the snake goes in for extravagance in ribs and vertebrae; an eccentric, rakish, and improper proceeding; part of an irregular and raffish life. Nothing can carry within it affection, or even respect, for an animal whose tail begins nowhere in particular, unless it is at the neck; even if any creature ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Well, she wore my jewels and one of my dresses at a rather improper ball with her young man; and ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... to meet with such an opinion as this, in a book inscribed to yourself, who have so clearly explained the great mischief of such a situation, in your excellent treatise on the diseases of the army. On this account, I have thought it not improper, to address to you the following observations and experiments, which I think clearly demonstrate the fallacy of Dr. Alexander's reasoning, indisputably establish your doctrine, and indeed justify the apprehensions of all mankind ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... see no objection to this, it is, I think, high time that you should write an official letter, stating all the circumstances of the situation, and that your intention is, unless you should be informed that it appears to His Majesty's servants to be improper, &c., to meet the Parliament on the 20th, for the purpose which ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... below the ribs on the right side, and around backward and upward as far as to the spine. The positive pole repels the excess of electro-vitality away from the positive spleen, and so reduces the improper excitement there, while at the same time it rushes, by attraction, to the negative liver, under the negative pole, and makes that more positive, and so more active. In this way, I change the polarization of the parts, and, in so ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... incivility. Doing such a thing, makes one lose confidence in him who has done it, as one cannot tell what he may do next.' His extraordinary warmth confounded me so much, that I justified myself but lamely to him; yet my intentions were not improper. I wished to get on, to see how we were to be lodged, and how we were to get a boat; all which I thought I could best settle myself, without his having any trouble. To apply his great mind to minute particulars, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... made. But it does not seem to me to be necessary to set down the names of the seventy [two] elders who were sent by Eleazar, and carried the law, which yet were subjoined at the end of the epistle. However, I thought it not improper to give an account of those very valuable and artificially contrived vessels which the king sent to God, that all may see how great a regard the king had for God; for the king allowed a vast deal of expenses for these vessels, and came often to the workmen, and viewed their works, and suffered ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... put forward in a sermon preached before the University certain theses which, looking at the state of the times, may have been improper and possibly of seditious intent. One of them was that the bishop might excommunicate the civil magistrate: this proposition the clerical body could not approve, and designated it by the term erronea,[160] the mildest going. But Knight ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... here, let not my fair countrywomen condemn me as an unmannerly satirist; we respect the taste and understanding, as much as we admire {33}the beauty and delicacy of the sex; but surely no woman of sense would suppose we meant to offend her, if we said she was the most improper person in the world to be made a captain of horse, or a ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... Allen Kimball. A young miss of sixteen summers, she had come to my studio, 212 Eleventh street, with her mother one afternoon in 1903. I found a voice and a personality that could not be overlooked in one so young. Her notes were pure and limpid, untouched by improper use or bad training. I gladly enrolled her among my singers and she began at once with her vocal instruction. She sang with marked progress for four months when there was a break in the regularity of her lessons. She had entered the Oakland High school ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... that they can be distinguished. In late years, natural butternut has become popular as an interior finish and for furniture, being sold as "blonde walnut," "French walnut," or "white walnut," in my opinion very improper names. I see no reason for calling it by other than its own. Depletion of forests of butternut trees brings its lumber value up in price nearly to that of fine maple or birch, approaching that of black ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... of an irresponsible GHOST—that his father has been murdered by the GHOST'S brother? We all know that he devotes himself to the duties of a private detective; that he drives his sweetheart crazy by using very improper language to her, and by coolly denying that he had ever had any serious intentions toward her. Then he gets up the worst specimen of private theatricals that even a royal drawing-room ever witnessed,—a performance so hopelessly stupid as to actually make the KING and his consort seriously ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... not, but I consider it shameful and dishonorable for me, a Baccalaureus Philosophiae, to repudiate what I have publicly maintained, and to do anything that is improper for one of my order. My duty is to see to it that ne quid detrimenti ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... amused herself in Lotty's room, or, when that was engaged, made herself comfortable with Mrs. Ledward's family, with one or other of whom she generally passed the night. She heard no bad language, saw nothing improper, listened to no worse conversation than any of the other children at Miss Rutherford's. Even at her present age of ten it never occurred to her to inquire how her mother supported herself. The charges ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... of perfection in the work he undertakes may fail in it; he that has not, must: and yet he will be vain. For every little degree of beauty, how short or improper soever, will be looked on fondly by him; because it is all pure gains, and more than he promised to himself; and because he has no test, or standard in his judgment, with which to chastise ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... pages on which I had spent so much labour and walked slowly out of the room. I was too surprised to say anything more, and I did not even feel like banging the door. The only thought which occurred to me was that there must have been something very improper in that cherished sentence, but if my tutor imagined that I took any pleasure in indecencies, or would write them consciously, I felt that he was a very silly man. I stopped on the stairs and began reading my essay again; there was simply nothing in the beginning of it which could offend the most ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... reader may have noticed scores of these plates in glasses labelled Os Sepiae. Reduced to powder, they were formerly used as an absorbent, but they are now chiefly sought after for the purpose of polishing the softer metals. It is however improper to call this plate bone, since, in composition, "it is exactly similar to shell, and consists of various membranes, hardened by carbonate of lime, (the principal material of shell,) without the smallest mixture of phosphate of lime,[13] or the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... less strenuous would do," he said, mischievously—"a pretty amourette?—just one of those gay, frivolous, Louis XV affairs with some daintily receptive girl, not really improper, but only ultra fashionable. Do you think that would ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... be improper to observe that these stanzas were composed during a period of misfortune ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... dependent upon them. The blind have been made to see and the lame to walk. So many apply for admission that there is always a waiting list. Many lives have been saved in the children's ward by taking in babies who have become sick from improper or insufficient food due to ignorance or poverty. Tuberculosis of bones fend joints is common and many little sufferers have been restored to ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... Commander-in-chief, as mentioned above—one fighting and manoeuvring on paper—making plans in his office, unfamiliar with every thing constituting a genuine military, scientific or practical soldier—to whom field and battle are uncongenial or improper—to whom grand and even small tactics are a terra incognita—such a chief is at best but an imitation of the English military organization, and certainly it is only in this country that obsolete English ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... blue and swift as its traditions demanded, kept us close company much of the way; the whole range of country was made for summer, and the wintry conditions under which we saw it seemed all the more improper. It must have been near midnight when our train rolled into the station at Marseilles, and my pleasure in "sitting up late" had long ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... improper to close this section, touching child-life, without some special reference to pre-natal care. It has been well said by eminent authorities that a child's "education should begin long before its birth." This to many may seem mysterious or even foolish, according to ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... sir, this is a very improper time for joking; for my part, I was only speaking as to my own thoughts, when Mr. Elbow Room made remarks, which he ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... occasioned a relapse, and next day he was dead. I notice that Mr. Otho Paget in his book on Hunting recommends "a little raw fresh meat" for weakly pups, but possibly he would not advocate it for one getting over distemper. I attributed the death of my charges solely to improper feeding, and have since been successful in rearing others by feeding them at first on bread and milk, biscuits and gravy, scraps of cooked vegetables, and when meat has been given, I have taken care to see that it has been cooked. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... conversation he told the Doctor he was the second son of a gentleman of good fortune in Hertfordshire; that he had made an improper acquaintance with a kept mistress of a captain of an Indiaman then abroad; that he was within a year of being out of his time, and had been intrusted with cash, drafts, and notes, which he had made free with, to the amount of two hundred pounds. ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... especially the acts for the delivery of fugitive slaves, and have thereby contributed much to the discord and commotion now prevailing. This Convention, therefore, in the present perilous juncture, does not deem it improper, respectfully and earnestly to recommend the repeal of those laws to the several States which have enacted them, or such legislative corrections or explanations of them as may prevent their being used or perverted to such ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... of the Primitive Methodist Connexion dates from 1808, and it sprung solely from the custom (introduced by Lorenzo Dow, from America, in the previous year) of holding "camp meetings," which the Wesleyan Conference decided to be "highly improper in England, even if allowable in America, and likely to be productive of considerable mischief," expelling the preachers who conducted them. A new society was the result, and the first service in this town was held in Moor Sreet, in the open air, near to the Public Office, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... names intimately connected with Pietism in its better days, which it would be improper to pass over. Arnold, the historian of Pietism, and Thomasius, the eminent jurist. They were both alike dangerous to the very cause they sought to befriend. The former, in his History of Churches and Heretics, took ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... and got no answer, and Harry told me that he had written over and over again, and at last had enclosed a letter to your aunt, but that she had returned it, saying that she did so at the recommendation of your spiritual adviser, who considered that it would be highly improper for you, who had become a bride of the Church, to receive a letter from ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... This they do merely to denote their character as the followers of Christ; but, when applied to them collectively, it necessarily becomes the name of a denomination. They are sometimes, by their opposers, called Christ-ians; but this pronunciation of the word they universally reject as very improper. ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Bob told enough of the story to convince the street-car man that there was nothing improper about the occurrence, and that he succeeded was evidenced by the comment of the conductor, ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... IN POINT.—As a fair sample of what game wardens, and the general public, are sometimes compelled to endure through the improper decisions of judges, I will ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the Twelve, on this occasion, appealed to the suffrages of the Brotherhood, they reserved to themselves the right of confirming the election; and they might, by withholding ordination, have refused to fiat an improper appointment. Happily no such difficulty occurred. In compliance with the instructions addressed to them, the multitude chose seven of their number "whom they set before the apostles, and, when they had prayed, they laid their ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... doubtful reputation, and could point them out to her friends, and that made an effect. She spelt her name with a small "d," an apostrophe, and a capital A, and this converted it into d'Avarande. Mme. Davarande was pious. It seemed to her that God was chic. It would have seemed almost as improper to her to have no parish as to have no gloves. She had adopted one of those churches where grand marriages are celebrated, where people with great names are to be met, where the chairs have armorial bearings, where ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... "subscribed under their handes, to depose the President; sayeing they thought him very unworthy to be eyther President or of the Councell, and therefore discharged him of both".[19] They accused him of misappropriating funds, of improper division of the public stores, of being an atheist, of plotting to desert Virginia in the pinnace left at Jamestown by Captain Newport, of combining with the Spaniards for the destruction of the colony. Wingfield, when he returned to England, made a vigorous defense ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... take an mile; rob Peter to pay Paul. Adj. wrong, wrongful; bad, too bad; unjust, unfair; inequitable, unequitable^; unequal, partial, one-sided; injurious, tortious [Law]. objectionable; unreasonable, unallowable, unwarrantable, unjustifiable; improper, unfit; unjustified &c 925; illegal &c 964; iniquitous; immoral &c 945. in the wrong, in the wrong box. Adv. wrongly &c adj.. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... certified by the present King's Reader, acting for the Lord Chamberlain, as void in its general tendency of "anything immoral or otherwise improper for the stage." But let nobody conclude therefore that Mr Redford is a monster, whose policy it is to deprave the theatre. As a matter of fact, both the above stories are strictly in order from the official point of view. The incidents of sex which they contain, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... define the name. When this can be done without rendering any received assertions inadmissible, the name can be defined in accordance with its received use, which is vulgarly called defining not the name but the thing. What is meant by the improper expression of defining a thing (or rather a class of things—for nobody talks of defining an individual), is to define the name, subject to the condition that it shall denote those things. This, of course, supposes a comparison of the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... interjected an imprecation, vulgarly called an oath, "if ever I hear one o' you a usin' of sich improper words, I'll break every ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... fantastic tenderness for morality so very sensitive that it is not at all shocked when the immoral things are done, but glows with virtuous indignation when a Christian man speaks out about them? There are plenty of people nowadays who tell us that it is 'indelicate' and 'indecent' and 'improper,' and I do not know how much else, for a Christian teacher or minister to say a word about certain moral scandals. But they do not say anything about the immorality and the indelicacy and the indecency of doing them. Let us have done with that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... on the point of guessing it, but you know no word that fits this answer, Madame Deschars not being likely to have allowed anything improper. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... are now placed at each plate, and it is not improper to take salt with the tip of the knife ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... he may be ill-pleased at that. But if I thought there was any chance of evil befalling Cormac in the camp, by all the gods of the east, west, north, and south," cried the prince, carried away by the strength of his feelings into improper and even boastful language, "I would go and demand his liberation, or fight the ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... to her, but it was the next best. As I had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to take in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... say is very wrong, for if I perfectly understand you, you are bringing an infamous accusation against my predecessors. Perhaps you think to palliate my fault thus in my own eyes. I thank you for the intention, but it is an improper course, and the reproach which you try to cast upon the worthy priests who have succeeded one another in this parish, takes away none ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... breath came in a sudden gulp. He was more than astounded. He was shocked. Was she mad or playing an amazingly improper joke? She had freed him from a cell to lead him to the home of the Inspector of Police, the deadliest enemy the world now held for him. He stopped, and Marette Radisson tugged at his hand, pulling him after her, insisting that he follow. She was clutching ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... Progress has not been steady or continuous on account of the prejudices and errors which hindered men from setting to work in the right way. The difficulties in advancing did not arise from things which are not in our power; they were due to the human understanding, which wasted time and labour on improper objects. "In proportion as the errors which have been committed impeded the past, so do they afford reason to hope for ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... "You've recently," she observed, "got into a new way. Whatever slang you happen to hear outside you come and tell me. And whenever you read any improper book, you poke your fun at me. What! have I ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... giggling. Then what does it all come to? An attempt to expose the supposed hypocrisy of the Puritan middle class in England: people just as good as the author, anyhow. With, of course, the inevitable improper female: the Mrs Tanqueray, Iris, and so forth. Well, if you cant recognize the author of that, youve mistaken your professions: thats all I ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... cast aside the doctrines of men, and go face to face with the Son of Man, the visible God. First lie of all, she had been taught that she must believe so and so before God would let her come near him or listen to her. The old cobbler could have taught her differently; but she would have thought it improper to hold conversation with such a man, even if she had known him for the best man in Auchars. She was in sore and sad earnest to believe as she was told she must believe; therefore instead of beginning ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... some fifty years ago, boasted of a delicious red-fleshed trout, of large size, which has in these latter times, from netting or some other improper fishing, nearly or quite disappeared from those waters, leaving upon the palates of old anglers the remembrance of a flavor higher and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... would be the worst of it; as it is all the world over. Sometimes I wish there were no such things as looks. I don't mean anything improper, you know; only one does get so hampered, right and left, for fear of Mrs Grundy. I endeavour to go straight, and get along pretty well on the whole, I suppose. Baker, you must put Dandy in the bar; he pulls so, going home, that I can't hold him in ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... pleases without the responsibility of rendering any specific account. The bank is thus converted into a vast electioneering engine, with means to embroil the country in deadly feuds, and, under cover of expenditures in themselves improper, extend its corruption through all the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... an angry look, "has my child been accustomed to go out without leave, with no other company or protector than that French woman. Pardon me, Madam, I mean no reflections on your country, but I never did like Mademoiselle La Rue; I think she was a very improper person to be entrusted with the care of such a girl as Charlotte Temple, or to be suffered to take her from under ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... doubt perceive a great, although unavoidable confusion throughout the whole scene; it presents to the imagination a deep, dark, and dreary chaos; impossible to be reduced to order without the mind of the architect is clear and capacious, and his power commensurate to the occasion." He asked, "What improper influence could a plan reported openly and officially have on the mind of any member, more than if the scheme and information were given privately at the Secretary's office?" Merely to call for information would not be advantageous ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... "And a very improper expression too, Sir," said Mr. Hopewell; "a very irreverent, indecent, and I may say profane expression; I am quite shocked. But as you say you didn't mean it, are sorry for it, and will not repeat it again, I accept your apology, and rely on your ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... never have pretended that it was not highly improper to watch one's neighbors. He would have denounced it as deserving of the severest reprobation. But he would have said, that if, while he was sitting, according to his invariable custom, at his own window, for the sole purpose of reading a book, people ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... perusal of The Lamplighter was what I was to achieve at the fleeting hour I continue to circle round; that romance was on every one's lips, and I recollect it as more or less thrust upon me in amends for the imposed sacrifice of a ranker actuality—that of the improper Mr. Robinson, I mean, as to whom there revives in me the main question of where his impropriety, in so general a platitude of the bourgeois, could possibly have dwelt. It was to be true indeed that Walt Whitman ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... be a gentleman with an uncontrollable temper, whose conduct is most improper. I must ask you to behave yourself, to respect the convenances, or I shall be compelled ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... should catch cold, and then kept them for dinner. After the meal they were allowed to go into the open and play, and to walk about in the house of their grandparents, or do whatever else they cared to, provided it was not improper or forbidden. The dyer, who always ate with them, questioned them about school and impressed upon them what they ought to learn. In the afternoon, they were urged by their grandmother to depart even before it was time, so that they should in no case reach home too late. Although ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... brought the news home—she had been ill. "Some rare luck," the landlady continued, "will surely follow the knight up to the Blombergs. The same old steep path, leads there; but as to Wawer!—it would be improper to say Jungfrau Barbara—you will surer open your eyes—" Here she was summoned to the kitchen, and Wolf followed his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... parcel of this same mucous membrane—we can say this is due to one of several causes: either to a reflex condition from the stomach, due to over-eating or over-indulgence of some other equally deleterious sort, or to inactivity of the bowels, or to suppressed perspiration, or to improper or undue ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... Old Law the Almighty Himself ordained that lighted chandeliers should adorn the tabernacle.(428) Assuredly, that cannot be improper in the New Dispensation which God sanctioned in ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... prefatory letter to Hobbes well expresses this truth. "When I considered the actions which I meant to describe; (those inferring the persons), I was again persuaded rather to choose those of a former age, than the present; and in a century so far removed, as might preserve me from their improper examinations, who know not the requisites of a poem, nor how much pleasure they lose, (and even the pleasures of heroic poesy are not unprofitable), who take away the liberty of a poet, and fetter his feet in the shackles of an historian. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... authorities. In England, the Public Health Acts and By-laws are carried out by the various borough or district authorities, who appoint inspectors especially to study the health of the public with regard to sanitary arrangements. The inspectors have special powers to deal with all improper or defective food, or with any defects in buildings that may affect ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... antagonistical to the Spirit. God has created us with a fleshly nature, or made us a fleshly being. He has also created things for the sustenance of this fleshly life. He has created food and drink for man's use. A proper use of these is not a lust of the flesh. An improper use may be considered lust. Our eating and drinking should be to the glory of God. The primary object in our eating should be to sustain life and promote health and strength, that we may be able to labor ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... been taken very seriously, with none of the present matter-of-course haphazardness. In an old Guide to Brighton, dated 1794, I find the following description of the intrepid dippers of that day:—"It may not be improper here to introduce a short account of the manner of bathing in the sea at Brighthelmston. By means of a hook-ladder the bather ascends the machine, which is formed of wood, and raised on high wheels; he is drawn to a proper distance from the shore, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... practically a witness against Darcy. And I don't, for one moment, wish you to think that I am trying to get advance information to use in his favor. This is simply in the matter of justice, the ends of which I know you wish to serve, as I do myself. So if I ask anything improper please stop me. But since you will testify about these wounds, and since you have already pretty well described them to the newspaper reporters, it can do no harm to repeat ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... obviously did not belong to this world. He was a young man of twenty-five or so, not handsome, but elegant. Though he was not in evening dress, though he was, as a fact, in a very light grey suit, entirely improper to a dinner, he was elegant. The suit was admirably cut, and nearly new; but he wore it as though he had never worn anything else. Also his demeanour, reserved yet free from self-consciousness, his method ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Unity became more and more confused every moment. It all sounded puzzling and improper to her. "Kettles" coming in for tea-leaves, and living in "Anchoranopally." How could Pennie have become familiar with such ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... his full dress. Even were this a farewell dinner held in his honor, I thought he was under no obligation to look patiently in a formal dress at the naked dance. So I went to him and persuaded him with "Say, Koga-san, let's go home." Hubbard Squash said the dinner was in his honor, and it would be improper for him to leave the room before the guests. He seemed to be ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... effective way of dealing with men who asked troublesome or improper questions. A visitor once asked him how many men the rebels had in the field. The President replied, very seriously, "Twelve hundred thousand, according to the best authority." The interrogator blanched in the face, and ejaculated, "Good heavens!" "Yes, sir, twelve hundred thousand—no doubt ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... in detail to his labours in departments of Science not directly connected with the Royal Observatory may seem to lie beyond the province of the Board. But it cannot be improper to state that its members are not unacquainted with the high estimation in which his contributions to the Theory of Tides, to the undulatory theory of Light, and to various abstract branches of Mathematics are held by men of ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... SPECTACLES and EYE-GLASSES for the Assistance of Vision, adapted by means of Smee's Optometer: that being the only correct method of determining the exact focus of the Lenses required, and of preventing injury to the sight by the use of improper Glasses. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... not be difficult to show, were it necessary, that America would soon become a richer and more happy country, provided the step was adopted. That corrosive anguish of persevering in anything improper, which now embitters the enjoyments of life, would vanish as the mist of a foggy morn doth before the rising sun; and we should find as great a disparity between our present situation, and that which would succeed to it, as subsists between a cloudy winter, and a radiant spring.—Besides, our ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... not to be a strongly marked element of the flower of our ballad poetry, there are many of the best of them that have imbedded in them a rich and genuine vein of comic wit or broad fun; and there are also what may be classed as Humorous Ballads proper (or improper as the case may be), which reflect more plainly and frankly, perhaps, than any other department of our literature, the customs, character, and amusements of the commonalty, and have exercised an important influence on the ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... Lotbiniere. These summary dismissals and appointments had arisen out of a quarrel between the governor and the bishop, in which the former appears to have been influenced by petty motives. At any rate Mezy had been recalled by the king; and Tracy, Courcelle, and Talon had been instructed to try him for improper conduct in office. But before their arrival at Quebec, Mezy had obeyed the summons of another King than the king of France. He had been taken ill in the spring of the year and had died on May 6. Mezy being dead, it was wisely thought unnecessary to recall unhappy ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... speaking this time, and Hilliard soon found he was telling a somewhat improper story. As the two men disappeared round the deckhouse he heard their hoarse laughter ring out. Then the captain cried: "That you, Coburn?" The murmur of voices grew louder and more confused and immediately sank. A door opened, then closed, and once ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... aboveboard, and that our hostility should never be exercised by such petty means. We had no suspicion that he expected to engage men here, but merely to purchase military stores. Against this there was no law, nor, consequently, any authority for us to interpose. On the other hand, we deemed it improper to betray his voluntary communication to the agents of Spain. Although his measures were many days in preparation at New York, we never had the least intimation or suspicion of his engaging men in his enterprise until he was gone; and I presume that the secrecy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... was fruitless. I missed my train in Bradford, and stayed the night at an hotel, thus (with appropriate but improper extravagance) concluding this particular performance in the role of travelling courier to a distinguished invalid. As I sat over a sumptuous table d'hote—this was long before the submarine blockade and the food restrictions—I wondered what Briggs's wife said to Briggs; and I made up a ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... "this same ferry on Clyde knows us very well, or we know it, which is all the same; no fear of any of our people meeting with any accident. We should have crossed from the opposite shore, but for the disturbances at Glasgow, which made it improper for his Grace's people to pass ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... fine day," or "The night is as clear as a bell," you had gone quite as far as the proprieties permitted. Love was also a forbidden word. You might say, "I love pie," but to say "I love Bettie," was mawkish if not actually improper. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... She could recommend her, save to the Marquis de las Cisternas and her Sister Leonella. The protection of the One was very uncertain; and as to the Other, though fond of her Niece, Leonella was so thoughtless and vain as to make her an improper person to have the sole direction of a Girl so young and ignorant of the World. The Friar no sooner learnt the cause of her alarms than He begged her to make herself easy upon that head. He doubted not being able to secure for Antonia a safe refuge in the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... I don't want to be improper. But I'd just like to ask you this: Does that Fenholtz hired help have to wear ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... my friend: d-n it, gentlemen, don't be rude. That's coming the thing a little too familiar. There is a medium: please direct your moist appropriations and your improper remarks in their proper places." The girl, cringing beneath the ruffian's hand, places the necessary receptacle ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... as rude and uncultivated; for Aristophanes and Horace, who both were considered as models of urbanity, display, at times, the coarsest indelicacy. On this subject, the diversity in the moral feeling of ages depends on other causes. Shakspeare, it is true, sometimes introduces us to improper company; at others, he suffers ambiguous expressions to escape in the presence of women, and even from women themselves. This species of petulance was probably not then unusual. He certainly did not indulge in it merely to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... hath afforded shelter, should never be injured. Thou hast lived in our place happily, being duly honoured. And, O evil-minded one, having partaken of our food, how canst thou carry us off? And as thy acts are so improper and as thou hast grown in age without deriving any benefit and as thy propensities are evil, so thou deservest to die for nothing, and for nothing wilt thou die to-day. And if thou beest really evil-disposed and devoid of all virtue, do thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the Use of SPECTACLES adapted to suit every variety of Vision by means of SMEE'S OPTOMETER, which effectually prevents Injury to the Eyes from the selection of Improper Glasses, and is extensively ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... arriv'd in a few Days near the Field of Battle, and joyn'd my self with a broken Body of Men who were making up towards the Mountains to recover themselves after the Fatigue of Battle. The Noviceship I went through in the Highlands, was no improper Foundation for the course Method of living I have been since engag'd in for above Twenty Seven Years; during which Time, I have run through all those Hardships which are incident to one who seeks a ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... from the windows of Mrs. Todgers, "Jennie" manifests the usual superfluous anxiety of her kind not to be called strong-minded. She is prettily indignant at the thought of female physicians: there is nothing improper in having diseases, but to cure them would be indelicacy indeed. Girls out of work, who wish for places in shops, are only "patriotic young ladies who desire to fill all the lucrative situations at present occupied by young men." She ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... differences of constitution and manner of application, is only natural; not dangerous, but rather beneficial. No two men go to work in the same way, notwithstanding they may have both learned of the same teacher, or been instructed upon the same principle. The greater trouble lies in improper application and inattention to details. Trifles make up the sum of life, as cents make dollars. An overanxious man, he who makes great haste to be rich, seldom prospers long in any undertaking. Possibilities, not probabilities, should be the guide. A sanguine disposition may or ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... information. Broderick was mentioned by name. The attention of the city marshal was succinctly called to the disorderly houses and the statutes concerning them; and it was added, "for his information," that at a certain address a structure was actually building at a cost of $30,000 for improper purposes. Then followed a list of personal bonds and sureties for which Palmer, Cook & Co. were standing voucher, amounting ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... sometimes, more often than I could wish, seen a case like this. A young man of good family sent away to college. He gets in with the wrong crowd, for they are not all angels in colleges yet, quite. Gets to smoking and drinking and gambling, improper hours, bad companions, and all that. His real friends try to advise him, but without effect. By and by the college authorities remonstrate with him, and he tries to improve, but without much success after the first pull. And after a while, very ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... see Mr. B.'s verses until they appeared in print, and there is certainly one thing in them which I consider highly improper. I allude to the personal references to myself by name. To confer notoriety on an humble individual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, and who keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena (though voe mihi si ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... spirits, and a drop has never passed my lips, except the wine of the communion.[2] I know I need not tell you that I am equally guiltless of the other imputation. That person does not live who can say that I ever did any thing improper of that description. And yet I am a drunkard—a libertine—I, who never touched drink, and love but one ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... O'Brien, springing to his feet. "The question is improper. There is no suggestion that Crocedoro did anything. The defendant can testify to that if ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... rattling noise during the dancing. Five times during the night, ears of corn and plumes were brought from the altar, and then the men always removed their hats. The women wore veils (rebosos), but it is considered improper for them to use sandals on such occasions; these are worn only by ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... were considered either as the distant progeny of Adam or Eve, resulting from an improper intercourse with supernatural beings, or of Cain. As the doctrine, however, was extremely revolting to some few of the early Christians, they maintained that demons were the souls of departed human beings, who were still permitted to interfere in the affairs of the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... was rarified; For 'tis improper speech to say he died: He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew. 'Tis sin produces death; and he had none, But the taint Adam left on every son. He added not, he was so ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... should have swung on the gallows or eked out a miserable existence in some criminal's cell, joined in league to trample on the laws and constitution of order, and, in the awful callousness of intoxication, uttering every blasphemous and improper thought the evil one could suggest. What must have been the character of the homes that received such men after their midnight revels? Many a happy household has been turned into grief through their demoralizing ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... from the Hospice at the end of a rope, but at the end of the journey Jan had found Elizabeth and happiness. He lifted his big head and his anxious eyes saw a pitying face as a gentle hand lightly touched his back. It was quite a long walk and the dog was weak from improper food and care. When they entered a little cottage, the old man brought food and water, then sat and watched the dog devour them ravenously. After the dish had been emptied of all food, Jan stood wagging his tail to show his gratitude. The old ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... inconceivably shocked and sickened. The facts, without any of her corroborating statements, bore tolerable witness to the hardships of her existence. I promised to attend to her ailments and give her proper remedies; but these are natural results, inevitable and irremediable ones, of improper treatment of the female frame—and though there may be alleviation, there cannot be any cure when once the beautiful and wonderful structure has been thus made the victim ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... line is inharmonious in its sound, and mean in its conception; the opposition is obvious, and the word lash used absolutely, and without any modification, is gross and improper. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... country, finding that they were not able to subdue us by their arms, appeared as if they were determined to gain their ends by destroying our morals; they had sent over persons to this country who made the most improper exhibitions in our theatres." Now it was true that the manager of the opera-house at this time relied greatly upon the attractions of his ballet; operas and opera-singers having for a while lost favour ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... distinguished from each other; and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies persons. . . . The matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling are so suited to their different educations, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity. Their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming to them and to ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... present at the meeting, and took part in the discussions. Among others, the following subject was considered and reported upon: "'Ought not negroes to be excluded from the new enlistment, especially those such as are slaves?' All were thought improper by the council of officers. 'Agreed, That they may ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Powers was formerly a convent, and I suppose these were the spirits of all the wicked monks that had ever inhabited it; at least, I hope that there were not such a number of damnable sinners extant at any one time. These ghostly fathers must have been very improper persons in their lifetime, judging by the indecorousness of their behavior even after death, and in such dreadful circumstances; for they pulled Mrs. Powers's skirts so hard as to break the gathers. . . . . It was not ascertained that they ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the company that attempted to carry out the plans of Major Collins to make an electric connection between Europe and the United States by way of Asia and Bering's Straits. In the service of the Russo-American Telegraph Company, it may not be improper to state that the author's official duties were so few, and his pleasures so numerous, as to leave the kindest recollections of the many persons ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Pyncheon race to whom we have already referred, as a native of a rural part of New England, where the old fashions and feelings of relationship are still partially kept up. In her own circle, it was regarded as by no means improper for kinsfolk to visit one another without invitation, or preliminary and ceremonious warning. Yet, in consideration of Miss Hepzibah's recluse way of life, a letter had actually been written and despatched, conveying information of Phoebe's projected visit. ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... succeeding year were, Caius Junius Bubulcus a third time, and Quintus Aemilius Barbula a second. In the commencement of their office, they complained before the people, that, by the improper choice of members of the senate, that body had been disgraced, several having been passed over who were preferable to the persons chosen in; and they declared, that they would pay no regard to such election, which had been made without distinction of right or wrong, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... men and women in business to each other, when assembled in their hundreds at Prince's Hall, was an office fraught with considerable responsibility." To be sure! Great responsibility! Might even be improper! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... his knees and was attempting to sleep on the back seat. It was quite improper to flirt with the newest of brides but Sally gave tolerant ear and even encouraged Archie's protestations of admiration while Abijah bumped about in the tonneau and now and then rolled off the seat when the enraptured driver negotiated a sharp turn. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... would swear to any statement Marcia might make. If she had learned that he was in the habit of receiving secret information from her slave, there were a thousand ways she might take to avenge herself; a very simple way would be to charge him with improper overtures and have him killed by the praetorians—a way that might particularly interest her, since it would presumably increase her reputation for constancy ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... Antony blame my inaction in the quarrels between them; but, on the contrary, they both seemed to respect me the more for the neutrality I observed. My obligations to the one and alliance with the other made it improper for me to act against either, and my constant tenor of life had procured me an exemption from all civil wars by a ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... was John Bucknor, and it is reported (we do not know with how much truth) that at one time there was an improper intimacy between him and the lady who despatched him. If so, we ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... condition? A great man would have shown his appreciation of all the money that was being spent on the needs for his existence and for the better security of his person. It ill becomes him to complain of improper treatment after all the trouble and commotion he has caused at one time and another. Indeed, a great man would bear the burden of captivity with equanimity and praise the men who gave him the opportunity of showing how a great soldier could carry ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... mob was as truly in just the fatal condition for the awful contagion we call 'panic' as it would have been from improper food and other causes, for some other epidemic. The Greeks, who always had a reason for everything, ascribed the nameless dread, the sudden and unaccountable fear, which bereaves men of manhood and reason, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... slave of either sex injure anything, which is not his or her own, through inexperience, or some improper practice, and the person who suffers damage be not himself in part to blame, the master of the slave who has done the harm shall either make full satisfaction, or give up the slave who has done the injury. ...
— Laws • Plato
... at herself. In her mother's house it would have been thought extremely improper for her to be left alone with a young man during ten minutes, but she knew that the Baroness held much more modern views, and would probably be delighted that she and Malipieri should spend an hour together. He had been asked to luncheon ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... do this, and what kind of dwelling to make - whether I should make me a cave in the earth, or a tent upon the earth; and, in short, I resolved upon both; the manner and description of which, it may not be improper to give ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... It would be improper for the editor to draw any comparison between the Scottish and Norwegian narratives; he, therefore, leaves it to the discernment of the reader to fix what medium ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson
... described the root of the offence when they said, "In this country, the wages of the working classes are so high, that few undertake the office of schoolmaster, except those who are unable to do anything else; and hence the important duties of education are often entrusted to incompetent and improper persons. The income of the schoolmaster should, at least, be equal to that of a common labourer."[35] In so precarious a position, it was unfortunate that sectarian and local feeling should have provoked a controversy ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... came in a sudden gulp. He was more than astounded. He was shocked. Was she mad or playing an amazingly improper joke? She had freed him from a cell to lead him to the home of the Inspector of Police, the deadliest enemy the world now held for him. He stopped, and Marette Radisson tugged at his hand, pulling him after her, insisting that he follow. She was clutching his thumb as though ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... "sap the Constitution," or that there was the slightest expectation or intention on his part of any relation between the State Department and the newspaper. Freneau was one of his college friends, a deserving man, to whom he was attached, and whom he was glad to help. There was nothing improper in commending one well qualified to discharge its duties for the post of translator in a government office; and as those duties, for which the yearly salary was only two hundred and fifty dollars, were light, there was no good reason why the clerk should not ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure from criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequence of his own temerity. To subject the press to the restrictive power of a licenser, as was formerly done, both before and since the revolution, is to subject all freedom of sentiment to the prejudices ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... sine die. Barnum replied, that the larger the number of Representatives, the more difficult it would be to tamper with them; and if they all could not become personally acquainted, so much the better, for there would be fewer "rings," and less facilities for forcing improper legislation. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... blackguard, Jacques Casanova, was imprisoned. He was "under the leads" over the Piazzetta wing, and the account of his durance and his escape is one of the most interesting parts, and certainly the least improper, of his remarkably frank autobiography. Venice does not seem to have any pride in this son of hers, but as a master of licentiousness, effrontery, adventurousness, and unblushing candour he stands alone in the world. Born at Venice in 1725, it was in the seminary of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... one reservation in the extremely high praise which they bestow on your virtue, integrity, and kindness—it is that of sharpness of temper. That is a fault which, even in our private and everyday life, seems to indicate want of solidity and strength of mind; but nothing, surely, can be more improper than to combine harshness of temper with the exercise of supreme power. Wherefore I will not undertake to lay before you now what the greatest philosophers say about anger, for I should not wish to be tedious, and you can easily ascertain ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... "How very improper!" she remarked. But she led the way in, and, for the hour that followed, the world began and ended for me just where a little semicircle of palms drew its friendly screen about Margery and me. I believe I ate something; I know I made two forays upon the supper table and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... a step striking at the very roots of their boasted equality, and one on which General Jackson did not venture—i.e. he has prevented the mobocracy from intruding themselves at his levees. The police are now stationed at the door, to prevent the intrusion of any improper person. A few years ago, a fellow would drive his cart, or hackney coach, up to the door; walk into the saloon in all his dirt, and force his way to the president, that he might shake him by the ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... arms of England. There is not one of the knights assembled round you who would not in like manner have avenged an insult offered to those of Austria; and I am ready to do battle in the lists with any who choose to say that the deed was a foul or improper one. In the Holy Land, Austrians and English fought side by side; and it is strange indeed to me that on my return, journeying through the country of the emperor, I should find myself treated as an enemy, and see the arms of King Richard ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... take these seeming fantasies seriously if he wishes to appreciate the present atmosphere of China. Cables have brought fragmentary reports of some addresses of Baron Goto in America. Doubtless in the American atmosphere these have the effect of reassuring America as to any improper ambitions on the part of Japan. In China, they were taken as announcements that Japan has about completed its plans for the absorption of China, and that the lucubration preliminary to operations of swallowing are about to begin. The reader is forgiven in advance ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... about her, and with Goddard in close attendance rendering what assistance he could, the spinster plunged through the mud until she reached the car step, by the side of which hung two pictures of a woman, illustrating the proper and improper way to get on and off a car. Miss Metoaca paused to take breath and readjust her Fanchon bonnet. As she was about to enter the car, she noticed a grinning black boy standing with one ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... EYE-GLASSES for the Assistance of Vision, adapted by means of Smee's Optometer: that being the only correct method of determining the exact focus of the Lenses required, and of preventing injury to the sight by the use of improper Glasses. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... removed, objections have been canvassed and refuted, and some of the former opponents of Catholic emancipation have at length conceded to the expediency of relieving the petitioners. In conceding thus much, however, a new objection is started; it is not the time, say they, or it is an improper time, or there is time enough yet. In some degree I concur with those who say, it is not the time exactly; that time is passed; better had it been for the country, that the Catholics possessed at this moment their proportion ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... constraint, would have been tyrannical; and, what perhaps he might judge as severe an imputation, it would have been unbecoming a gentleman. "Upon my honour, young lady," he said, with an emphasis, "you have nothing to fear in this house. But it is improper, for your own sake, that you should leave it in this abrupt manner. If you will have the goodness to wait but a quarter of an hour, Mistress Chiffinch's coach will be placed at your command, to transport ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... proper execution of the acts of Congress,) which laws are null and void, and yet, though null and void, they have been the source of mischief and discontent in the country, under the extraordinary circumstances in which we are placed; I have supposed that it would not be improper or unbecoming in Congress to recommend to the States, both North and South, the repeal of all such acts of theirs as were intended to control, or intended to obstruct the operation of the acts of Congress, or which in their operation and in their application ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... in,—by accident, of course,—and the mother happened to be out on one of her many pilgrimages to town, Bessie took me up to her room in a half-frightened way, as if doing something that she was afraid was terribly improper, and showed me a bewildering profusion of these things, neatly tucked away in bureau drawers. I laughed outright, and asked her who was to see all that finery. She was vexed and bit her lip, and ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... Chief Justice," explained a gentleman who stood near me. "That's why everybody is laughing; it's considered very improper not to laugh when the Lord Chief Justice makes a ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... accept his sponsorship anywhere whatsoever. A well behaved young girl goes to public dances only when properly chaperoned and to a private dance with her mother or else accompanied by her maid, who waits for her the entire evening in the dressing room. It is not only improper, it is impossible for any man to take a lady to a party of any sort, to which she has not been ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... which, although much less than they ought, will be (as far as it is worth) better circumstantiated; and since you already just live, a middling help will make you just tolerable. Your lateness in life (as you so soon call it) might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the eldest men may hope to see changes in a Court. A Minister is always seventy; you are thirty years younger; and consider, Cromwell did not begin to appear till he was ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... she was very nice,' said Lady Davenant gently. 'It would take that to account for you: such women as Selina are always easily enough accounted for. I didn't mean it was inherited—for that sort of thing skips about. I daresay there was some improper ancestress—except that you Americans don't seem to ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... concealment; leading him thro' his own apartment to join the crowd of armed servants, who, as may be supposed, were unable to detect the supposed invaders of their repose. On the following morning the chevalier as agreed upon, wrote a penitential letter to madame, entreating her pardon for his improper attentions to her servant, whom she affected to dismiss with every mark of gravest displeasure. The weeping Abigail threw herself at the feet of her mistress: and the compassionate marquis (before whom the scene ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... deforestation in Amazon Basin destroys the habitat and endangers the existence of a multitude of plant and animal species indigenous to the area; air and water pollution in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and several other large cities; land degradation and water pollution caused by improper mining activities ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Bobby." He was an uncle by courtesy only, but Patty had failed to inform the Dowager that the title was not his by natural right. She knew well what the result would be. It is quite proper to have luncheon with an uncle; and quite improper with even the oldest and baldest of ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... galley to look after a net of potatoes in the copper. If you like it better, I will ask her permission for you to mess with us. You will then be away from the midshipmen, who are a sad set, and will teach you nothing but what is immoral and improper, and you will have the advantage of being in good society, for Mrs Trotter has kept the very best in England. I make you this offer because I want to oblige the first lieutenant, who appears to take an interest about you, otherwise I am not ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office in the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the King's leanings towards Popery were the cause ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... war German officials in the United States have engaged in many improper activities in violation of the laws of the United States and of their obligations as officials in a neutral country. Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, Captain von Papen, Military Attache of the embassy, Captain Boy-Ed, Naval Attache, as well as various Consular ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... hand, it is contended with some force by the Cave Committee that it is improper for appointed members to decide questions of relatively high wages for skilled men or for the law to enforce such wages by criminal proceedings, and the Committee accordingly propose to differentiate between higher and lower minima both as regards the method of ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... you are thinking of. But there are more kinds of cows than one; and, perhaps, you may have heard of a creature called the "fish-cow?" Well, that is the sort of cow I am speaking of. Some term it the "sea-cow," but this is an improper name for it, since it also inhabits fresh-water rivers throughout all tropical America. It is known as the Manati, and the Portuguese call it "peixe boi," which is only ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... examinations has indeed served the Chinese well. It is the brightest spot in the whole administration, being absolutely above suspicion, such as attaches to other departments of the state. Attempts have been made from time to time to gain admission by improper means to the list of successful candidates, and it would be absurd to say that not one has ever succeeded; the risk, however, is too great, for the penalty on ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... for winter losses are: Queenlessness, smallness of number of bees in colonies, insufficient food, improper food, dampness, bad air, the breaking of the clusters, and ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... regard to the extension of its service, with a view to establishing long-distance information to enable shippers and producers to know daily the supplies and demands of the food market; Third, that the early enactment of improved State and Federal Laws to prevent food profiteering, waste and improper hoarding is urged and the strict enforcement of all such present laws is demanded; Fourth, that the various State Leagues of Women Voters are requested to consider the advisability of establishing public markets, abattoirs, milk depots ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... the general form which instruction takes. For since it reduces a condition or an activity within ourselves to an instinctive use and wont, it is necessary for any thorough instruction. But as, according to its content, it may be either proper or improper, advantageous or disadvantageous, good or bad, and according to its form may be the assimilation of the external by the internal, or the impress of the internal upon the external, Education must procure for the pupil the power of being able to free himself from one habit and to adopt another. Through ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... can't look at things just as I do. You belong to a very large world. You spend your life destroying obstacles. All my people, you know," she went on, "look upon me as terribly emancipated. They think my mild socialism and my refusal to listen to such a thing as a chaperon most terribly improper, but at heart, you know, I am still a very conventional person. I have torn down a great many conventions, but there are some upon which I cannot bring myself ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that all these soldiers who did not know what a theatre was, knew what a church was. And they had been taught to respect churches. Nobody had ever warned them against a church as a place where frivolous women paraded in their best clothes; where stories of improper females like Potiphar's wife, and erotic poetry like the Song of Songs, were read aloud; where the sensuous and sentimental music of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Gounod, and Brahms was more popular than severe music by greater composers; where the prettiest sort of pretty ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... here; but one fashionable fallacy about it may be exploded with advantage. An extraordinary notion still exists that the New Witness denounced Ministers for gambling on the Stock Exchange. It might be improper for Ministers to gamble; but gambling was certainly not a misdemeanor that would have hardened with any special horror so hearty an Anti-Puritan as the man of whom I write. The Marconi case did not raise the difficult ethics of gambling, but the perfectly plain ethics of secret commissions. ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... to greater estates than those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable but Will was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physic; and that, finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at length to his own inventions; but certainly, however improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned[62] for the occupations of trade and commerce. As I think this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader to compare what I have here ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... and make Irish and Scotch Peers, that he did not say positively he would make the Peers, but that he would be in the way, and come up when it was necessary. They think that he has some idea that his pledging himself beforehand (though in fact he did so two months ago) might be drawn into an improper precedent. However this may be, his reluctance is so strong that a great deal may be made of it, as it is probable (if he continues in the same mind, and is not turned by some violence of the Opposition) that he will resist still more ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... above specimen may see what a poet he was; but as he was in some degree of esteem in his time, we thought it improper ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... reckless about what she said and did. I questioned Arthur about her conversation, for she was accused of telling improper stories. "I have often," he said, "heard her allude to things and tell stories that would be considered unusual, even indelicate. But I never heard her say a thing in which there could be any conceivable 'taint,' in which the ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of children there is not always absolute deprivation of food, but what is supplied is insufficient in quantity or of improper quality. The defence commonly set up is that the child died either of ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... Virginia, after the battle of Cedar Run, will be taken from it. If since that time any artillery has improperly come into my command, I trust that it will be taken away, and the person in whose possession it may be found punished, if his conduct requires it. So careful was I to prevent an improper distribution of the artillery and other public property captured at Harper's Ferry, that I issued a written order directing my staff officers to turn over to the proper chiefs of staff of the Army of Northern Virginia all captured stores. A copy of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... warrant, "subscribed under their handes, to depose the President; sayeing they thought him very unworthy to be eyther President or of the Councell, and therefore discharged him of both".[19] They accused him of misappropriating funds, of improper division of the public stores, of being an atheist, of plotting to desert Virginia in the pinnace left at Jamestown by Captain Newport, of combining with the Spaniards for the destruction of the colony. Wingfield, when he ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... deeper into the stream, slip them over their heads when the water has reached their armpits, and, when they have completed their ablutions, reverse the process, thus achieving the feat of bathing in full view of hundreds of spectators without the slightest improper revelation. Hawkinson set up his camera on the bank of the Tjidani and spent several hundred feet of film in recording one of these performances. Even the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors will be unable to find any objection to that ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... to do any thing. I will not. I wash my hands of the whole matter. If the story be true, and Miss Bennett can be guilty of conduct so indecorous, it would never do for me to be mixed up in such an improper proceeding and if untrue, and I accused her of it, I should find myself in a very unpleasant position. So, Mrs. Grey, since you have interfered in this matter, you must carry it out on your own responsibility. If you have ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... like old-fashioned circuses—mostly meant for the young ones. Nowadays circuses have growed so big and so improper that nobody would dast take a child to one, or if you ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... Piety and Virtue, that, before he removed the Treasure, he kneeled down, and earnestly and fervently prayed that he might make a prudent, just and proper Use of it. He then conveyed the Chest away; but how he got it to England, the Reader will be informed in the History of his Life. It may not be improper, however, in this Place, to give the Reader some Account of the Philosopher who hid this Treasure, and took so much Pains to find a true and real Friend to enjoy it. As Tom had Reason to venerate his Memory, he was ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... influencing other people. It is acquired by beginning with small things, and gradually proceeding to greater, and still greater. At this point I should warn you that all the best occult teachings warn students against using this power for base ends, improper purposes, etc. Such practices tend to react and rebound against the person using them, like a boomerang. Beware against using psychic or occult forces for improper purposes—the psychic laws punish the offender, just as do the ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... child was forthwith permitted to partake of its proper nourishment. Of course she was well paid for her services, and had every inducement to prolong them for several days. During this time the infant was fed with the juice of the cocoa-nut or the sugar-cane. Many fell victims to this improper treatment. At a very early period the child was fed, and sometimes weaned altogether at four months. This was another fruitful source of mortality among children. Occasionally the father, or some member of ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... inflexible firmness of his soul. All other actors that we have ever seen reduce Zanga to a mere slavish croucher in all points; and destroy the very basis of the character by an overacted humiliation, highly improper because too glaring not to excite Alonzo's suspicions. He must be a dull Alonzo indeed, if he could not look through ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... the testimony in French courts, civil and martial, appears to consist of personal impressions and opinions of the witnesses. All very improper and mischievous, no doubt, if—if what? Why, obviously, if the judges are unfit to sit in judgment By designating them to sit the designating power assumes their fitness—assumes that they know enough to ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... might perhaps have been curtailed, or rather "cut" in the middle, with advantage, the form is excellent. As its original edition, though an agreeable volume, is rare, and its later ones are buried amidst discordant rubbish, it may not be improper to give some account of it. The time is pitched just about the Revolution and the years following, and, according to a common if not altogether praiseworthy custom, the story consists of an editor's narrative and of the Confessions proper ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... plural form of Ban, "a proclamation". The object of this proclamation is to "ban" an improper marriage. ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... nothing by it; nor did she wish to revive the subject before Lionel, whose indignation would be still more unpleasant in Marian's own presence. She therefore said nothing, and on the other hand Marian felt awkward and constrained; Lionel was secretly ashamed of his own improper behaviour to Miss Morley, and well knowing that he should never dare to perform his threat of telling his father, put on a surly kind of demeanour, quite as uncivil to Marian as to anyone else; and but that Clara never minded anything, and that ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... seamanship. The best boy, who is at the same time the best scholar and the best seaman, shall be captain. We have no marks now by which to make the selection, and I intend to have you elect him the first time, reserving to myself the right to veto your choice if it is obviously an improper one." ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... in waltzing, and I tell you, my friends, that such a position tends, in a greater or less degree, to develop the lower nature of sexes. It cannot be otherwise. It is in perfect accordance with nature. I have heard girls express utter innocence of having any improper emotion aroused by the waltz, but I do not believe this to be strictly true of any girl. If it is, I am sorry for that girl, for she has a sad ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... twitter!" said Mrs. Tree. "Is there anything improper about the hat? It's very well, child, very well. I always liked a scoop myself, but folks don't know much nowadays. What do you think of ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... thus: 'Senator W—— is evidently afraid of Justice ——, with whom I have had a difficulty, and he possesses neither the manly independence of a freeman, nor moral nor physical courage, and he is, therefore, an improper person (possibly infamous) for such a high and responsible position, and my rights as a citizen are not safe in the keeping of such a poltroon and conniving attorney, and he is probably disqualified to hold the high and responsible office of Senator ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... imaginations. It swelled out on every side. It filled all its proper channels to the brim. It overflowed with a rich redundance, and breaking its banks on the right and on the left, it spread out upon some places where it was indeed improper, upon others where it was only irregular. It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with considerable abuses. The contraband will always keep pace in some measure with the fair trade. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, that no vulgar precaution ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... far as they have come to my Knowledge, in the eight Years that I have lived in Carolina. I should have made a larger Discovery, when travelling so far towards the Mountains, and amongst the Hills, had it not been in the Winter-Season, which was improper to make any Enquiry into any of the Species before recited. Therefore, as my Intent was, I proceed to what remains of the Present State of Carolina, having already accounted for the Animals, and Vegetables, as far as this Volume would allow of; whereby the Remainder, though not ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... contributions would, if compulsory taxation were abolished, supply the necessities of government; but it would be a most iniquitous system, pressing heavily on the generous, and allowing the niggardly to escape. We all, in fact, admit that it would be entirely improper to replace the income-tax form by the begging-letter. For precisely the same reasons it is entirely improper that enlistment for home defence should depend on the voluntary sacrifice of the patriotic ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... sit down here and keep order in this little frog city. If you hear a frog say anything improper you fetch him a whack. Don't allow any nonsense. We'll make ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... whom a germ of irrepressible Force has been implanted, and will unfold itself into some sort of freedom,—altogether the reverse may hold. For such germs, too, there is, undoubtedly enough, a proper soil where they will grow best, and an improper one where they will grow worst. True also, where there is a will, there is a way; where a genius has been given, a possibility, a certainty of its growing is also given. Yet often it seems as if the injudicious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... So we begin on what happens to be in front of us, cereal first at one end of the table, fruit first in the middle (if there is any!), eggs and bacon further along; thus by degrees we work through the bill of fare. And this is not improper. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... He who simply violates social customs in the tribe often subjects himself to no worse punishment than an occasional sneer or taunting remark; but for grave transgressions he may lose the regard of his friends. With the Hidatsa, as with other western tribes, it is improper for a man to hold a direct conversation with his mother-in-law; but this custom seems to be ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... the clergy. A bishop who had made a large outlay in obtaining his office naturally expected something from the priests, whom it was his duty to appoint. The priest in turn was tempted to reimburse himself by improper exactions for the performance of his regular religious duties, for baptizing and marrying his parishioners, and for ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... by the Use of SPECTACLES adapted to suit every variety of Vision by means of SMEE'S OPTOMETER, which effectually prevents Injury to the Eyes from the Selection of Improper Glasses, and is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... went with the cheerfulness of a child. I must rig up a sitting-room for her, as I cannot have her in here. Also for the present she must take her meals in her own apartments. I cannot shock the admirable Stenson by sitting down at table with her in that improper peignoir. Besides, as Antoinette informs me, the poor lamb eats meat with her fingers, after the fashion of the East. I know what that is, having once been present at an Egyptian dinner-party in Cairo, and pulled reeking lumps of flesh out of the leg of mutton. Ugh! But ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... every way, I take it. I wanted him to come and dine, but he seemed to think it improper to eat two dinners in the same house two days running. Isn't that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... and the adjustment of apparel should be the same as for treatment. To prevent improper chilliness, the room ought to be of such temperature that clothing is not required for bodily comfort—say, from 70 to 80 degrees, Fahrenheit. Seat the patient on a stool or chair, (a stool is most convenient), and yourself at his side, with your machine, ready for use, on ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... that It is well that we clearly apprehend It is wholly unnecessary It is worthy of remark It looks to me to be It may be a matter of doubt It may be shown that It may be suggested that It may be supposed that It may in a measure be true that It may not be improper for me to suggest It must be borne in mind that It must be confest that It must be recollected that It need hardly be said that It remains for us to consider It remains to It remains to be shown that It reminds me of an anecdote It seems a truism to say It seems now to be generally ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... some fabric of fiction for her—I should only want to be sure of its not tumbling down. One would have, you see, to keep the thing up. But I'd throw dust in her eyes. I'd tell her you don't do at all—that you're not in fact a desirable acquaintance. I'd tell her you're vulgar, improper, scandalous; I'd tell her you're mercenary, designing, dangerous; I'd tell her the only safe course is immediately to let you drop. I'd thus surround you with an impenetrable legend of conscientious misrepresentation, a circle of pious fraud, and ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... with fragrance, and other miasma, and the malaria from the mangrove swamps, I assign as the cause of difference in the character of the same disease in different parts of the continent. The habits also of the settlers, have much to do with the character of the disease. A free indulgence in improper food and drink, which doubtless is the case in many instances, are exciting causes to take the malady, and aggravating when suffering ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... of Letheon is administered to the judgment by continual progression in some improper path, till that which is to all others palpably and painfully degrading becomes pleasant and eminently proper in him who labours under the mental oblivion. Such a course Mr. Freeman has trod, for while ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... feet," responded Juana quietly, using her customary formula. She felt the suggestion highly improper and exceedingly absurd, but she was far too great a ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... cases. Penurious Savings made by getting the Poor to work cheap. Relative Obligations of the Poor and the Rich in Regard to Economy. Economy of Providence in the Unequal Distribution of Property. Carelessness of Expense not a Mark of Gentility. Beating down Prices improper in Wealthy People. Inconsistency in ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... among incipient or thorough rogues, in Terence again, as a rule, among none but honest men; if occasionally a -leno- is plundered or a young man taken to the brothel, it is done with a moral intent, possibly out of brotherly love or to deter the boy from frequenting improper haunts. The Plautine pieces are pervaded by the significant antagonism of the tavern to the house; everywhere wives are visited with abuse, to the delight of all husbands temporarily emancipated and not quite sure of an amiable ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... that I want to do anything especially proper or improper," she hastened to assure him. "I have n't either the cravings or the ambitions of the new woman. That, again, is where I 'm selfish. I'd like to be"—she spoke hesitatingly—"I'd like to be ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... and where it is common to apply ten or twelve tons to the acre. I have stated above that chemical manure was applied to a small portion of the field after the setting-in of the drought in April. The action of this manure showed that a good thing may be very injurious if applied at an improper time; for, although it produced a stimulating effect on the plant immediately after its application, there was too little moisture in the land to dissolve it thoroughly, and thus enable the plants to appropriate it, until ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer the conditions of American literature have changed, and for the worse. As in England, so in America, a wide diffusion of books, an eager and general interest in printed matter, have had a disastrous effect. The newspapers, by giving an improper advertisement to the makers of books, have rendered the literary craft more difficult of pursuit. The ambition of money has obscured the simple end of literature, and has encouraged a spirit of professionalism eminently characteristic of a practical country. We hear of works of fiction sketched ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... the most pressing problems to come to light in the past four years has been improper hazardous waste disposal. The Administration has moved on three fronts. First, we proposed the Oil Hazardous Substances and Hazardous Waste Response, Liability and Compensation Act (the Superfund bill) to provide comprehensive authority and $1.6 billion in funds ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... thoughts and actions. Dame Margery followed, mixed in the party escorted by Father Aldrovand, whose company she chiefly frequented; for Margery affected a little the character of the devotee, and her influence in the family, as having been Eveline's nurse, was so great as to render her no improper companion for the chaplain, when her lady did not require her attendance on her own person. Then came old Raoul the huntsman, his wife, and two or three other officers of Raymond Berenger's household; the steward, with his golden chain, velvet cassock, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... know me at Winks and Pinks," she replied inconsequently. Agatha apparently has an idea that blotting-paper is only sold in small quantities to persons of known reputation, who may be trusted not to put it to dangerous or improper uses. After walking some two hundred yards she began to feel that her tea was of more immediate importance ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... their husbands as if they were gods, and never offend them with improper language, though they be diseased, indigent, or imbecile. [Footnote: Compare ...
— The Siksha-Patri of the Swami-Narayana Sect • Professor Monier Williams (Trans.)
... and Mr. Preston were keeping company just as if she was a maid-servant and he was a gardener; meeting at all sorts of improper times and places, and fainting away in his arms, and out at night together, and writing to each other, and slipping their letters into each other's hands; and that was what I was talking about, sister, for I next door to saw ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Colliery main line crossed. When a large part of a rain-fed river, and a few acres of flood-water, made a dead set for a nine-foot culvert, the culvert may spout its finest, but the water cannot all get out. The Manager pranced upon one leg with excitement, and his language was improper. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... into a passion, and made use of improper language, and everyone wondered at the patience of M. Foureau, who, all the same, was a surly individual, as might be seen from his big lips ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... impossible not to feel fond of such a gentle and amiable creature. Rogatchov had received no education whatever; his French consisted of the one word bonjour, and he secretly considered even that word improper. But some jocose person had taught him the following lines, as a French song: 'Sonitchka, Sonitchka! Ke-voole-voo-de-mwa—I adore you—me-je-ne-pyoo-pa....' This supposed song he always used to hum to himself when he felt in ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... it should be reformed not indifferently, but altogether; for it is, beyond controversy, atrociously bad, poorly fulfilling, as Professor Hadley justly remarks, (p. xxviii.,) its original and proper office of indicating pronunciation, while it no better fufils the improper office, which some would assert for it, of a guide to etymology. Emendations on the here-a-little-there-a-little plan, while they do no harm, do little good. They are but topical remedies, which cannot restore the pristine vigor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... cosmic first with a brush; then, with the breech plugged, fill the barrel to the muzzle, pour out the surplus, remove the breechblock, and allow to drain. It is believed that more rifles are ruined by improper preparation for storage than from any other cause. If the bore is not clean when oiled—that is, if powder fouling is present or rust has started—a half inch of cosmic on the outside will not stop its action, and the barrel will be ruined. Remember that the surface ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... thing, right or wrong. Whoever reads his Works, may trace throughout all Parts of them this Disposition of Mind, and see what sticks most at his Heart. So that he not only loses no Occasion, but often forces one where it seems improper and unseasonable, to vent his Resentments upon his Enemies; who surely did themselves a great deal more wrong in making him so, than they did him. 'Tis too true, that they did all they cou'd to starve him; ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... The stronger the improper pressure in the production of the tone, the more difficult it is to get rid of. The result is simply, in other words, a strain. The contraction of the muscles must go only so far that they can be slowly relaxed; that is, can return to their normal position easily. Never must the ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... in the microscope, and there it will ever remain, to be mistaken for a monster. Truly, the Tullian gibbeted the gentleman of the Sergian gens. It must be confessed that Catiline was a proper rascal. How could he have been anything else, and be one of Sulla's men? And a proper rascal is an improper character of the very worst kind. Still, we should like to have had his marginal "notes" on Cicero's speeches, and on Sallust's job pamphlet. They would have been mighty interesting reading,—as full ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the story she had read; and said, 'I hope, madam, you will not think it an improper one; for it was given me by my mamma; and she told me, that she thought it contained a very ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... means anything it is a proposition that the Senate of the United States shall first vote to carry into effect this unjust and improper intrusion into the home circle. Suppose this resolution to raise a select committee should be passed: that committee will have its hands full and its ears full of petitions and applications and speeches from strong-minded ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... comprehensiveness with brevity, a much larger number of scientific and technical terms, as well as geographical and other proper names, have been introduced, than are found in any other Dictionary of the same compass; while the whole has been cleared of redundant explanation and improper expressions, and carefully revised by an English Scholar ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... apportionment formerly made, however equitable then, would be inequitable now. To determine the quota, therefore, from the present situation, or from any particular moment of the past, must be equally improper. But the quotas must be determined at some period or other. If we suppose it already done, we shall clearly see how many inconveniences would have been avoided, and how many advantages gained. True it is, that let this final adjustment of the quota take place when it will, difficulties ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... themselves, by forgetting the Divine command of "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," and of the Apostolic doctrine of "Honour the King." I have always been surprised that a democratic Bible retains such highly improper translations of the original tongue, as prince, king, queen, and conceive that there should be a special Act of Congress to declare that henceforward the words of the English language should be abolished ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... condition of the intestinal tract which is the immediate or exciting cause of appendicitis and other diseases peculiar to this location, is brought on by improper life; not one cause, nor a dozen special causes, but anything and everything that break down the general health create this condition; then add the accidental eating of decomposition, or add decomposition, auto-generated, and we have ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... were knowing to it, could stop the performance of an improper errand. They would have been likely ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... fearful crime. As to Michael, he is an honest man, and my daughter, my Natacha, is an honest girl. Everything looks very bad, truly, but I do not suspect either Michael or Boris or my pure and beloved Natacha (even though she has made a translation into French of very advanced verses, certainly most improper for the daughter of a general). That is what lies at the bottom of my mind, the bottom of my heart—you have understood me perfectly, little angel of paradise? Ah, it is you the general owes his life to, that Matrena owes her life. Without you this house would ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... know," she said thoughtfully. "I always notice that people find it very easy to believe what they want to believe, and you see I'm not in the least popular. Miss Ellicot, for instance, considers me a most improper person." ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not an improper term to express the consummate energy of this basilar organ, if we at the same time understand its gentler manifestations; and Dr. Gall was a faithful student of nature when he called this faculty the "carnivorous instinct, or disposition to murder," for that is the way that it ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... prisoners, while Boadicea herself, fearing to fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her life by poison. Nero soon after recalled Paulinus from a government where, by suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper to compose the angry and alarmed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... During his four months' land service in Corsica, he had lost all his ship furniture, owing to the movements of a camp. Upon this he wrote to the Secretary at War, briefly stating what his services on shore had been, and saying, he trusted it was not asking an improper thing to request that the same allowance might be made to him which would be made to a land officer of his rank, which, situated as he was, would be that of a brigadier-general: if this could not be accorded, he hoped that his additional expenses would be paid him. The ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... exact from them any promise of abstaining from the company of the servants, with whom they had been accustomed to converse; but she had provided the children with occupations, that they might not be tempted, by idleness, to seek for improper companions; and, by interesting herself with unaffected good-nature in their amusements, she endeavoured to give them a taste for the sympathy of their superiors in knowledge, instead of a desire for the flattery of inferiors. She arranged their ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... dead and remonstrating with him on the violence of his language. "To call a man a fool and villain, an impudent fellow, only for differing from him in a point merely speculative, is, in my humble opinion, a very improper style for a person of his education." Swift wrote verses as well as prose, but their motive was the reverse of poetical. His gross and cynical humor vulgarized whatever it touched. He leaves us no illusions, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... priests and monks, were the first apostles of the Reformation. Few of them had received systematic training of any kind, none had a thorough acquaintance with biblical learning. Many embraced the truth only in part; some professed it from improper motives. The Lenten preachers whose leaning towards "Lutheranism" was sufficiently marked to attract the hatred of the Sorbonne, were generally orators, more solicitous of popularity than jealous for the truth—fickle and inconstant men whose apostasy inflicted deep wounds upon the cause ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... be very improper, Mr. Hickman—So let me ask you, What would Miss Howe think, if her friend is the more determined against me, because she thinks (to revenge to me, I verily believe ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... publication of the book people seemed to be less struck with these high aims of the author than with their own opinion, first, that the novel was an 'improper' one in its morals, and, secondly, that it was intended to be a satire on the Established Church of this country. I was made to suffer in consequence ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... that I am sent by Jesus and the Virgin Mary to warn you to put an end to the improper perversities which are taking place—to the injury of your virtue, which is treacherously deprived of your husband's best attention, which he lavishes upon your maid. What is the use of being a lady if the seigneurial dues are received elsewhere. According ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... truth; she was a slim girl, of very graceful figure, with small features and large blue eyes, which were merry in the picture, but looked as if they could be sad also. I had studied this attractive shape attentively; yet Victoria's suggestion seemed preposterous, incongruous—I had nearly said improper. A moment later it ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... deaf child that differs from that maintained by sensible mothers toward their other children. They often set up a different standard of conduct and of obligation for the afflicted child. His brothers and sisters are taught to always defer to his wishes; even to the extent of yielding to improper and selfish demands on his part, and conceding that they have no rights where he is concerned. He is not required to perform the little duties demanded of the other children. He is given privileges which the ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... even able men, he dealt only in the conventional. Not in his wildest youth could he have wrecked or injured himself for a woman; women, for him, occupied their conventional place in the scheme of things, and had no allure beyond the conventionally proper and the conventionally improper—for, be it remembered, vice has its beaten track no less than virtue and most of the vicious are as tame and unimaginative as the plodders in the high roads of propriety. Still, Lockyer had associated ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... in the time of Hippocrates. To him we are indebted for the classification of diseases into sporadic, epidemic, and endemic, and he also separated acute from chronic diseases. He divided the causes of disease into two classes: general, such as climate, water and sanitation; and personal, such as improper ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... a council, Curio began to deliberate on the general welfare. There were some opinions, which advised by all means an attempt to be made, and an attack on Varus's camp; for when such sentiments prevailed among the soldiers, they thought idleness was improper. In short, they said, "that it was better bravely to try the hazard of war in a battle, than to be deserted and surrounded by their own troops, and forced to submit to the greatest cruelties." There were some who gave their opinion, that ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... already exceeded the proportion of notes in the preceding pages, it would be improper, even if the importance of the remaining matter were more considerable than it is, to hazard farther commentary. The reader will find, as, indeed, he will naturally expect, that the condition of the vessels, &c. did not admit of much more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... roughly: "You must not lie here; get up and go home!" The sleeper woke with a quick start, rubbed his eyes, looked round, and fixed them upon the policeman so haughtily that that discriminating functionary probably thought that it was not from sheer necessity that so improper a couch had been selected, and with an air of greater respect he said, "You have been drinking, young man,—can you find your ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and his priests, and to such violations of the Sabbath. What disciples hast thou now? Where are they all gone? Thou are silent! Speak out, seducer! Speak out, thou inciter of rebellion! Didst thou not eat the Paschal lamb in an unlawful manner, at an improper time, and in an improper place? Dost thou not desire to introduce new doctrines? Who gave thee the right of preaching? Where didst thou study? Speak, what are the tenets ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... interior. The present would have been a good opportunity for me to have visited that chief, and I felt strongly inclined to do so, as he had expressed dissatisfaction respecting my treatment by the Chiboque, and even threatened to punish them. As it would be improper to force my men to go thither, I resolved to wait and see whether the proposition might not emanate from themselves. When I can get the natives to agree in the propriety of any step, they go to the end of the affair without a murmur. I speak to them and treat them as rational beings, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... sent her spy. That maid has to keep a watch on me and inform her mistress where I am and with whom. My aunt very likely guessed that I was with you, and thought it improper, especially after the sentimental scene she acted before you this afternoon. Anyhow, it's time we were ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... club should be used on the green. There is no law to enforce the use of the putter, but even when the idea sometimes occurs to a player that it would be best to use his mashie on the green in particular circumstances, he usually rejects it as improper. On a steep incline it pays very well to use a mashie, for length in these circumstances can often be judged very accurately, and, the ball having been given its little pitch to begin with, does not then begin to roll ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... yielded to an impulse of indignation very excusable in the eyes of any person whatever acquainted with my position here. Even so, I had said nothing improper and had confined myself within the limits of language conformable to my age and education. (I must have mentioned somewhere in the course of these memoirs that of the sixty-five years I have lived I passed more than ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Gilbert, my townsman, and the father of Janet. It must have been he who had arrived in the travelling-carriage. He was acquainted with the Alpine Club man, and they were talking of me. Proper or improper, I listened with all ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... and resemblance of genius in Chaucer and Boccace, I resolved to join them in my present work, to which I have added some original papers of my own, which, whether they are equal or inferior to my other poems, an author is the most improper judge, and therefore I leave them wholly to the mercy of the reader. I will hope the best, that they will not be condemned; but if they should, I have the excuse of an old gentleman, who, mounting on horseback before some ladies, when I was present, got up somewhat heavily, but desired of the ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... to Roland an awkward silence. As if he had said something improper, the marquises and counts began to drift from the room, till only Bombito was left. Roland regarded him with some apprehension. He was looking larger and ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... go into the business on my own account? That is by no means an improper question. In fact, I might have expected it. Some have, no doubt, considered it a settled thing that I fell in love with the bright-eyed beauty, before mentioned, or with the pink-cheeked; but I beg that such fancies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... above the Church?" exclaimed the Inquisitor. "Why, fool, it is through the Church that you have a Bible; but it is not fit that the laity should possess it, for they can only, as we have evidence that you and others have done, make a most improper use of it. Therefore it is a prohibited book, and yet you dare to acknowledge that you have both possessed one and studied it. Ay, you have done so, and to your own utter destruction ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... your interest in behalf of my poor brother, I thank you," said the trembling girl, drying her eyes, and rising with dignity; "but such language addressed to me, surely, is improper." ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... perished in the field, and an infinite number were made prisoners, while Boadicea herself, fearing to fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her life by poison. Nero soon after recalled Paulinus from a government where, by suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper to compose the angry and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... with this subject, but not generally known, it may not be improper to refer to an occurrence as early as the year 1797, 98. About this period General Miranda was in the United States. He formed an acquaintance with Generals Hamilton, Knox, and other distinguished Americans. To these gentlemen he communicated his project of revolutionizing ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... absent; then stand thou in his place and do the needful.' And Utanka, thus addressed, said unto those women, 'It is not proper for me to do this at the bidding of women. I have not been enjoined by my preceptor to do aught that is improper.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in these last minutes of life. The row of medicine bottles, all useless now for practical purposes, represents to his fevered eyes the topography of the scene where the girl used to come running to meet him. "I know, sir, it's improper,"—I ought not to talk this way to a clergyman, my mind isn't right, I'm dying, and this is all ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... She is placed between the upper and nether stress of the vicious propensities of white and black men. And if her sins are greater, is it not because her temptations are greater also? The following quotation from a distinguished Southerner is significant; "There was little improper intercourse between white men and Negresses of the original type in the period before emancipation (after the creation of the Mulatto class)."[41] Every time a Negro woman is indicted on this score some ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... doing of things wrong in themselves or made wrong by force of opinion, shuns observation: the former courts it. The disorderly act is in many instances harmless enough in itself, and the evil lies in doing it in an improper place and at an improper time. Hence it is that good students, who would scorn to stoop to vice, so often suffer themselves to be led to the commission of an act of disorder. We may even go to the extent of admitting that occasionally college disorder is not without ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... Hammer, is highly improper, and in flagrant violation to the established rules of evidence," said the judge. "You must confine yourself to proof by this witness of what she, of her own knowledge and experience, is cognizant of. Nothing ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... is natural, and not at all improper," replied Lord Castlewood, standing a moment for change of pain, which was all his relief. "Indeed, I expected you to ask me that before. But, Erema, I have also had to ask myself about it, whether I have any right to answer you. And I have ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... mature persons, are satisfied with amusements of this kind, so as to use them simply as trials of skill. A monied stake is usually proposed, as the object to be obtained. This general attachment of a monied victory to cards is productive frequently of evil. It generates often improper feelings. It gives birth to uneasiness and impatience, while the contest is in doubt, and not unfrequently to anger and resentment, when it ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... "It is unbecoming between white men with all those natives looking on." Leonard's legs trembled very much, and his voice wavered between high and low tones without any attempt at control on his part. "Restrain your improper violence," he went on mumbling rapidly. "I am a respectable man of very good family, while you . . . it is regrettable . . . they all say so ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... As it would be improper to attempt to maintain the same degree of heat in any structure, when the external temperature is below the freezing-point as may be permitted if it were 10 or 15 above freezing, we would advise from 50 by night to 60 by day, for the stove and Orchid-house. As many plants, ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... preserved by the Use of SPECTACLES adapted to suit every variety of Vision by means of SMEE'S OPTOMETER, which effectually prevents Injury to the Eyes from the Selection of Improper Glasses, and is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... parts within the prepuce clean, but they can not or will not do it. Complete and proper removal of the covering to the glans takes away all the cause of disturbance. Dr. Sayre takes a more pronounced position on this subject than the majority of those who have discussed his paper. An improper performance of a surgical procedure is no argument against the operation, but rather against the operator. For the reasons I have given, I am in favor of the radical application of the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... should, sir. I am but the son of poor parents, and may have been tempted to some things that are improper. My mother, too, I was her only support. Well, the Lord will pardon it, if it were wrong, as I dare say it might have been. I think I should have drunk less and thought more, but for this affair—perhaps it is not yet ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the minds which had now adopted and transformed it. The Jews, for instance, like other Orientals, had a figurative way of speaking and thinking; their poetry and religion were full of the most violent metaphors. Now to the classic mind violent and improper metaphors were abhorrent. Uniting, as it did, clear reason with lively fancy, it could not conceive one thing to be another, nor relish the figure of speech that so described it, hoping by that unthinkable phrase to suggest its affinities. But the classic mind could well conceive ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Use of SPECTACLES adapted to suit every variety of Vision by means of SMEE'S OPTOMETER, which effectually prevents Injury to the Eyes from the selection of Improper Glasses, and is extensively ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... soul stirred within him to a noble rage. His was a threefold protest—as a citizen of a State he fondly hoped had been free, as an author, and as a reader. As a citizen he protested against so unnecessary and improper an interference. It is not, he cried, 'the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitring of a bishop, that will make us a happy nation,' but the practice of virtue, and virtue means freedom to choose. Milton was a manly politician, and detested with his whole soul grandmotherly legislation. 'He who is ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... the animals or vegetables were better then than they are now. I dare assert too, in defiance of the favourers of the ancients, that Homer's hero Achilles was both a brute and a scoundrel, and consequently an improper character for the hero of an epic poem; he had so little regard for his country, that he would not act in defence of it, because he had quarrelled with Agamemnon about a—; and then afterwards, animated by private resentment only, he ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... also a grant from the states. I have written back to say that, as to the latter, I am much vexed if my course of conduct is still obscure, amid if it is not known at Rome that not a penny has been exacted from my province except for the payment of debt; and I have explained to him that it is improper both for me to solicit the money and for him to receive it; and I have advised him (for I am really attached to him) that, after prosecuting others, he should be extra-careful as to his own conduct. As to ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... perhaps, are no better acquainted with him than I am. Upon your first perusal of this poem, you have taken notice of some words which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to say refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not to introduce into English prose, so I hope they are neither improper, nor altogether inelegant in verse; and, in this, Horace will ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... factor is of first importance. This will be found in most cases to be gastric disturbance from the ingestion of improper or indigestible food, and in such cases a saline purgative is to be given, probably the best for this purpose being the laxative antacid, magnesia; or if the case is severe and food is still in the stomach, an emetic, such as mustard ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... not think the subjects discussing worthy of being canvassed. The bad effects produced by disguised self-love and an observing disposition, were not softened by a natural simplicity of manner, which, without being improper on any great occasion, rendered it impossible for me to bend to the graces of the court, or to the charms of ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... cheque,' and a crossed cheque cannot be cashed direct, but must be paid into an account at a bank. So you see you will have the signature of Miss Tucker, proving that she has been paid her bill by means of this cheque; and it is obvious that by crossing the cheque, should it be lost and made an improper use of, there would be no difficulty in tracing through ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.
... said thoughtfully. "I always notice that people find it very easy to believe what they want to believe, and you see I'm not in the least popular. Miss Ellicot, for instance, considers me a most improper person." ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of life of the society, he is admonished (ermahnt) by the elders; and if he does not amend his ways, expulsion follows; and here as elsewhere in the communities I have visited, they seem vigilantly to purge the society of improper persons. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the Aristotelian school. He maintained that it was improper to speak of the "form of a hat," because form "est la disposition ext['e]rieure des corps qui sont anim['e]s," and therefore we should say the "figure of a hat," because figure "est la disposition ext['e]rieure des corps qui sont inanim['e]s;" and because ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,—sometimes using very improper words. The fact is, they make ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fluidity of American social life makes it equally impossible for the library to withstand the pressure that is brought to bear on it here. To yield is in its case right and proper and a failure of response would be wrong and improper. ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... those who have avowed themselves regardless of right and wrong; but I must warn you against another, and a far more dangerous class, who professing the most refined delicacy of sentiment, and boasting of invulnerable virtue, exhibit themselves in the most improper and hazardous situations; and who, because they are without fear, expect to be deemed free from reproach. Either from miraculous good fortune, or from a singularity of temper, these adventurous heroines may possibly escape with what they call perfect innocence. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... pollution from heavy industry, emissions of coal-fired electric plants, and transportation in major cities; industrial, municipal, and agricultural pollution of inland waterways and sea coasts; deforestation; soil erosion; soil contamination from improper application of agricultural chemicals; scattered areas of sometimes intense radioactive contamination; ground water contamination ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... However, I should not have been the less ready, had it been in my power, to have aided you in procuring employment in some bureau here. But a stranger as I am, unconnected and unacquainted, my solicitations on your behalf would be as ineffectual as improper. I should have been happy to have been able to render you this service, as I am sincerely concerned at the circumstance which has placed you in ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... to you, if you think proper to make them publick; and certainly they will have their Use. The Character of Shamela, will make young Gentlemen wary how they take the most fatal Step both to themselves and Families, by youthful, hasty and improper Matches; indeed, they may assure themselves, that all Such Prospects of Happiness are vain and delusive, and that they sacrifice all the solid Comforts of their Lives, to a very transient Satisfaction of a Passion, which how hot so ever it be, will be soon cooled; and when cooled, will afford ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... fault, escaped censure. Her father was ignorant of her improper speech. Emily forgot it, and it was not Claude's place to reprove his sisters, though to Lily he spoke as a friend. It passed away from her mind like other idle words, which, however, could not but leave an impression on those ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Lunges or on an Engagement of Feint in Disorder, of when finding yourself so disordered as not being able to parry, you must of necessity have recourse to volting in order to avoid the Thrust; but to do it at an improper time, as some do, is very dangerous, by reason of the Facility of parrying it, it being a Figure in Fencing which gives the least Strength, Extention, of Swiftness to a Thrust; besides that presenting the Flank and Small of the Back, the Adversary, in order to hit these Parts, has ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... assumed in waltzing, and I tell you, my friends, that such a position tends, in a greater or less degree, to develop the lower nature of sexes. It cannot be otherwise. It is in perfect accordance with nature. I have heard girls express utter innocence of having any improper emotion aroused by the waltz, but I do not believe this to be strictly true of any girl. If it is, I am sorry for that girl, for she has a ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... of a voter is that, in the ordinary state of things, he should be able to vote. A body of citizens is asking that a sex be admitted to franchise when it is known to all that a large part of that sex would at every election find it physically impossible, or improper, to go to the polls. Suffragists say: "No women need vote who do not wish to; but they have no right to hinder us." Is this the Individualism of Democracy? It is the Individualism of Anarchy. It is not the rule of the majority. It is class rule with a vengeance; ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... strive against it as they may, the tune drags slower and slower; the poem has become a spiritless jingle, at once dismal and trivial. Take the poor thing out into the fresh air again and revive it with a fife and drum; stay it with flagons and comfort it with apples, for it is sick of improper feeding. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that the Heathen would get possession of the Name: and therefore, in their copies of the Scriptures, they wrote it in the Samaritan character, instead of the Hebrew or Chaldaic, that the adversary might not make an improper use of it: for they believed it capable of working miracles; and held that the wonders in Egypt were performed by Moses, in virtue of this name being engraved on his rod: and that any person who knew the true pronunciation would be able to do ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Mr. Thurston, in a conference with Judge Ferris, general counsel of the Exposition Company, brought the said action of the Commission to his attention and insisted that the Exposition Company should at once take immediate steps to put an end to the excessive and improper issuance of free passes. Mr. Thurston was assured by Judge Ferris that he would immediately consult with the exposition officials and endeavor to secure such action on their part as would meet the views and wishes of ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... then he disappeared, was rarified; For 'tis improper speech to say he died: He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew. 'Tis sin produces death; and he had none, But the taint Adam left on every son. He added not, he was so pure, so good, 'Twas but the original ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... has indeed served the Chinese well. It is the brightest spot in the whole administration, being absolutely above suspicion, such as attaches to other departments of the state. Attempts have been made from time to time to gain admission by improper means to the list of successful candidates, and it would be absurd to say that not one has ever succeeded; the risk, however, is too great, for the penalty on detection ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... not the King of England place improper constructions on this extensive shipment of troops from the different ports of France for her West India possessions? Might it not be fancied that it involved secret designs on the British settlements ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the—creature, shared it with her, and once, when the Grant twins wriggled and Patty secured a better view, once, Mark shifted his hand on the page so that his thumb touched that of his pretty neighbor, who did not remove hers as if she found the proximity either unpleasant or improper. Patty compared her own miserable attire with that of the hated rival in front, and also contrasted Lawyer Wilson's appearance with that of her father; the former, well dressed in the style of a gentleman of the time, in ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that he might feel it consistent with his public duty to endeavour to procure for me the same treatment with reference to liberation as had been extended to other prisoners who had suffered the loss of a similar limb at the same prison before me. This was considered improper language, and the letter was suppressed. When called before the authorities on this occasion, I asked them to point out all the objectionable passages, in order that I might know what to omit in writing it another time. But this ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... and both they and Edmund had really serious ideas of duty and of the means of carrying them out. In London they had heard sermons which had widened and deepened their views, but they had done no work, as the relation with whom they lived thought it impossible and improper for young ladies there. Thus they were exceedingly desirous of doing what they could to help the place where their lot was cast, and they set forth to reconnoitre. First, they found their way to the school, which stood on the border of the village green, a picturesque thatched cottage, ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Melbournes, Mackintoshes, etc., etc.—and was introduced to the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford [1],—an unexpected event. My quarrel with Lord Carlisle (their or his brother-in-law) having rendered it improper, I suppose, brought it about. But, if it was to happen at all, I wonder it did not occur before. She is handsome, and must have been beautiful—and her ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... liable to be misunderstood—this, according to the popular idea, is the sum of the evils arising from heedlessness or ignorance. It does not seem to be known that, even where the sense is perfectly clear, a sentence may be deprived of half its force—its spirit—its point—by improper punctuation. For the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... cynics ought to have considered themselves confuted by the fait accompli, but they refused to do so, and, led by Sir Roderick Ayre, had been known to descend to laying five to four against the permanency of the engagement—an obviously coarse and improper proceeding. ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... did not possess it—thus, again, there was no possibility of concealing the date of our first knowledge of each other. And then she adverted, with a blush, to the extreme recency of this date. To wed immediately would be improper—would be indecorous—would be outre. All this she said with a charming air of naivete which enraptured while it grieved and convinced me. She went even so far as to accuse me, laughingly, of rashness—of imprudence. She bade me remember that I really even ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... material and important Instances, and complied with others in a mere formal ostentatious Way; and were therefore guilty, in the Divine View, of the Breach of the whole Law; for mere Obedience upon improper Motives to a Part of the Law, while at the same Time they allow'd themselves in the known and deliberate Violation of more weighty Commands, was no true or proper Obedience at all: and, in this Sense, the Jewish ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... large, whence it is that those who assent to the position, that the Bible is the word of God, and who profess to rest their hopes on the Christian basis, contentedly acquiesce in a state of such lamentable ignorance. But it may not be improper here to touch on two kindred opinions, from which, in the minds of the more thoughtful and serious, this acquiescence appears to derive much secret support. The one is, that it signifies little what a man believes; look ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... she'll hold off it,' the earl insisted because of his desire that way. He signified in mutterings that the thing was improper and absurd, a piece of sentiment, sickly senility, unlike Lord Dannisburgh. Also that Percy had been ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for the letter. Lopez said that he had destroyed it, not thinking that such a document should be preserved. Then he went on to explain that it had had reference to the election, and that he had thought it to be highly improper that Fletcher should write to his wife on that or on any other subject. "It depends very much on the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... I dare to suggest anything so improper?" Lysias hastily interposed. "The girl of whom I speak may be sixteen years old; she is innocence itself incarnate, and she looks like a bud ready to open perhaps in the morning dew that may succeed this very night, but which as yet is still enfolded in its cup. She is of Greek ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... problems to come to light in the past four years has been improper hazardous waste disposal. The Administration has moved on three fronts. First, we proposed the Oil Hazardous Substances and Hazardous Waste Response, Liability and Compensation Act (the Superfund bill) to provide comprehensive authority and $1.6 billion in funds to clean up abandoned ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... separated by mental, moral, physical, and social qualities as the Irish, Huns, Copts, and Druids are. Their location on the Dark Continent, their surroundings, and the amount of light that has come to them from the outside world, are the thermometer of their civilization. It is as manifestly improper to call all Africans Negroes as to ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... issues: erosion results from inadequate flood controls and improper land use practices; irrigated soil degradation; desertification; air pollution in Buenos Aires and other major cities; water pollution in urban areas; rivers becoming polluted due to increased ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was as truly in just the fatal condition for the awful contagion we call 'panic' as it would have been from improper food and other causes, for some other epidemic. The Greeks, who always had a reason for everything, ascribed the nameless dread, the sudden and unaccountable fear, which bereaves men of manhood and reason, to the presence of a god. It is simply ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... trace his first yielding to temptation, possibly his first commission of crime, to an infringement of the Sabbath. But this would be an argument against any holiday at all. If his holiday had been Wednesday instead of Sunday, and he had devoted it to the same improper uses, it would have been productive of the same results. It is too much to judge of the character of a whole people, by the confessions of the very worst members of society. It is not fair, to cry down things which are harmless in themselves, because evil-disposed ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... Strictness, than was observed by the National Clergy; that they fought his Cause, and did not question, but by his Help to obtain the Victory. The Leaguers and Cavaliers said on the other Side, that Lay-men, especially Soldiers, where improper Judges in Matters of Religion; that themselves were honest Men, loyal Subjects, who fought for the establish'd Church, their King and Country; and as to their Adversaries, that they were under a Parcel of Hypocritical Rascals, that under the Mask of Sanctity carried on an open ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... the Western people apparently were centered in the south-flowing Mississippi; they seemed to have at the time little in common with the East. So long as Spain held the mouth of the river, many Western leaders thought it not improper that the West should ally itself with that power; when our government finally purchased the Spanish claim, the Western men had no further complaint. See Roosevelt's treatment of the Spanish conspiracy, in his Winning of the West, III., ch. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... decreases: all men shall praise him who is obedient to the law; but he who is disobedient shall be punished by the guardians of the law as a man wanting in true taste, and uninstructed in the laws of bridal song. Drunkenness is always improper, except at the festivals of the God who gave wine; and peculiarly dangerous, when a man is engaged in the business of marriage; at such a crisis of their lives a bride and bridegroom ought to have all their wits about them—they ought to take care that their ...
— Laws • Plato
... had any right in the room, nor in cadet barracks, for that matter. Prescott's first swift conclusion was that some scoundrel was there for wholly improper purposes. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... There is a private entrance on Twenty-fourth street, used mainly by gentlemen, another on Twenty-third street, and still another on Broadway. Each is in charge of a door-keeper, whose duty it is to exclude improper personages. Along the Twenty-third street side are suites of private apartments on the ground floor, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of Templecombe station; "for the next six months or so those children will assail her in public with demands for an improper story!" ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... redemption. As I came home, I thought I had never begun any period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little festivity was not improper. I had a dinner; and invited Allen and Levet.' Pr. and Med. p. 198. In 1783 he again had 'a little dinner,' and invited four friends to keep the day. Croker's Boswell, p. 739. At Streatham ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Captain Pottinger here sat up so suddenly that she seemed to slip through her sombre and precise enwrappings with an exposure of the real Mrs. Pottinger that was almost improper. Her high color deepened; the pupils of her black eyes contracted in the light the innocent Prosper had poured into them. Leaning forward, with her fingers clasped on her bosom, she said: "Did you tell this ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... not, Julia. I consider it my duty to prevent you from making an improper match: and, as his Majesty's representative here, I cannot allow you to ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... the account of the Nile and its inundations, which, it is hoped, will not be deemed an improper or tedious digression, especially as the whole is an extract from Johnson's translation. He is, all the time, the actor in the scene, and, in his own words, relates the story. Having finished this work, he returned in February, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... what men desire; but if they arrive at them by improper ways, they should not continue to hold them. Poverty and low estate are what men dislike; but if they arrive at such a condition by improper ways, they should ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... repeat, I contest. And, acting upon the authority of the will, I shall proceed to take charge of my ward as well as of her estate. And as I think this house, under all the circumstances, a very improper place for her to remain, I shall convey her without delay to my own home. Mrs. Rocke, I believe I requested you to see to the packing ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... you sent Giaccomo up to see?" asked the newcomer. "Don Vigilio has just come down and he is quite alone. It is improper." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Clarke and the army had brought him into trouble, now divided his life between London and a large, extravagantly ordered and extremely uncomfortable country house where he occupied himself with racing, whist, and improper stories. He was remarkable among the princes for one reason: he was the only one of them—so we are informed by a highly competent observer—who had the feelings of a gentleman. He had been long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... her face, and on it was something of outraged dignity. I bent toward her eagerly. "Forgive me! I never wanted to give you pain, Helena. Forget my improper question." ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... into a new man, like unto God, truly justified and holy in his sight; even as Adam originally was in perfect harmony of heart with God, showing true, straightforward confidence, love and willingness. And his body was holy and pure, knowing naught of evil, impure or improper desire. Thus the whole life of the man was a beautiful portrait of God, a mirror wherein God himself was reflected; even as the lives and natures of the holy spirits the angels are wrapped up in God and represent true knowledge of him, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... intercourse by letter passed through the hands of captain Hutchinson. If the letters contained nothing of evil tendency, they were suffered to pass; but if they contained any thing which the agent deemed improper, they ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... is highly improper for you to stay at Trevellian Castle a day, under the circumstances,' she said, as if Sir Jack, as my promised husband, had been suddenly transformed into a monster, who would work ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... have not a just value for the age in which they live, let us consider in what the refinement of a language principally consists: that is, "either in rejecting such old words, or phrases, which are ill sounding, or improper; or in admitting new, which are more proper, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... Maintenon was always amiable and sympathetic, kind and thoughtful, never irritating, crossing, or censuring the king; wonderfully judicious, modest, self-possessed, and calm, she was irreproachable in conduct and morals, tolerating no improper advances. Although the characteristics and general deportment of Mme. de Montespan were entirely different from those of Mme. de Maintenon, the latter entertained true friendship for her benefactress, displaying ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... not be improper to mention ourselves, what the nature of the kindnesses is, which we confer on our poor neighbours, and the labouring people, lest it should be surmised, by any body, that we are lavishing away wealth that is not our own. Not that we fear either your honoured husband or ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... dubiously; she would have liked to go in, except that she was certain it would be improper. Helen had never had much respect for the proprieties, however, being accustomed to rely upon her own opinions of things; and in the present case, besides, she reflected that no one would ever know ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... reign of martial law in this city, in 1862, as it was not then necessary, and because its execution was intrusted to improper and obnoxious men. But now I am inclined to think it necessary not only here, but everywhere in the Confederacy. Many farmers refuse to get out their grain, or to sell their meat, because they say they have enough Confederate money! money ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... years, in London; the other was that there sat enthroned behind the counter a splendid mature Arlesienne, whom my companion and I agreed that it was a rare privilege to contem- plate. There is no rule of good manners or morals which makes it improper, at a cafe, to fix one's eyes upon the dame de comptoir; the lady is, in the nature of things, a part of your consommation. We were there- fore feee to admire without restriction the handsomest person I had ever seen give ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... were so obnoxious to their early European visitors.' The priests complained to Captain Erskine of the way the missionaries spoke of them, on which he says, 'It is perhaps sufficient to remark that, even if the Wesleyans were guilty (which I do not believe) of all the improper conduct attributed to them by M Calinon, it has been occasioned entirely by the obtrusion of the Society to which he belongs into ground previously occupied by others, who would undoubtedly, had their efforts remained unopposed or unassisted, soon have numbered the whole of ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Mr. B.'s verses until they appeared in print, and there is certainly one thing in them which I consider highly improper. I allude to the personal references to myself by name. To confer notoriety on an humble individual who is labouring quietly in his vocation, and who keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena (though vae mihi si non evangelizavero), is no doubt an indecorum. ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... pronounced, detailing the former proceedings of the Inquisition, and specifying the offences which he had committed in teaching heretical doctrines, in violating his former pledges, and in obtaining by improper means a license for the printing of his Dialogues. After an invocation of the name of our Saviour, and of the Holy Virgin, Galileo is declared to have brought himself under strong suspicions of heresy, and to have incurred all the censures and penalties which are enjoined against delinquents of ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... Fergus; it is very rude and ungrateful to the aunts. None of us like having to stay here and lose our holiday; but it is very improper to say so in their own house, and I thought you were so ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pretty little thing is a Monterey girl, they would all pack up their wardrobes to go there and get married. It would be a great pity, for with your mistaken ideas of comforts, with your love of coal-fire and raw beef-steak, together with your severe notions of what is proper or improper, you would soon spoil the place, and render it as stiff and gloomy as any sectarian village of the United States, with its nine banks, eighteen chapels, its one "a-b-c" school, and its immense stone jail, very considerately ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... favorable reception to the petition forwarded to Caracalla and delivered to him, in which the inhabitants begged that Asper be not sent them as proconsul), the emperor offered him a terrible affront in rejecting him. It was reported to the prince that Asper had made some improper remarks, and moreover he affected to think that old age and disease constituted a second reason for relieving him of his duties, and therefore he delivered Asia into the keeping of Faustus, a man who had been overlooked in the order of allotment by Severus. As the time ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... is again divided into the cogitative and the technological. The former decides whether a thing should be done or not, and discriminates between the proper and the improper in human actions and qualities. It is important as a guide to the happiness of the soul because it instructs the appetitive power in reference to those things which are subject to the will, and directs it to aim at the good and to ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... Clutton had spent some months in Toledo, and the journalist's answer made him look at him with more interest; but he felt it would be improper to show this: it was necessary to preserve the distance between the hospital patient and the staff. When he had finished his examination he went on ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... "That too much drinking makes one very improper for the acts of Venus, and gives his reasons. Athenaeus reports the same thing in that passage, where he makes mention of the drunkenness of Alexander the Great, a vice," says he, "which, perhaps, was the cause of his little inclination ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... tolerated in the same place, have constantly ended in the corruption of the theatre; of which the auxiliary entertainments, that have so barbarously supplied the defects of weak action, have, for some years past, been a flagrant instance; it may not, therefore, be here improper to shew how our childish Pantomimes first came to take so gross ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... Loper, Larrabel, Crackaby, Stickler, and Company—feeling that it would be improper to remain after the host and hostess were gone; that it would be equally wrong to offer to go with them, and quite inappropriate to witness the home-coming,—they took themselves off, but each resolved to flutter unseen in the neighbourhood ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... this one with much willingness," replied Preciosa; "and be sure, senor, you bring me the others you speak of, but on condition that there is nothing improper in them. If you wish to be paid for them, we will agree for them by the dozen; but do not expect to be paid in advance; that will be impossible. When a dozen have been sung, the money for a dozen ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... in series, or in multiple, or in series multiple so as to combine their actions in causing current to flow through an external circuit. We may therefore refer to a battery of so many cells. It has, however, become common, though technically improper, to refer to a single cell as a battery, so that the term battery, as indicating necessarily more than one cell, ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... greatest Italian artists, & he could have walked & talked with Dante, & probably did. The date of another is 1343—he could have known Boccaccio & spent his afternoons wandering in Fiesole, gazing down on plague-reeking Florence & listening to that man's improper tales, & he probably did. The date of another is 1463—he could have met Columbus & he knew the magnificent Lorenzo, of course. These are all Cerretanis —or Cerretani-Twains, as I may say, for I have adopted myself into their family on account of its ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... against Darcy. And I don't, for one moment, wish you to think that I am trying to get advance information to use in his favor. This is simply in the matter of justice, the ends of which I know you wish to serve, as I do myself. So if I ask anything improper please stop me. But since you will testify about these wounds, and since you have already pretty well described them to the newspaper reporters, it can do no harm to repeat ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... It may not be improper to state here that the little patrimony to which Mr. Mueller became entitled upon the decease of his father was devoted to the purposes of charity and religion, in accordance with the principle of action indicated on page 67. This fact is not mentioned by Mr. M., but has come to the knowledge ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... longer needed. It will be seen that the Director is responsible for the selection of the employes, directly for those whom he recommends for appointment, and indirectly for those selected by the Civil Service Commission, as he permanently retains in the work. If, then, improper persons are employed, it is wholly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... which they hold out; they balance themselves a short time on the advanced foot, and then step back, turning half round, first to one side and then to the other, the whole line then moves slowly in a circle round the musicians, who form the centre, and who all join in the dance. There is nothing improper nor immodest in this exhibition, but on the contrary, from its slowness and the regularity of its movements, it is extremely pleasing and elegant. Another dance is performed by women only, who form a circle round the drummers, and occasionally sing a lively chorus; one advances, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... shoulders is, as yet, an idea as shocking to the pretty ladies of this country as waltzes were to our grandmothers. Nay, there was not even to be found a native milliner equal to the task of marking out that mysterious line which divides the prudish from the improper; so that the Collet-monte faction have been in despair. As it turned out, their anxiety on this head was unnecessary; for we found, on entering the ball-room, that, with the natural refinement which characterises this noble people, our bright-eyed partners, as if by inspiration, had hit off ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... argument to compel compliance with the demands; the whole concluding with the characteristic remark that, "as long as negotiation can be honorably protracted, it is a resource to be preferred, under existing circumstances, to the peremptory alternative of improper concessions or inevitable collisions." In other words, the United States Government did not mean to fight, and that was all Great Britain needed to know. That she would suffer from the closure of the American market was indisputable; but, being assured ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... considered as sufficient grounds, more especially as resembling the steps by which the Portuguese were led to their grand discovery of the route by sea to India. Our collection forms a periodical work, in the conduct of which it would be obviously improper to tie ourselves too rigidly, in these introductory discourses, to any absolute rules of minute arrangement, which might prevent us from availing ourselves of such valuable sources of information as may occur in the course of our researches. We have derived the principal materials of this and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... it—namely, "the greatest or least possible degree." If it did, "the thickest parts of his skull," for example, would imply small room for brains; "the thinnest," protect them ill, if there were any. (6.) It is improper to say, "The simple word becomes [the] comparative by adding r or er; and the superlative by adding st or est." The thought is wrong; and nearly all the words are misapplied; as, simple for primitive, adding for assuming, &c. (7.) Nor is it ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... such passages were of more frequent occurrence, this argument might be called a circular one. But the proportion of such passages as I at least should exclude is so small, and the difference between them and the rest is so marked, that no improper begging of the question can be justly charged. The plays in the Globe edition contain just a thousand closely-printed pages. I do not think that there are fifty in all, perhaps not twenty—putting scraps and patches together—in which the Shakesperian touch is wanting, and I do ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... which were carried a pair of stockings and strong, copper-toed boots, three very wrinkled apples, a bunch of wilted marigolds, and a cake of maple-sugar. The small person clutched this bundle in her arms and held up her short skirts in a highly improper manner, while she went splashing through the puddles singing ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... it highly improper,' said the tea-kettle, who was kitchen singer, and half-brother to the tea-urn, 'that a rich foreign bird should be listened to here. Is it patriotic? Let the market-basket decide what ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... child the Great Spirit will notice it and reward you for it. Should an orphan ever cross your path be kind to him and treat him with tenderness, for this is right. Parents must constantly teach their children morality and reverence for their Creator. Parents must also guard their children against improper marriages. They, having much experience, should select a suitable match for their child. When the parents of both parties have agreed, then bring the young pair together and let them know what good their parents have designed ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... pieces of music within, awakened old associations in Keith's mind, and sent him back to his boyhood at Elphinstone. And under an impulse, which he could better justify to himself than to her, he did a very audacious and improper thing. Taking off his hat, he spoke to her. She had been so absorbed that for a moment she did not comprehend that it was she he was addressing. Then, as it came to her that it was she to whom this stranger ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... had annulled an election on the ground of illegality, and had held a second. The Lower House found that this was improper, on the ground that the right of deciding in matters concerning the election of representatives belonged from ancient times to the House of Commons alone. They declined to confer on this subject with the Privy Council, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... deliberately taught to us as children under the guise of thrift, which if it be a virtue is certainly one that the saints have overlooked. We are constantly called on to strike a balance between what are the proper needs of life and what is an improper concentration of attention upon ourselves. Waste of money, like waste of any other energy, is a sin; but it is a very nice question as to what is waste. I think it a pretty safe rule to give expenditure the benefit of the doubt when ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... feeling, and believing himself to be under the peculiar guidance of the Gods, who at all times admonished him by a divine warning voice when he was in danger of doing anything unwise, inexpedient, or improper, he believed that the Gods constantly manifested their love of and care for all men in the most essential manner, in replying through oracles, and sending them information by sacrificial signs or prodigies, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... to infer concerning the home habits of a nation of men who so resignedly allow their bodies to be poisoned and maltreated in traveling over such an extent of territory as is covered by our railroad lines? Does it not show that foul air and improper food are too much matters of course to excite attention? As a writer in "The Nation" has lately remarked, it is simply and only because the American nation like to have unventilated cars, and to be fed on pie and coffee at stopping-places, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... stationed in any way in or about the magazine, embracing all stationed within the magazine screen, put on the magazine dress and shoes, and on no account have any thing metallic about them, and that no improper articles are introduced. He will also see that all the articles required for sweeping and removing loose powder are at hand, and that those operations are performed ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... was talking, I began to think of Dennis O'Moore, and how he groaned, and to wonder whether it was true that he would get better, and whether it would be improper to ask the captain, who would not be likely to humbug me, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and would be the surest resources as a substitute for the wild animals which they had so unfortunately destroyed for the sake of their skins. Their fondness for hunting might still be gratified if they would prevent their young men from hunting at improper seasons of the year. But to do this effectually, it would be necessary that they should find a certain support in their villages in the summer season. That the proposed addition to their annuities would enable them to purchase the domestic animals necessary to commence raising them on a large scale. ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... uncle by courtesy only, but Patty had failed to inform the Dowager that the title was not his by natural right. She knew well what the result would be. It is quite proper to have luncheon with an uncle; and quite improper with even the oldest and ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... that I shall not lose sight of you, and if at any time proof of improper relationship should be obtained, I ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... and varnish. These two dryers should not be employed together, since they counteract and decompose each other, forming two new substances—acetate of zinc, which is a bad siccative, and sulphate of lead, which is insoluble and opaque. The inexperienced ought here to be guarded against the highly improper practice of some artists, who strew their pictures while wet with acetate of lead, or use that substance in some other mode, without grinding or solution; which, though it may promote present drying, will ultimately effloresce on the surface of the work, throw ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... saying so. I don't care so much for what happens, now. I am right glad I got here to save you from that——" he paused, searching for a word which would be descriptive and yet not improper in the presence of a lady, but his vocabulary was not rich and he said at last, "that snide. But I should have done that to him anyhow; so don't cry on that account. Mattie, will you tell me good-by?" ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... down the approach. Like a schoolboy caught in the master's orchard, he at once retreated and unceremoniously hurried us back—and just in time, for no doubt, if the old Coorg had detected him thus exhibiting his daughter the day after he had married her, he would have mightily disapproved of so improper a proceeding. This incident shows how utterly Jung despised those prejudices which enthralled his bigoted father-in-law. He was, in fact, the most European Oriental, if I may so speak, that I ever met with, and more thoroughly unaffected and unreserved in his communication with us than is the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... pieces of information, that on several evenings, just at dusk, a girl who wore a boarder's hat had been seen to leave the garden and hurry up the road, returning about five minutes later to dodge with great caution inside the gate. Such a proceeding was manifestly irregular and highly improper. Miss Poppleton, at first indignant at the very idea that one of her pupils could be guilty of so great an indiscretion, nevertheless felt it her solemn duty to investigate the matter thoroughly, and either expose the ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... in the fretful way he does of his treatment and his condition? A great man would have shown his appreciation of all the money that was being spent on the needs for his existence and for the better security of his person. It ill becomes him to complain of improper treatment after all the trouble and commotion he has caused at one time and another. Indeed, a great man would bear the burden of captivity with equanimity and praise the men who gave him the opportunity of showing how a great soldier could carry ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... never spoken to him much about her. He should not think she was much in prisoner's thoughts. Naturally the prisoner had been depressed by the death of his friend. Besides, he was overworked. Witness thought highly of Mortlake's character. It was incredible that Constant had had improper relations of any kind with his friend's promised wife. Grodman's evidence made a very favorable impression on the jury; the prisoner looked his gratitude; and the prosecution felt sorry it had been ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... she returned, "I should not object to remaining in the house, were I but assured that my daughters should be in no danger of meeting improper persons." ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... said to him: "What art thou endeavoring to do? In this vain attempt dread the reproof of the censorious! A brute can never learn speech from thee; do thou learn silence from him." That man who reflects not before he speaks will only make all the more improper answer. Either like a man arrange thy speech with judgment, or like ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... telling you something he did not want everybody to hear. He swore constantly, and used nasty language; but he had a way with him which I have seen him use to ministers of the gospel without their seeming to take notice of the improper things he said. There was something intimate in his treatment of every one he spoke to; and he was in the habit of saying things, especially to women, that had all sorts of double meanings—meanings that you couldn't ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... whole Wesen were ravishing. I was on the point of shouting out 'Wallah!' as heartily as the natives. The eight younger Halmeh (i.e., learned women, which the English call Almeh and think is an improper word) were ugly and screeched. Sakna was treated with great consideration and quite as a friend by the Armenian ladies with whom she talked between her songs. She is a Muslimeh and very rich and charitable; she gets 50 pounds for a ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... was signed by Benjamin Franklin (president of the society), then in the last weeks of his life. The petition was read, and then the Quaker memorial was called up. The excitement in the house was very great. The movement was denominated an improper interference with state rights, or at least an act of imprudence; and Judge Burke, of South Carolina, declared that if these memorials were entertained by commitment, the act would "sound an alarm and blow the trumpet of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... of the reign of Claudius, his wife Messalina having become jealous of the influence his niece Julia, daughter of Germanicus, had over Claudius her husband, succeeded in getting rid of her by imputing to her improper intimacy with Seneca, then a married man. For that reason Seneca was banished ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... Most of the men cared far more about a drop of whiskey than about any more carnal vice, and most of the girls were good pals with each other, men were only there to act with: even if the act was a private love-farce of an improper description. What's the odds? You couldn't get excited about it: not ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... in question the motives of Mr. Morris, to which he did full justice, but merely affirmed that he was a bad adviser. He gave me to understand that the representatives of America had not always been faithful to the popular principle, and even went into details that it would be improper for me to repeat. I have mentioned this opinion of Mr. Morris, because his aristocratical sentiments were no secret, because they were mingled with no expressions of personal severity, and because I have heard them from other quarters. He pronounced ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com
|
|
|
