"Blameless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the north wind lay the land of old, Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed With joy's bright raiment, and with love's sweet bread,— The whitest flock of earth's maternal fold, None there might wear about his brows enrolled A light of lovelier fame than rings your head, Whose lovesome love of children and the dead All men give ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... Frederick's unwilling slaughters—more heart's blood dyeing the wheels of this unconscious Juggernaut of female devotees! Yet there he sat, looking so pathetically regretful, as if he felt himself the blameless, helpless instrument of fate to work the sentimental woe of all womankind! Agatha was ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... cross, accept the cleansing blood, reckon yourself dead to the thing that was wrong, and then rise up and count yourself as if you were another man and no longer the same person; and then, identifying yourself with the Lord Jesus, accept your standing in Him and look in your Father's face as blameless as Jesus. Then out of your every fault will come some lesson of watchfulness or some secret of victory which will enable you some day to thank Him, even for your ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... eighteen. Being intended for the theatre, it has never been sharpened or pointed but, except for this it is a real mala vita knife. They told me there would be nothing to fear so long as I continued the life of blameless respectability which had no doubt become habitual to me—or some nonsense of that kind—but that if I should happen to be caught by the police in doubtful surroundings and searched, even this knife, in spite of its arrested adolescence, might ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... above.— So when the Mother, bending o'er his charms, Clasps her fair nurseling in delighted arms; 375 Throws the thin kerchief from her neck of snow, And half unveils the pearly orbs below; With sparkling eye the blameless Plunderer owns Her soft embraces, and endearing tones, Seeks the salubrious fount with opening lips, 380 Spreads his inquiring hands, and ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... Seven Forests; and Radoub, the serjeant from Paris, a man of hearty oaths, hideous, heroic, humoursome, of a bloody ingenuity in combat. And the same hand which described the silent sundown on the sandy shore of the bay, and the mysterious darkness of the forests, and the blameless play of the little ones, gives us the prodigious animation of the night surprise at Dol, the furious conflict at La Tourgue, and, perhaps most powerful of all, the breaking loose of the gun on the deck of the Claymore. You may say that this is only melodrama; ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... that capacity until 1842 when he suspended publication. He was regarded by his contemporary, William Wells Brown, as a terse and vigorous writer and an able and eloquent speaker well informed upon all subjects of the day. "Blameless in his family relations, guided by the highest moral rectitude, a true friend to everything that tends to better the moral, social, religious and political condition of man. Dr. Ray," says Brown, "may be looked upon as one ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... attitude and her-feelings is told frankly in several places by three different persons—the goddess of wisdom, Telemachus, and Penelope herself. Athene urges Telemachus to make haste that he may find his blameless mother still at home instead of the bride of one of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... as representing the gates of hell to guilty souls, and to the innocent being merely wood, stone, and iron, sufficed equally to shut the blameless in, and I doubt if the reflection suggested was ever of any real comfort to them. For one thing, the captives could not read the inscription; it seems to have been intended rather for the edification ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... thy past, and myself, who am thy future, I should seem to thee utterly of no account, and light in the balance, weighed against what I asked thee to resign. I say, thou blamest me unjustly, when I am absolutely blameless, unless indeed it be a fault, to love thee, for which not I, but thyself, or rather the Creator is to blame, for making thee exactly what thou art. Who can blame the butter for melting in the flame, or make it a crime in the ocean, for rising in tumult and agitation at the ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... he is not free from faults, and had still a hard work to do in overcoming them; and, because he has for a time forgotten that he had this work to do, shall we cast him off as a reprobate? Remember it was his former blameless conduct that made us expect more from him than another: the Power that guided him then can restore him again. But we have sadly forgotten that great duty, of bearing one another's burdens, which he taught us so sweetly ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... likely to have forgotten it. During one of the anarchist scares a stupid policeman had arrested him, and when I intervened the man was just on the verge of being committed for life. France trembled in one of her panics, or, rather, Paris did, and demanded victims. This blameless little workman had indeed contributed with both material and advice, but any fool might have seen that he had done this innocently. His assistance had been invoked and secured under the pretence that his clients were promoting ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... or a democrat!' Such were my father's teachings; and he practised them, for he had the kindest and sweetest heart in the world. He was aided in all by my mother, a perfect saint upon earth; and if I have since that time given way to rude passions, it was not for wanting a good example in the blameless lives of this true ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... this supreme moment when Death stared him in the face, and his spirit hovered on the edge of Infinity? "Vengeance is mine!—I will repay, saith the Lord!" His first love!—so lightly won—so cruelly betrayed! Tears rushed to his eyes,— he thought of the wrong done to a perfectly pure and blameless life—a wrong he had forgotten in all ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... been something peculiarly savage and ungenerous in the breast of Mr Sharp, one would have thought, to induce him to suspect a man whose character was blameless. But he did suspect that man on the faith of that almost imperceptible touch of discomposure, and his suspicion did not dissipate although the man came boldly and ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... opened gayly. Newly arrived Frenchmen are apt to be so unused to the familiar society of unmarried girls, that the most innocent share in it has for them the zest of forbidden fruit, and the most blameless intercourse seems almost a bonne fortune. Most of these officers were from the lower ranks of French society, but they all had that good-breeding which their race wears with such ease, and can unhappily ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... share is greater. He may plead that he was obliged to do these things by the nature of his office. The persecutors of the Jews cannot even shelter themselves under such a plea as that. Indeed, if they be blameless, then is the Spanish Inquisition blameless also; the Auto-da-Fe being, in the last result, certainly the result of the civil power. In short, the charges and recommendations of the Jews against their persecutors are of such enormity as to make them, ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... gone by. A more vigorous schooling was needed if Stephen La Mothe was to be saved from folly. "If you must go girl-drunken as every sentimental boy does sooner or later, do not go blind-drunk or sense-drunk, but keep your eyes open and your mind clear. Mademoiselle de Vesc may be blameless or she may not: that is what we are here to prove. You call her weak, but the greatest folly of a foolish man is to despise weakness. Contempt of weakness has lost more battles than strength of arms has won. Charles the Bold ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... remains for me," said the Governor, "to congratulate your Honour on the high office to which it has pleased Her Majesty to appoint you, and to wish you long life and health to fulfil its duties, with blameless credit to yourself ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Rotheram at York. These prelates either did not believe Richard had murdered his nephews, or were shamefully complaisant themselves. Yet their characters stand unimpeached in history. Could Richard be guilty, and the archbishops be blameless? Could both be ignorant what was become of the young princes, when both had negotiated with the queen dowager? As neither is accused of being the creature of Richard, it is probable that neither ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... with the wood loud with lions at night and that dark red solitude beyond. They say that the hermit St. Securis, living there among trees, grew to love them like companions; since, though great giants with many arms like Briareus, they were the mildest and most blameless of the creatures; they did not devour like the lions, but rather opened their arms to all the little birds. And he prayed that they might be loosened from time to time to walk like other things. And the trees were moved upon the prayers of Securis, as they were at ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... dears, that I was wholly blameless in this unhappy breaking and entering, and so, mayhap, you may find excuse for me. For now, though I could have gone, I would not. Her glorious beauty, heightened beyond compare by the passionate outburst, held me spellbound. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion, and a firm league of peace for the future." With a man of his magnanimous temper, conscious no doubt that he had himself been far from blameless, such a result was to be expected. But it was certainly well that he had made no deeper impression than he seems to have done upon "the handsome and witty gentlewoman." One would like to know whether she and Mistress Milton ever met, and what they said ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... he continued breathlessly, "there is no word upon it concerning the palliation of a triple crime! Shall we invoke the king in the blameless name of the holy One, and demand forgiveness in the name of Him who forgiveth no sin? Furthermore, thou didst give the writing into my hands, and in obedience to thy command, I acted as I thought best. My ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... fortify, preserve, and defend his life to the utmost of his power is the dictate of natural reason in everyone that is born. Which right is accorded in such measure that in defence thereof men have been held blameless in taking life. And if this be allowed by the laws, albeit on their stringency depends the well-being of every mortal, how much more exempt from censure should we, and all other honest folk, be in taking such ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... this empty theatre. The place was "The Pacific Camp Grounds, the Christian Seaside Resort." Thither, in the warm season, crowds come to enjoy a life of teetotalism, religion, and flirtation, which I am willing to think blameless and agreeable. The neighbourhood at least is well selected. The Pacific booms in front. Westward is Point Pinos, with the lighthouse in a wilderness of sand, where you will find the lightkeeper playing the piano, ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... salt into it. To conceal all traces of his mishap he stirred in the salt as quickly as possible. The circumstance came to my knowledge afterward, and this unintentional addition of salt to the lime excited my liveliest curiosity, for the whitewash was not only blameless, but hard as cement, and would ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... will send you a force sufficient to do battle with me, it is well: we will abide by war's arbitrament, nor quarrel with the consequence; but if in your eyes that aid is insufficient, look to yourself. How shall you longer be held blameless before that fatherland which honours you and in which ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... his sermon on that Sunday morning. He talked to his congregation and in his talk said that it was a mistake for people to think of their minister as a man set aside and intended by nature to lead a blameless life. "Out of my own experience I know that we, who are the ministers of God's word, are beset by the same temptations that assail you," he declared. "I have been tempted and have surrendered to temptation. It is only ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... Germans. French civilisation signifies practically, certainly in the New World, little save ballet-girls, billiard-tables, and thin boots: English civilisation, little save horse-racing and cricket. The latter sport is certainly blameless; nay, in the West Indies, laudable and even heroic, when played, as on the Savanna here, under a noonday sun which feels hot enough to cook a mutton-chop. But with all respect for cricket, one cannot help looking back at the old games of Greece, and questioning whether man has ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... conception was in sin, A sacred bathing thou hast had; And, though thy birth unclean hath been, A blameless babe thou now art made. Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; Be still, my dear; sweet ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... country had clearly but just occurred to her, yet she was talking of it, at the end of a minute, as her favourite dream. He didn't believe in it, but he pretended to; this helped her as well as anything else to treat him as harmless and blameless. She was so engaged, with the further aid of a complete absence of allusions, when the highest effect was given her method by the beautiful entrance of Kate. The method therefore received support all round, for no young man could have been less formidable than the person to the relief of ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... an elderly gentleman, too, of irreproachable character and antecedents; no Damocles' sword of exposure was swinging over his bald but blameless head; he had no disasters to fear and no indiscretions to conceal. He had not been intended for melodrama, with which, indeed, he would not have considered it a respectable thing ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the fidelity and diligence have been absolute,—if all has been done which, under the circumstances, could be done,—I doubt not they are blameless. But I fear there are very few who can absolutely say this; and for those who cannot say it at all, their guilt is proportionate to the demands which the momentous nature of the subject made ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... his faith are stated. 'Herein'; that is in the faith and hope just spoken of. He will not say that these make him blameless towards God and men, but that such blamelessness is his aim, which he pursues with earnest toil and self-control. A Christianity which does not sovereignly sway life and brace its professor up to the self-denial ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... history) on this fateful day, January 20th, 1922, nor to detail the horrors that attended the destruction of the enemy's force of occupation. Historians are agreed that the Germans must be held blameless for firing on the city, since they naturally supposed this daybreak attack upon their own lines to be an effort of the American army and retaliated, as best they could, with ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... guarded against his subtlety, adding, that, rather than admit she had done wrong, she would lie in prison all the rest of her life. The next day Gardiner came again, and kneeling down, declared that the queen was astonished she should persist in affirming that she was blameless—whence it would be inferred that the queen had unjustly imprisoned her grace. Gardiner farther informed her that the queen had declared that she must tell another tale, before she could be set at liberty. "Then," replied the high-minded ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... contemplation, when he roamed across and across the room. But now I must leave his raptures and himself to his own pen, having got him inmate of a household where by ordinary he might have lived a blameless three years. If, however, he had done that, I don't suppose the singular memoirs which follow would ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... clergyman) and communicated first and last through automatic writing, a considerable exposition of the spiritualistic creed, the larger part of which could have been preached from any liberal pulpit with no other effect on the hearers than to win their assent to blameless commonplaces—or, possibly, put them ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... the doctor, taking off his bonnet, and giving to full view a bald low head and flat broad face, with high ears, wide lipless mouth, round eyes, and deep arched lines above the projecting eyebrows, which altogether made Nello's epithet "toad-faced" dubiously complimentary to the blameless batrachian. "Riding from Peretola, when the sun is high, is not the same thing as kicking your heels on a bench in the shade, like your Florence doctors. Moreover, I have had not a little pulling to get through the carts and mules into the Mercato, to find out the husband of ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Nameless And all-creative spirit of the Law, Uncomprehended, comprehensive, blameless, Invincible, resistless, with no flaw; So full of love it must create for ever, Destroying that it may create again, Persistent and perfecting in endeavour, It yet must bring forth angels, after men - ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... no degree, nor could be said to have studied at either of the universities, he was ordained priest by Dr Sherlock, the Bishop of London (celebrated for his Sermons and his "Trial of the Witnesses"), on his father's curacy of Rainham, Essex. Here he continued diligent in his pastoral duties—blameless in his conduct, and attentive to his theological studies. He seemed to have entirely escaped from the suction of the stage—to have forsworn the Muses, and to have turned the eye of his ambition away from the peaks of Parnassus to the summit of the ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the Blameless Prince, Faithful to the Widowed Queen, Loved,—as oft before and since Truth and zeal have ever been,— His no pedigree of pride, His no name of old renown, Yet in honour lived and died Nature's nobleman, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the opening gateways of the morn. No so; no guiding light would Punch extinguish, Or chill true champion of the toiling crowd; But wisdom at its kindliest must distinguish Between true guides and tricksters false as loud. The blameless King his headlong knights upbraided In kindly grief for "following foolish fires," False flames that in mere dun marsh-darkness faded, Leaving lost votaries to its mists and mires; And here's an ignis fatuus, fired by folly, And moved by violence as fierce as blind; The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... know what this world is. I love Dot next to you, and would not give her to a man whom I believe would not be true to her, or make her happy. I know every circumstance of Peter's connection with that woman, and he is as blameless as man ever was. Such as it was, it was ended years ago, and can never give him more trouble. He is a strong man, and will be true to Dot. She might get a man who would make her life one long torture. She may be won ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... makes frequent mention of them in his 'Life and Times.' Thomas Foley, when appointed high sheriff of the county, requested Baxter to preach the customary sermon before him; and Baxter in his 'Life' speaks of him as "of so just and blameless dealing, that all men he ever had to do with magnified his great integrity and honesty, which were questioned by none." The family was ennobled in the reign of ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... all of whom are blameless, or, at least, who behave well and are generally honorable, Napoleon[51104] finds a few whose servility is perfect, unscrupulous individuals ready for anything that an absolute prince could desire, like Bishops Bernier and De Pancemont, one accepting a reward of 30,000 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of the optimates, and whom he pronounces to have been the most moderate and disinterested of all the great men of his day,—"indeed," he adds, "there is perhaps no character in the history of the Commonwealth which commanded more general esteem, or obtained more blameless distinction in political life." Yet Catulus was one of those men with whom Caesar came earliest in collision, each as the representative of his party on vital points of difference. Our historian's estimate of the life, labors, purposes, and character of Pompeius is singularly correct, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... course." For Dysart was one of those types known in society as a "dancing man." He also led cotillions, and a morally blameless life as far as the more ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... not to practice it for the sake of the reward, but because nature and reason, i.e., God, absolutely (entirely apart from the pleasurable results of virtue) require us to be good. True uprightness is more than mere legality, for even when outward action is blameless, the motives may be mixed. "I desire men to be upright without paradise and hell." Religion seeks to crown morality, not to generate it; virtue is earlier and more natural than piety. In his definition of the relation between religion and ethics, his delimitation ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... bitterness in his brooding, for he was a singularly generous young man, and there was no vindictiveness mixed with the memories of his failures among those whose cordial respect for his father had been balanced between that blameless gentleman's ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... might be forever, with that privilege of the higher ingenuity. She put it all off on Fanny, and the dear thing herself might henceforth appraise the quantity. More and more magnificent now in her blameless egoism, Maggie asked no questions of her, and thus only signified the greatness of the opportunity she gave her. She didn't care for what devotions, what dinners of their own the Assinghams might have been "booked"; that was a detail, and she could think without wincing of the ruptures and ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... contumely. I pity the Count Cenci from my heart; 35 His outraged love perhaps awakened hate, And thus he is exasperated to ill. In the great war between the old and young I, who have white hairs and a tottering body, Will keep at least blameless neutrality.' 40 [ENTER ORSINO.] You, my good Lord Orsino, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... daughter, I have shown you all your mother's wretched past, and now I shrink from the last blotted pages. Hitherto my record was blameless, but even now take care how you judge the mother, who if she has gone astray did it for you, all for you. For some time I had known that Cuthbert was living in reckless extravagance, that the affairs of the father-in-law were dangerously involved, and that without ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... impression of the young monarch's personal qualities had gone abroad; and though the disadvantageous reports might be aggravated by ill-will, it would be inferred that the person on whom they fastened was by no means blameless. For all these reasons, Dr. Beaumont feared that the present ostensible form of a republican government would imperceptibly slide into the restoration of what the laws, institutions, habits, and character of England required, a limited ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... shaking thought came. Since her recollection of the blameless fool that first night in Sydney she had sought the bookshops for the text of "Parsifal" and had found it, a ragged copy for twopence, in a second-hand bookshop near the station. She had been puzzled when Parsifal, trying to free himself from the enchantment of the ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... certainly blameless in the matter: she diffuses sweetness and light in many tedious assemblies; she is true to her principles; but for all that I cannot agree with her ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... interest about the present proceedings, that they illustrate with curious closeness, amid so much that is different, the way in which great spiritual prerogatives grew up in the Church. They may have ended disastrously; but at their first beginnings they were usually inevitable, innocent, blameless. Time after time the necessity arose of some arbiter among those who were themselves arbiters, rulers, judges. Time after time this necessity forced those in the first rank into this position, as being the only persons who ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... may be caught making the same speech twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus, a certain lecturer, after performing in an inland city, where dwells a Litteratrice of note, was invited to meet her and others over the social teacup. She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new occupation. "Yes," he replied, "I am like the Huma, the bird that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... have named, and many other blameless idolaters of Nature, have worshipped her in a truly religious spirit, and have taught us their religion. All our great poets have loved the Minnesingers of the woods—Thomson, and Cowper, and Wordsworth, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... voice to thy joy: it is an impious thing to exult over the dead. They are the victims of heaven's righteous law, and I was but the instrument of divine vengeance. Tell me now which of the women in the house have dishonoured me, and which of them be blameless." ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... of beauty, of knowledge, and of love. And so, for the moment, solitude was sweet to him, leaving him free of petty cares and anxieties—he moving forward, ignorant of the gossip which in point of fact surrounded him, innocent of the feminine plots and counterplots of which his blameless bachelorhood was at once the provoking cause and the object; while in his eyes—though of this, too, he was ignorant—dwelt increasingly reflection of that mysterious and lovely light which, let obstinately purblind man deny it as he may, lies ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... the sentimental ones at least—gone through some similar small drama, and been a little harrowed by it. But though we feel as if there were some sort of naughtiness in us, we are quite blameless, and on the whole rather to be pitied. We are the dupes of a very human craving, and one which seems modest in its demands. What! a mere square of painted canvas, a few pencil scratchings, a bare mechanical photograph, something no rarer than a reflection in a mirror! That is ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... with the universe and ourselves with God, has its fascination and {45} glamour—a fascination which is not ignoble on the face of it. The modern founder of Pantheism, Benedict Spinoza, was a man of pure and saintly character, a gentle recluse from the world, lovable and blameless. Nevertheless, we have no hesitation in avowing our belief that the glamour of Pantheism is utterly deceptive; that those who set foot on this inclined plane will find themselves unable—in direct proportion to their mental integrity—to resist ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... history noble and fair natures, that by the silent teaching and unconscious example of their inborn purity, star-like constancy, and great devotion, do carry the world about them to further heights of living than can be attained by ratiocination. But these, the blameless and loved saints of the earth, rise too rarely on our dull horizons to make a rule for the world. The law of things is that they who tamper with veracity, from whatever motive, are tampering with the vital force of human progress. Our comfort and the delight of the religious ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... It is a blameless existence one leads. I think I would soon grow very good, for there is no temptation to be anything else. One can't be very frivolous when there is no one to be frivolous with; nor can one backbite and be unkind, for there is no provocation. As for ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... him guilty of high treason, in that he had taken arms against the Parliament. They sentenced their royal master to death—and seven days ago London saw the spectacle of judicial murder—a blameless King slain by the minion of an ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Can she, like Wisdom, bid thy soul sustain 250 Its post of duty in a life of pain! Can she, like meek Religion, bid thee bear Contempt and hardship in a world of care! Yet let not my rebuke decry, In all, her blameless witchery, Or from the languid bosom tear Each sweet illusion nourished there. With dignity and truth, combined, Still may she rule the manly mind; Her sweetest magic still impart 260 To soften, not subdue, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... matter of history, is an exceedingly old and respectable habit, a reversion, in fact, to the method of breathing of the fish and the frog. "To drink like a fish" is a shameful and utterly unfounded aspersion upon a blameless creature of most correct habits and model deportment. What the poor goldfish in the bowl is really doing with his continual "gulp, gulp!" ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... last bags of ballast were emptied over the side with little effect. The blow was tremendous, and the wonder is that the passengers escaped with their lives. An inquiry was held, and the Giant itself was proved blameless. The valves for allowing the escape of gas had never been properly closed! Thus, from the very moment when they left Paris, the gas was pouring out at the top; and it was only through the enormous quantity used that they succeeded in ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... represented as the arch-villain of the whole piece, through seven long years hounding down a blameless Order—from whom up to the very moment of their arrest he had repeatedly received loans of money—solely with the object of appropriating their wealth. Yet after all we find that the property of the Templars was not appropriated ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... involuntary carrying out of unworthy aims that have been cherished in thought and the loss of vigour for real achievement, due to too easy an indulgence in blameless aspiration, are fairly obvious ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... same to her or not, the deep despair of the daughter, who had not been in time to bid her father farewell, had not been in time to receive his blessing, after many years of anger, which had borne heavily on the head of the blameless young woman, was so evidently sincere, and produced such a deep impression on everyone, that her stepmother also ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha. No man, no woman, had ever been found who surpassed these in righteousness and piety. When, therefore, Jupiter, looking down from heaven upon the earth, saw that only a single pair of mortals remained of the many thousand times a thousand, both blameless, both devoted servants of the gods, he sent forth the North Wind, recalled the clouds, and once again separated the earth from the heavens and the heavens ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... may be that of any one of us, my lads," he observed. "I do not ask how they were prepared to meet their God, but how are you prepared? Even if you are living pure and blameless lives, have you made peace with Tim according to the only way He has offered to reconcile you to Himself? Have you a living faith in the atoning blood of Jesus shed for you? He wishes you to be reconciled ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... well as a dignitary of the Church. Every one in Devonshire knew the name of Froude, if only from "Parson Froude," no credit to his cloth, who appears as Parson Chowne in Blackmore's once popular novel, The Maid of Sker. But the Archdeacon was a man of blameless life, and not in the least like Parson Froude. A hard rider and passionately fond of hunting, he was a good judge of a horse and usually the best mounted man in the field. One of his exploits as an undergraduate was to jump the turnpike gate on the Abingdon ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... East the dragon's reputation is not always blameless. For it figures in some disreputable incidents and does not escape the sort of punishment that tradition metes out ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... her inner soul was to her husband an unknown tongue. Of her spiritual struggles and joys and exaltations she did not speak to him or to any other human being. They were her secret with her God and Saviour. Yet her husband stood to her on a pinnacle, as rounded in character, blameless in life, and perfect in his ministrations. Almost angelic he seemed to her when he stood in the chancel, and in his deep, melodious voice sang all the parts of the service that the church rules allowed to ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... heard of your blameless and constant disposition through patience, which not only appears in your outward conversation, but is naturally ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... convents a proper will to make. His father afterwards accepted his son's doctrine of salvation without hesitation, and with the full conviction that it was right. But remarks of his such as we have quoted, were consistent with a perfectly blameless demeanour in regard to the forms of conduct and belief as prescribed by the Church, with an avoidance of criticism and argument on ecclesiastical matters, which he knew were not his vocation, and above all with ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... fastidiousness the children took for fine- ladyism in Alda they treated unmercifully, and resented in their own fashion her complaints, and Wilmet's enforcement of regard to her tastes: nor was Lance always blameless in the tricks ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the Knights of the Round Table there present pulled, one after another, at the sword, but none could stir it from its sheath. 'Alas! alas!' cried the damsel in great grief, 'I thought to find in this Court Knights that were blameless and true of heart, and now I know not where to look for them.' 'By my faith,' said Arthur, 'there are no better Knights in the world than these of mine, but I am sore displeased that they cannot help me in ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... with us a blameless existence during the whole winter. In the summer we took him down with us into the country. We thought the change of air would do him good; he was getting decidedly stout. Alas, poor Thomas Henry! the country was his ruin. What brought about the change I cannot say: maybe the air was too bracing. ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... from her, nor the star of her glory grown pale! For he was a man, indeed, cast in nature's happiest mould. True-hearted, and brave, and generous, and sincere; alive to every kindly impulse, and fresh at the core to the last, he lived among his native hills the blameless life of the shepherd and the poet; and on the day when he was laid beneath the sod in the lonely kirkyard of Ettrick, there was not one dry eye amongst the hundreds that lingered round his grave. Of the other sweet singer, too—of Allan ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... then, indicated by the sighs and symbolized by the winds, is not under the dominion of AEolus in the AEolic caverns, but of the aforementioned two lights, which are not only blameless, but benevolent in killing the enthusiast, inasmuch as they cause him to die to every other thing, except the absorbing affection; at the same time, they, being closed and concealed, render him unquiet, and being open, they will tranquillize ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... the midst of his snares, hear on every hand his doctrines proclaimed by men of blameless lives "transformed as the ministers of righteousness," and are allured by the pleasure, place and power of ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... the jeers and curses of superstitious men, were to suffer the cruelest of deaths for no crime at all, unless the traffickings of Emlyn with Thomas Bolle, in which Cicely had small share, could be held a crime. Well, thousands quite as blameless were called on to undergo that, and even worse fates in the days which some name good and old, the days of chivalry and gallant knights, when even little children were tormented and burned by holy and learned folk who feared a visible or at least ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... Fitzherbert[1075] is a member. We were so weary of our old King, that we are much pleased with his successor; of whom we are so much inclined to hope great things, that most of us begin already to believe them. The young man is hitherto blameless; but it would be unreasonable to expect much from the immaturity of juvenile years, and the ignorance of princely education. He has been long in the hands of the Scots, and has already favoured them more than the English will contentedly endure. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... hand, speaking of the princess' sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone, and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and listening to the sound ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Ta-te-psin," She replied, and her cheeks were aflame with the bloom of the wild prairie lilies. "Tanke[AK], is the White Chief to blame?" said DuLuth to the blushing Winona. "The White Chief is blameless," she said, "but the heart of Winona will follow Wherever thy footsteps may lead, O blue-eyed, brave Chief of the white men. For her mother sleeps long in the mound, and a step-mother rules in the teepee, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... the assertions of persons, who, by their own showing, tortured and murdered men and women convicted of no crime but that of bearing the name of Christ, as to those of these martyrs, whose characters they acknowledged to be blameless, and who sealed their testimony with the last and highest attestation of sincerity—their blood. Considered merely as a historian, whether, as regards means of knowledge, or tests of truthfulness, by every ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... to Dante's inquiring glance, Beatrice explains that those compelled to sin against their desire are ever held blameless ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... penitents, no doubt," she answered, "but they, having obtained by their sanctity an extraordinary reputation, induced others, whose lives had been blameless, to follow their example, and in time the desert became colonised with recluses, who rivalled each other in the intensity of their devotions and the ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... hide the grief that could not be stifled. The passion of shame, however, lasted but for a moment. In less time than I am in writing these heads, he was again himself, and with a modest fortitude that was exceedingly comely, he acknowledged who he was, adding, that he feared his blameless disgrace entailed effects which he could not hope to remove, and therefore it was his intention to resign his commission. The earl, however, requested that he would do nothing rashly, and that he should first allow him to try what could ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... sick-beds, would be daily witnesses of these benign results; and hence would be strongly tempted to aim at giving to them permanence, by embodying them in rites and ceremonies, recurring at stated periods. All this, as it was in course of nature, so was it blameless, and even praiseworthy; since some of its effects, in that rude state of society, could not but be salutary. No reflecting person, however, can view without sorrow the abuses which rose out of thus formalising sublime instincts and disinterested movements of passion, and perverting ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... pleased Millborne; it was highly creditable, and far better than he had hoped. He was curious to get a view of the two women who led such blameless lives. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... so? Ye who know the secrets of a fashionable world, ye, who have seen laid bare, the hearts full of secrets of pampered ladies, and pretentious dames, say, are they so guileless, so spotless, so blameless as society would have them? Is it only the poor seamstress, or the working-girl that is human enough to err? Is it only the breast which heaves under tatters and rags, that bears the impress of the trembling hand that has struck the "mea culpa" in its woe? O, I doubt it, I for one deny ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... oak-tree from the trunk, and the minds of the committee ran about the tree like monkeys. The interest was endless. A quiet delegate who had just returned from a visit to the tiny town completely blasted one part of the argument by asserting that the hospital bore a blameless reputation among the citizens; but new arguments were instantly constructed by the adherents of the idea of discipline. The committee had plainly split into two even parties. G.J. began to resent the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... the present King was blameless in the matter of Lord Torrington's marquisate. It was inherited from a great-grandfather, who may have had an ordinary, possibly even a beautiful nose. But he attempted no explanation. His anxiety made him disinclined for ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... consecrate for sanctify, and it probably conveys a better meaning, because devotion to the will of God is prominent, rather than the holiness of personal character. Devotion to God's will is the primary thought suggested by the word; but of course it involves a blameless and spotless character. Thus we might read the words, "For their sakes I consecrate Myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth." Through the dim twilight the Lord clearly foresaw what was awaiting Him—the agony and bloody sweat, the cross and passion, the foresakenness and travail of ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... to the contrary," Jim said, grinning. "It has been stated that you called a perfectly blameless lady Judkins, and said awful things ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... to reappear. She could not grasp it. She was conscious that the thing was in the air, so to speak, but she could not even assume its existence. She could only take her stand by her husband, and point to his blameless life and say, "You are all the world to me; I trust you and believe in you with all my heart and soul." And in this her wisdom was justified, for at last the calumny died down, as all calumnies must die, for lack ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... proper outcome of Protestant Christianity. Nor is this true only of the wilder and more eccentric sects. It is true of graver and more weighty thinkers also; so much so, that a theological school in Germany has maintained boldly 'that fornication is blameless, and that it is not interdicted by ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... we should kick him out of society and trample him under foot—always provided, gentlemen, you prove he was born black at his own particular request. If he had no word to say in the matter, of course he is blameless for his color, and is entitled to the same respect that other men are who properly ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... the most mild of human beings, could never think of the danger to which they had been exposed without expressing indignation against the lady who recommended such a girl as a fit companion for her blameless ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... and her father," she answered softly. "I am altogether blameless, but if I should be the cause of tearing you ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... not complain of ill health. And pray, was he then of the same austere and blameless habits of ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the one to blame, the only one. If you had not, both of you, been so blameless—so splendidly blameless—I should hardly have let myself sink so deep into blame; but I knew you would never take the last glad step until you had seen the last sad proof that you might take it. Oh, Captain, to-night ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... against him even now. The delay was probably caused by the doctor's silent investigation of his recent life, his daily deeds. He could well imagine the amusement, contempt, and disbelief that would meet the story of his poor, blameless years during which he had played with children, worked in his garden, been friends with the common folk, not from any high motive, but to keep himself from insanity! He had had to use any material at hand, and it had brought ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... in the cupboard and struck a match. Lighting his pipe he nodded good humouredly as if to say, "I quite understand." As a matter of fact, he probably thought, as I did, that this was a familiar case of a man of possibly blameless life who had become subject to that delusion which leads people to believe themselves threatened by mysterious and ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... other passages in the essay On Liberty. But this is not all, nor even the worst. The sentimentalism of "popular" and "advanced" Christianity is turning Jesus Christ into a hero of romance. He is taking the place of King Arthur, of blameless memory; and we shall soon see the Apostles take the place of the Knights of the Round Table. Rancid orators and flatulent poets are gathering to the festival Jesus Christ will make a fine speech for the one set, and fine copy for the other. The professional biographers will cut in for a ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... about to be sent into a scene of temptation. Her great confidence was in Richard, who told her that boys did many more wrong things than were known at home, and yet turned out very well, and that Tom would be sure to right himself in the end. Richard had been blameless in his whole school course, but though never partaking of the other boys' evil practices, he could not form an independent estimate of character, and his tone had been a little hurt, by sharing the school public opinion of morality. He thought Stoneborough and its temptations inevitable, and ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... when her suspicions as to the character of the Sea Hawk had been excited, she could not suppose that he was as guilty as those with whom she found him associated, although she had not believed him altogether as blameless as she should be rejoiced to find that ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... born of flame and wave, Or Gorlois' son, or Uther's, blameless lord, True knight, who died for those thou couldst not save When the Round Table brake their plighted word,— The lord of song hath set thee in thy grace And glory, rescued from the phantom world, Before us face to face; No more Avilion ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Wilfrid had cast her off. Female justice, therefore, said: "You must be unworthy of my brother;" and female delicacy thought: "You have been soiled by a previous history." She had pitied Wilfrid: now she held him partially blameless: and while love was throbbing in many pulses all round her. The man she had seen besieged by passionate love, touched her cold imagination with a hue of fire, as Winter dawn lies on a frosty field. She almost conceived what this other, not sisterly, love might be; though ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
