"Irresponsible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with many painful circumstances, and productive in his mind of some of the acutest sensations of wounded pride that have ever been traced by any pen." It is not necessary to hold Crabbe himself entirely irresponsible for this result. His son, with a frankness that marks the Biography throughout, does not conceal that his father's temper, even in later life, was intolerant of contradiction, and he probably expressed his opinions ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... sinister. As Golaud and Pelleas emerge from the vaults, much use is made in the orchestra of a jubilant figure in triplets (first given out fortissimo by flutes and oboes, over an undulating accompaniment, on page 152, measure 1) which seems to express a certain irresponsible exuberance on the part of Pelleas; it accompanies his light-hearted remarks about the odor of the flowers, the sheen of the water, and the invigorating air, as they come out upon the sunlit terrace. As the scene changes again, a very short ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... the bank and accepted the fluttering charges, then watched with liveliest interest the buoyant figure in the light suit go swinging up the road. There was something tantalizingly familiar in his quick, imperious manner and his brown, irresponsible eyes. In her first confusion of mind she thought he must be the prince come to life out of Mr. Demry's old fairy tale. Then she caught ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... whose love and whose right so much needless agony had been expended, let himself become a disgrace to the very memory of the men who had died for him: if we bear all this in mind, Charles Edward seems to become a mere irresponsible and fated representative of some evil creed; the idol, at first fair-shapen and smiling, then hideous and loathsome, to which human sacrifices are brought in solemnity; a glittering idol of silver, or a foul idol of rotten wood, but without nerves and mind to perceive the weeping ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... number to hold him. He fell again into the hypnotic state from which they could not rouse him then, as it was owing to a mental cause. Dr. M. concluded by showing the importance of this matter being understood by magistrates that they may not punish irresponsible parties. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... insults me. The name is perfectly immaterial. But since he escapes me and she is irresponsible—and punished—I regard as an accomplice of their infamy any man who makes allusion to it with either tongue or pen. And, my dear Varhely, I wish to act alone. Don't be angry; I know that in your hands my honor would be as faithfully guarded as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and thirty days during which 400 men ate and drank and lived at the expense of the National Budget without doing the smallest work for the country—the whole thing inflicted by the Sanitary Board—a purely local and irresponsible body, with its eternal round of red tape. A good thing it is indeed that such a monstrous and intolerable abuse should have been abolished! The only reason it lasted so long is, that it brought in a revenue to the members of the board. To begin with, they filled the inn they kept under the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... carry out to meet the expense of the war gives a chance to save in sums as small as twenty-five cents and makes an investment upon which return of both principal and interest is absolutely guaranteed. Too often colored people have entrusted their savings to wholly irresponsible persons, lost them through the dishonesty of these persons, and in discouragement abandoned all attempts at saving. Today, however, there is no excuse for any man not saving a certain amount of ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... of intellectual faculties capable of lucid exertion for the highest purposes, and yet be so mad that bodily restraint upon him is indispensable. We know that the sane man is responsible for what he does, and that the insane man is irresponsible; but we do not know,—we only guess wildly, at the state of mind of those, who now and again act like madmen, though no court or council of experts has declared them to be mad. The bias of the public mind is to press heavily on such men till the law attempts ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... is rare. Motherhood is painful. Family life is full of trials and quarrels. Virginity is not God's command but his counsel. Marriage is only a concession (1 Cor. vii.). This was the orthodox doctrine of the time. Among the religious heroes of the age not a few were irresponsible from lack of food, lack of sleep, and the nervous exaltation which they forced upon themselves ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... theory of Dr. Ashton's that what Arthur Fenton became was so purely a question of environment as to leave the artist all but irresponsible. This fatalistic view he had laid before his wife with some detail, at once ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... decrees of November 19 and December 15,—roused the apprehensions of most thoughtful men throughout Europe; and their concern was increased by the growing popular effervescence in other countries than France. The British cabinet, as was natural, shifted more slowly than did the irresponsible members of the community; nor could Pitt lightly surrender his strong instinctive prepossessions in favor of peace, with the continuance of which was identified the exercise of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the provinces the change from senatorial to imperial government at Rome was a great gain, inasmuch as it substituted an orderly and responsible administration for irregular and irresponsible extortion. For a long time, too, it was no part of the imperial policy to interfere with local customs and privileges. But, in the absence of a representative system, the centralizing tendency inseparable ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... impossible for the uninstructed mind to grasp the plan or method of this mass of architecture; yet it is unsatisfactory to give it up, with Mr. Henry James, "as an irresponsible, insoluble labyrinth." M. Viollet-le-Duc, with a sympathetic denial of any extreme and over-technical admiration, gives just that intelligible account of the chateau which is a compromise between the unmeaning adulation of its ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... and joyous,—as irresponsible as a young colt freshly turned out to pasture. His sister Laure, now living at Villeparisis with her parents, continued to receive his confidences. He wrote her the most minute details of his solitary ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... the telegraph, telephone, and messenger service. Surely no man knoweth the beginning or the end of the network which is woven over our heads, and which, besides all the useful wires already enumerated, is full of "dead" wires, many of them strung by defunct or irresponsible companies, who would never have been allowed to obstruct the streets if they had not been "competing" for the business. Can there be any doubt that it is the height of folly to continue this work, and that the only rational way of entrusting electric service to incorporated companies ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... drunken, and abusive people; but Anna Akimovna, who had lived in those parts all her life, was constantly recognizing in the crowd her own father or mother or uncle. Her father was a soft fluid character, a little fantastical, frivolous, and irresponsible. He did not care for money, respectability, or power; he used to say that a working man had no time to keep the holy-days and go to church; and if it had not been for his wife, he would probably never have gone ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... any chance smiled at his wife's careless irresponsible chatter, nor laughed at her trivial jests, took the deepest interest in them, and would listen, as if under a charm, by the hour, to subtleties and frivolities that one would never have imagined he would enjoy. Sometimes the faint shadow of a smile ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... are bound to look at him. He may stand at the head of the procession of progress; he may dash himself to pieces fighting for a worthless cause; and by the splendour of his contest draw many to him. More likely he will be like Byron, a wonderful, irresponsible creature, who at one time plumbed the depths, and at another swept the heavens—a creature irresistibly attractive, because he is irresistibly human. Gordon was a personality. His preparatory school master ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... aspirants to the prize,—having the best will of the actresses on whose shoulder the burthen was to lie. I hope they have been quite honest with him—knowing as I do the easy process of transferring all sorts of burthens, in that theatrical world, from responsible to irresponsible members of it, actors to manager, manager to actors, as the case requires. And it is a 'hope deferred' with Chorley; not for the second or third time. I am very glad that he cares no more ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... big step, Johnnie, I'm through with Penton Baxter forever—but I wonder if my new life is to be with you ... you are such an irresponsible, delightful madman ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... respected, to live in peace without humiliations or disturbances. To-night two of the mobilized men said on leaving, 'When we enter Germany we are going to make it a republic!' . . . A republic is not a perfect thing, but it is better than living under an irresponsible monarchy by the grace of God. It at least presupposes tranquillity and absence of the personal ambitions that disturb life. I was impressed by the generous thought of these laboring men who, instead of wishing ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... visited, except by Captain Cook, their first discoverer, and isolated Spanish exploring expeditions; but of late whalers and sandal wood traders, both English and American, had been finding their way among them, and too often acting as irresponsible adventurous men of a low class are apt to do towards those whom they regard ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in some ways," Mrs. Lindley Grant had said on the occasion of the warning; "but, like all drinking men, he is a broken reed, eccentric and irresponsible. No daughter of mine could marry him. I'd rather bury her. And if you want facts Lindley will give ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a great difference to the force of any sentence, whether there be a man behind it, or no. In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corporation, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and robes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But, through every clause and part of speech of a right book, I meet the ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Pharo: from this time on his conduct waxed sunny and genial, as well as irresponsible of the grave duties which had hitherto ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... as "J. London" (the Bishop of London), and the word "beeches" as "breeches." "For what on earth can the Bishop want to see the breeches I wore at Waterloo?" said the Duke; but taking a charitable view of the matter he decided that the poor old Bishop must be getting irresponsible and replied that he was giving his valet instructions to show the Bishop the garments in question, whenever it suited him to inspect them. The Bishop was equally amazed, but took exactly the same view about the Duke as the latter had decided upon concerning ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... the Paymaster, sunny as a schoolboy, irresponsible in leisure hours as the youngest member of the Mess. Perhaps there had been a time when he had not found life an altogether laughing matter. He had an invalid wife; his means were small, and most of his life had been spent at sea. But misfortune seemed to have but tossed a challenge ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... very good and pretty of you to say so, Maria," he said with a certain old-fashioned, stiff gallantry which, while it complimented her, treated her as a much younger and more irresponsible being than he was. As he spoke he took up the hand which lay in her lap and held it for a moment clasped in his. "And I can say you have been all that I could have wished as a wife and mother, you have never once failed me during the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... difficult to find a flaw in, were never wanting on which to ground a fresh absorption of territory. And seeing behind this advance a vast country—almost a continent—which was not merely a great Asiatic Power, but a great European State, under autocratic, irresponsible rule, with interests touching ours at many points, it is not to be wondered at that we watched with anxiety her progress as she bore steadily down ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... Happy, irresponsible days, in which I learned to know and love the Chinese. I saw them now to best advantage, simple, patriarchal, industrious and thrifty, extraordinarily resourceful, and independent of all that their own fields and farm do not supply. I saw the women's activities, and how they picked the ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... things were going in the field, I do not for a moment believe that the accounts of British reverses brought unofficially in to town by the spies were always reliable, nor do I sanction the reckless coming and going of irresponsible men. Alas, no! too bitter have been the experiences of disastrous results brought about by ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans irresponsible? Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... residing much in London and in Antwerp, a meddling, intrusive, and irresponsible kind of individual, whose occupation was gone with the cessation of Flemish trade—had recently made his appearance as a volunteer diplomatist. The principal reason for accepting or rather for winking at his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sway since 1959. Current concerns include: a polarized political environment, a divided military, drug-related conflicts along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on the petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... government and freedom: Persian rule was far less oppressive and cruel. The states and islands subject to Athens had no self-government, no representation; they were at the mercy of the Athenian mob, to be taxed, bullied, and pommeled about as that fickle irresponsible tyranny might elect or be swayed to pommel, tax, and bully them. Thucydides was a great master of prose style, and so could invest with an air of importance all the matter of his tale. Besides, he was the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... said, for instance, that Bernard Shaw was an Irishman, the impression produced on the reader might be remote from my thought and, what is more important, from Shaw's. People might think, for instance, that I meant that he was "irresponsible." That would throw out the whole plan of these pages, for if there is one thing that Shaw is not, it is irresponsible. The responsibility in him rings like steel. Or, again, if I simply called him a Puritan, it might mean something about nude statues ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Brand. She wheedled and whined one moment in the husky tones of Sister Magdalen's late favorite; when dignity was required she became the escaped nun; and in her rage she would burst into the melodramatic frenzy dear to the McMeeter audiences; but Colette, the heedless, irresponsible, half-mad butterfly, dominated these various parts, and to this charming personality she returned. Through his own sad experience this spectacle interested him. He subdued her finally by a precise description ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... name. It has asserted that "no nation can endure half Republic and half Empire" and has "warned the American people that imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." It has characterized the Republican government in the Insular regions as an "indefinite, irresponsible, discretionary and vague absolutism," and Republican policy as a policy of "colonial exploitation." That the American people have believed the Republican administration to have been good and beneficent, is shown by their retaining that party in ...
— "Colony,"—or "Free State"? "Dependence,"—or "Just Connection"? • Alpheus H. Snow
... of the proofs that the supposed murderess was totally irresponsible, because of hereditary idiocy and insanity. Her father had died of drunkenness in a Cincinnati hospital, and her mother went about under the insane hallucination that she was a prophetess. Nancy's conduct and conversations while employed in the wholesale poisoning business ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... If the thing were done properly, both at the 'Varsities and the hospitals, there would be a system of marks and reports just as at schools. You are only boys when you first come up, and you should be treated as boys; instead, you are left free and irresponsible. It ruins dozens of men ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... largest owners of the lines they managed. Fierce competition and cutting of rates brought on utter demoralization among shippers, who could not calculate on the cost of transportation, and great favoritism to localities and individuals by irresponsible freight agents who controlled the rates. Under these influences railway earnings were fluctuating and uncertain. Improvements were delayed and the people on the weaker lines threatened ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... an ingrowing mind. Sure of its own superiority, it took no counsel with antiquity and scorned the advice of its neighbors. It was intent on producing something entirely new and all its own—a purely German Kultur, independent of the past, and irresponsible to any laws except those of Germany's interests and needs. Hence it fell into bad habits of thought and feeling, got into trouble, and brought ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... I had nothing to give them to do. They could just stand around and look on now, for when Curls seriously imitates her sister, and then laughs heartily at her own absurd failure, because her feet are irresponsible, that is the time when you have nothing to do, and would not do anything if ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... of which only was allotted to each apartment, and this was generally found to possess as many modes of fastening as the jail opposite—a precaution referable to the great dread of the Indian outrages, and which their near neighborhood and irresponsible and vicious habits were well calculated to inspire. The furniture of the hotel amply accorded with all its other features. A single large and two small tables; a few old oaken chairs, of domestic manufacture, with ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... which, according to Foxe, both were burned. But a part of what Foxe wrote about Tewkesbury in one edition of the Acts and Monuments he omitted in another, patching it on to Bainham's story, thus stultifying himself as regards both stories,* and affording us another signal illustration of the irresponsible and unscrupulous way in which he could deal ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the barn. The good family, as is only in keeping with proper hospitality, would join in the feast; and the disappearance of two or three cheery troopers into the house to assist in washing up would end one of those irresponsible, warm-hearted little scenes which were so many in those far-away days of August '14. Another hour or so on the march in the middle afternoon, and they would return to camp, to "stables" and evening. Palmerston ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... course, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story may be nothing but idle talk. I am the last person to give credit to mere irresponsible gossip. Let us hope it is ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... has no right to drift, Mr. Denham. Ye have to look before ye, and pick your steps in this world; at any rate, when other people are hurt by your slips. An irresponsible animal isn't ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... In some recess of her own acute mind she felt that Lady Hermione's heightened color and shining eyes were due to just that wild and irresponsible conceit which they were debating. Indeed, Hermione could not leave the topic alone. She forbade it, rejected it, stormed at its folly, yet came back to it like a child held spellbound by some ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... small presents for Mirko, and new clothes; twice as much would be spent, if credit could be obtained; and then there would be the worry of the bills and the anxiety. If only Mirko would consent to be parted from his fond and irresponsible parent for a time it would be so much better for his health, and his chance of becoming of some use in the world. Mimo always meant so kindly and behaved so foolishly! With the money she personally would get for her bargain ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... of that executive which its own Republican pretensions denied to Venice. A political inquisition, which came in time to be one of the most fearful engines of police ever known, was the consequence. An authority as irresponsible as it was absolute, was periodically confided to another and still smaller body, which met and exercised its despotic and secret functions under the name of the Council of Three. The choice of these temporary rulers was decided by lot, and in a manner that prevented ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... failure, indeed, was in the training and education of her children. Valentinian was incapable and vicious, while Honoria, who had inherited much of the romantic temperament of her mother, was both unscrupulous and irresponsible. Sent to Constantinople on account of an intrigue with her chamberlain, Honoria, bored by the ascetic life in which she found herself and furious at her virtual imprisonment, sent her ring to Attila and besought him to deliver her and make her his wife ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... to be emotional over the photograph, Birnier did not waste any energy over vindictive thoughts upon zu Pfeiffer, whom he philosophically regarded as irresponsible for his actions, inasmuch as he had been made that way just as any savage. He had gotten out of the toils set for him, so why should he spend time and trouble in seeking revenge which would merely consist in reporting the incident through ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... London, where not a creature knew me. They made me a prisoner in dull, dreary rooms, where I had no employment and no resources. That is, the woman did it. My husband, after settling us in a house in London, disappeared, and I saw no more of him. I know now he wished to keep himself irresponsible for my imprisonment. She would have been the scape-goat, had any legal difficulties arisen. He was anxious to retain all his rights ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... afraid. Marat's pamphlet had impressed him. It had expressed what himself he had expressed more than half a year ago to the mob at Rennes. This crowd, he felt must be restrained. That hot-headed, irresponsible stutterer would have the town in a blaze by night unless something were done. The young man, a causeless advocate of the Palais named Camille Desmoulins, later to become famous, leapt down from his table still waving his sword, ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... memorandum of Prince Albert's, because it points out the perils which led to the downfall or the Empire,—the emperor's bad entourage; his personal government, assisted only by private confidential relations with irresponsible persons; his mixture of crude and sensible ideas of government; his indolence; and his tendency to let things slide out ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... will narrow it further. Can a stomach, of its own motion, assist at a crime? The answer is no, because command is absent, the reasoning faculty is absent, volition is absent—as in the case of the tongs. We perceive now, do we not, that the stomach is totally irresponsible for crimes committed, either in whole or in part, by it?" He got a rousing cheer for response. "Then what do we arrive at as our verdict? Clearly this: that there is no such thing in this world as a guilty stomach; that in the body of the veriest rascal resides a pure ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that there was more in the proposed plan than a mere experiment. On the 8th of August, 1784, Palmer ran his first mail-coach from London to Bristol, and made the journey in fifteen hours. That was the turning-point. The old lumbering coaches, the abominable roads, the irresponsible drivers, the wretched delay, misery, and uncertainty rapidly gave place to lighter, stronger, and more commodious vehicles, better horses, more experienced drivers, careful guards, regular stages, marked by decent inns and comfortable hostelries, and improved ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... cents. The same loaf here costs five cents. Who voted to levy a tax of one hundred per cent. on every man's loaf of bread? Kings were beheaded for less than this. Why has the cost of living increased to the point of crushing the average consumer? Because the irresponsible rulers of the people have piled their bogus debts of printed paper on their backs. The lowest estimate of this bogus capital of green goods stock is five times the sum of the National debt. And yet not one of these great thieves ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... if I was out of my head and irresponsible, what could I have said to make you believe that I was—in love ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... and toils of two hundred years are these three things. But to-day, Mr. Chairman, every one of them is annihilated in every square mile of the republic. We live to-day, every one of us, under martial law. The Secretary of State puts into his bastille, with a warrant as irresponsible as that of Louis, any man whom he pleases. And you know that neither press nor lips may venture to arraign the government without being silenced. At this moment at least one thousand men are 'bastilled' by an authority as despotic as that of Louis, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... paper, shrugging his shoulders as at a madman's irresponsible rashness and folly, and turned his attention to the patient who just then came in. That patient and the many succeeding patients thought the Doctor odd this morning, brusque, absent, constrained, gruff. He was thinking ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... actually guilty of partiality. In the same manner, there is security for the proper connection between the high school and the schools below. But in the school at Norwich—of which I speak because it is now prominent—you have a board of twenty-five men, irresponsible to the people. They select a committee of nine; that committee determines what candidates shall be transferred from the grammar schools to the high school. May there not be suspicion of partiality? If a boy ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... eight of the clock when came that final warning whistle of prairie owl. It was not yet ten when, silent as they had come, unbelievably impassive when but an hour before they had been irresponsible madmen, temporarily cruelty-surfeited, they resumed their journey. Single file, each footstep of those who followed fair in the print of the leader, a long, long line of ghostly, undulatory shadows, forming ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... sphere of life and for the fulfilment of its obligations. They must know themselves and their own powers in order to exercise control and direction on the current of their lives. The complaint made of many women is that they are wanting in self-control, creatures of impulse, erratic, irresponsible, at the mercy of chance influences that assume control of their lives for the moment, subject to "nerves," carried away by emotional enthusiasm beyond all bounds, and using a blind tenacity of will to land themselves with ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... tinkled among the teacups. I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees, And of Priapus in the shrubbery Gaping at the lady in the swing. In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah's He laughed like an irresponsible foetus. His laughter was submarine and profound Like the old man of the sea's Hidden under coral islands Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence, Dropping from fingers of surf. I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... Ireland more important than those of the United States. In spite of the plain fact that a separate Ireland would weaken civilisation and menace the world's peace by introducing a hostile and undependable wedge betwixt the two major parts of Saxondom, these irresponsible elements continue to encourage rebellion in the Green Isle; and in so doing tend to place this nation in a distressingly anomalous position as an abettor of crime and sedition against the Mother Land. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the United States would be sentimentally patriotic and irresponsible, that they would behave as though the New World was, indeed, a separate planet, and as though they had neither duties nor brotherhood in Europe. It is quite clear, on the contrary, that the people ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... called their station the Black House, from the name of the League itself, The Black Hand. The worst crimes were committed by this organization, known to all the world, and under powerful protection. It was of distinct advantage to the regular government to have under its hand an irresponsible power like this, which soon became all powerful, and could be disowned if necessary. . . . Our records are full of depositions which throw light on the activities of these legalized brigands. Each town had its captain. . . . Where complaints were made to the regular authorities they pretended ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... fancy of an irresponsible novelist had never created such a character in penny-dreadful fiction. It remained incomprehensible, almost incredible to Neeland that such ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... that discipline is the first and principal point to be considered on such occasions; unless indeed the leader be implicitly obeyed it is impossible that matters should go on regularly. For this reason it is objectionable to associate any irresponsible person in such an undertaking. When I engaged the men who were to accompany me, I made them sign an agreement, giving me power to diminish or increase the rations, and binding themselves not only to the performance ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... that's bad—it's grewsome to behold. I'll tell ye what, my bairn, there's na salvation for the workmen, while they defile themselves this fashion, wi' a' the very idols o' their ain tyrants—wi' salvation by act o' parliament—irresponsible rights o' property—anonymous Balaamry—fechtin' that canny auld farrant fiend, Mammon, wi' his ain weapons—and then a' fleyed, because they get well beaten for their pains. I'm sair forfaughten this mony a year wi' watching the puir gowks, trying to do God's wark wi' the deevil's ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis
... last the point: This honest fellow had long been in the custom of setting himself to sleep with tales, and so had his father before him; but these were irresponsible inventions, told for the teller's pleasure, with no eye to the crass public or the thwart reviewer: tales where a thread might be dropped, or one adventure quitted for another, on fancy's least suggestion. So that the little people ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through four months, on the discussion of Irish affairs—an interdict self-imposed by the English press, in a spirit of honourable (almost of superstitious) jealousy on behalf of public justice; jealousy for the law, that it should not be biased by irresponsible statements—jealousy for the accused, that they should not be prejudiced by extra-judicial charges. At length the interdict is raised, and we are all free once more to discuss the great interests so long sealed up and sequestered by the tribunals of Dublin. Could it have been foreseen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... to-morrow. They named their books by cold titles suggesting straight corridors of marble—titles like Looking Backward. But Morris was an artist as well as an anarchist. News from Nowhere is an irresponsible title; and it is an irresponsible book. It does not describe the problem solved; it does not describe wealth either wielded by the State or divided equally among the citizens. It simply describes an undiscovered country where every one feels ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... has been said, it follows that the death penalty as a punishment even for the worst crimes is morally untenable; for either the culprit is really irredeemable, that is to say, he is an irresponsible moral idiot, in which case an asylum for the insane is the proper place for him; or he is not irredeemable, in which case the chance of reformation should not be taken from him by cutting off his life. The death penalty ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... It leads to the usurpation, in a large measure, of the executive power of appointment by members of the legislative branch, substituting their irresponsible views of personal or party interest for the judgment as to the public good and the sense of responsibility of the Executive. It subjects those who exercise the appointing power, from the President ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... a figure in this country as he is in America, but Ewart Wilkinson was undoubtedly on the American scale. He had made his money abroad, how or exactly where remained matters of uncertainty, and if one were inclined to believe the stories told in irresponsible journals, there must have been much in the past which he found it wiser not to talk about. With such tales I have nothing to do. I never met the millionaire, was, in fact, quite uninterested in him until ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... and Saxony would not have altered. Secondly, Austria-Hungary, obviously falling more and more to pieces, formed no point of attraction for Munich and Dresden, who, though not Prussian, yet were German to the very backbone. The vague and irresponsible plan of returning to the conditions of the period before 1866 was an anachronism. Thirdly and chiefly, all experiments were dangerous which might create the impression in the Entente that the Quadruple Alliance was about to be dissolved. In a policy of that nature executive ability was of supreme ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... it purifies the air like electricity. There may be the sternest tragedy in the relation of two more than usually innocent and true to their highest instincts. We may call it an essentially heathenish intercourse, free and irresponsible in its nature, and practising all the virtues gratuitously. It is not the highest sympathy merely, but a pure and lofty society, a fragmentary and godlike intercourse of ancient date, still kept up at intervals, which, remembering itself, does not hesitate ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... and forget the one we reject. But our conscience tells us it is there, and we can on occasion state it with a fairness and fulness which proves that it is not wholly repellent to our reason. During the crisis I write of, the attitude of Cargill and Vennard was not that of roysterers out for irresponsible mischief. They were eminently reasonable and wonderfully logical, and in private conversation they gave their opponents a very bad time. Cargill, who had hitherto been the hope of the extreme Free-traders, wrote an article for ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... if he went into the city again, his life would be in great danger; and they advised that a commission should issue to appoint a Deputy-Governor for the purpose of proroguing Parliament. He was urged by irresponsible advisers to make use of the military forces at his command, to protect his person in an official visit to the city; but he declined to do so, and thus avoided what these infatuated rioters seemed determined to bring on—the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... born in such a stormy and tempestuous season.' [Footnote: Spectator 125.] He may not have been a great poet, but he was an exquisite critic of life; he shared his contemporaries' lack of enthusiasm, but he possessed a fine discrimination, and those less practical, more irresponsible qualities would have been merely an incumbrance to the apostle of good sense and moderation. For when men are young they are much occupied with the framing of ideals and the search after absolute truth; as they grow older they generally become ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... so far, men want the issue settled, and perhaps the irresponsible are eager for a little blood-letting; there are certain primitive instincts which are latent in us all, and the ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... this place a port of call and a harbor for refitting, it was by English connivance practically a Confederate port. The officers and sailors expended their ill-gotten wealth with the usual lavishness of the irresponsible, the people of Nassau reaping thereby a fabulous harvest in cash. This was quite demoralizing to honest industry, and, as might be expected, a serious reaction has followed. Legitimate trade and industry will require years before they can reassert themselves. Sudden and seeming prosperity ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... lived and ruled the Spanish captain general, so remote and inaccessible from the viceroyalty at Mexico that he was in effect a king, nominally accountable to the viceroy, but practically beyond his reach and control and wholly irresponsible to the people. Equally independent for the same reason were the Mexican governors. Here met all the provincial, territorial, departmental, and other legislative bodies that have ever assembled at the capital of New Mexico. Here have been planned all the Indian wars and measures for defence against ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... a trying ordeal on "Result" day, sitting patiently in hall till the doctor made up his mind to appear. All the school was there. There was an unusual spirit of orderliness afoot. The few irresponsible ones, who, with nothing to lose, tried to get up a disturbance, were promptly squashed by the grim, anxious competitors to whom the coming results meant so much. We Philosophers huddled together for comfort, but not a joke travelled down the ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... there was a Liberal meeting in the Town Hall, and a certain section of the Tory party, a youthful and irresponsible section it must be confessed, had arranged to attend the meeting, and if possible bring it to nought. The ringleader in this scheme was a young man named Rabbich, whose people some years before had bought a large property in a village about ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... them and all but break up the beautiful pageant. The fact of ten thousand women marching with banners and bands for this idea was startling enough to wake up the government and the country, but not so startling as ten thousand women man-handled by irresponsible crowds ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... unfold—one of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian extraction and irresponsible for his actions. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... acceptance is unknown to any other civilised country. Parts of it are borrowed from the United States; some of its provisions are imported from the British colonies, whilst others are apparently the inventions of the unknown and irresponsible Abbe Sieyes, who is the ingenious constitution-maker of the Cabinet. But the new polity as a whole resembles in its essence neither the American Commonwealth nor the Canadian Dominion, nor the Government either of New Zealand ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... of its officers. What then? The colonist is only a parasite with all these advantages. He is not an integral part of a nation; a citizen, responsible for his franchise. He is but a colonial Micmac, or Scotch-Mac; a mere sub-thoughted, irresponsible exotic, in a governmental cold grapery. By the great forefinger of Tom Jefferson, I would rather be a citizen of the United States than own all the five-shilling Blue ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... his mind is another question. Granted ten years' seniority and a difference of sex, fear of him comes first; this is swallowed up by a desire to help—overwhelming sense, reason, and the time of night; anger would follow close on that—with Florinda, with destiny; and then up would bubble an irresponsible optimism. "Surely there's enough light in the street at this moment to drown all our cares in gold!" Ah, what's the use of saying it? Even while you speak and look over your shoulder towards Shaftesbury Avenue, destiny is chipping a dent in him. He has turned to go. As for following him back ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... was only the incrustations of error that had been removed. Of course the transition was difficult and hearts were sore; but the Eternal God can be patient. But then, if the discontent of the Papists smouldered on one side, the fanatical and irresponsible zeal of the Puritans flared on the other. How difficult, he thought, to steer the safe middle course! How much cool faith and clearsightedness it needed! He reminded himself of Archbishop Parker who now held the rudder, and comforted himself with the thought of his wise moderation in dealing ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the swiftest access thither. We speak as though ambition were itself made more noble, if it sternly abjures all multiplication of human tenderness. We speak of a life which sacrifices material success to emotion as a failure and an irresponsible affair. The truth is the precise opposite. All the ambitions which have their end in personal prestige are wholly barren; the ambitions which aim at social amelioration have a certain nobility about them, though they substitute a tortuous by-path for a direct ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... comfortable, care-free life they led, irresponsible beyond any of Susan's wildest dreams. She and Emily lounged about their bright, warm apartments, these winter mornings, until nine o'clock, lingered over their breakfast—talking, talking and talking, until the dining-room ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... along anyways," the cowpuncher had explained to me. "She runs around mighty irresponsible, and she'll stand a prairie-dog 'bout as often as she'll stand a ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... not convenient to pay. He calls a second time; the Prophet cannot pay, but offers a town lot in Nauvoo for $1000 (which cost perhaps as many cents), or land on the 'half-breed tract' at $10 or $15 per acre . . . . Finally some of the irresponsible Bishops or Elders execute a deed for land to which they have no valid title, and the poor fellow dares not complain. This is the history of hundreds of cases . . . . The history of every dupe reaches Nauvoo in advance. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... so funny to hear you pretending to be a heavy father. In Cambridge we regard you as a bel esprit, a wit, an Irresponsible, a ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... about it, all 'unbeknownst' to yourself you'll awake some morning with it on your lips. I can see traces of it growing stronger every day. Very soon now it's going to materialize, and then get out of my way, for I'll be a whirling, irresponsible lunatic, with the wild joy of it. Oh I've got faith in that kiss of yours, Ruth! It's on the way. The fates have booked it. There isn't a reason on earth why I should be served so scurvy a trick as to miss it, and I never will ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... be vested in the Executive; on the contrary, it must be, it is, vested in the Legislature. Stevens did not hesitate to push his theory to its limit. He was not afraid of making the Legislature in time of war the irresponsible judge of its own acts. Congress, said he, has all possible powers of government, even the dictator's power; it could declare itself a dictator; under certain circumstances he was willing that it ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... we took more interest in the children. They seemed real to us and nearer, whereas, before, they had simply passed in and out before us like little irresponsible figureheads of the future, with whom some other preacher would contend later. We never asked why it was that they were invariably the first to come to the altar when invitations were extended to sinners ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... broad-shouldered, with the supple limbs of a young stag, and the mad, irresponsible movements of a colt. His dark eyes shine like two stars out of his sun-burnt face; his muscular arms encircle Elsa's fine waist with a grip that is almost masterful. The wide sleeves of his linen shirt flutter above his shoulders till they look like wings and he like some messenger of ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... was to borrow real money abroad. The droll part was that both these transactions were audaciously entered upon by a body which had absolutely no revenues at all to pledge as security, which had not a dollar of property, nor authority to compel any living man to pay it a dollar. A more utterly irresponsible debtor than Congress never asked for a loan or offered a promissory note. For the security of a creditor there was only the moral probability that in case of success the people would be honest enough ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... observed that I take as historic records the statements of the Bible. This I do in face of the efforts of many of the clergy in a number of the churches to make me see in the Old Testament chiefly a collection of myths, and in the New a series of compilations by irresponsible hands, of doubtful date and authority, leaving, in the case of our Lord, only a substratum which can be relied ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... Sticks and umbrellas were banged and rattled, handkerchiefs were waved, the thunder deepened. The motley crowd still surging about the hall took up the cheers, and for hundreds of yards around people were going black in the face out of mere irresponsible enthusiasm. At last Tom waved his hand—the thunder dwindled, died. The prisoner ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... him, an extreme haughtiness and contemptuousness grew up, together with ambition, in his character. He observed no sort of moderation, such as befitted a private man, either in rewarding or in punishing; the recompense of his friends and guests was absolute power over cities, and irresponsible authority, and the only satisfaction of his wrath was the destruction of his enemy; banishment would not suffice. As for example, at a later period, fearing lest the popular leaders of the Milesians should fly, and desiring also to discover those who lay hid, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... character is thoroughly bad. Polygamous and utterly irresponsible for its offspring, this bird forms a striking contrast to other feathered neighbors, and indeed is almost an anomaly in the animal kingdom. In the breeding season an unnatural mother may be seen skulking about in the trees and shrubbery, seeking for nests in which to place a ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... arrogant, controlling, imperative, positive, authoritative, despotic, imperious, supreme, autocratic, dictatorial, irresponsible, tyrannical, coercive, dogmatic, lordly, unconditional, commanding, domineering, overbearing, unequivocal. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... is the nightingale. The real truth about a country will never be known till every representative type and condition in it have found their inspired literary mouthpiece. Meanwhile one country takes its opinion of another from the apercus of a few brilliant but often irresponsible or prejudiced writers,—and really it is rather in what those writers leave out than in what they put in that one must seek the more reliable data ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... gay and irresponsible young creature when he married her, so much so that he had found it expedient to put her on an allowance and ask her not to ran up staggering bills in the fashionable shops; which she visited daily, ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... challenge to the breeze that we longed for, and which had resisted all appeals, "Come on big wind and kill little boat!" exclaimed an irresponsible boy, whose ears had long ached with the days dull silence, and who saw no prospect of hot turtle steak ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... of indolent reviewers, Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem All composed in a metre of Catullus, All in quantity, careful of my motion, Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him, Lest I fall unawares before the people, Waking laughter in ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... was ruled by Paul I, the half-witted son of Catherine the Great, Napoleon had known how to deal with the situation. But Paul grew more and more irresponsible until his exasperated subjects were obliged to murder him (lest they all be sent to the Siberian lead-mines) and the son of Paul, the Emperor Alexander, did not share his father's affection for the usurper whom he regarded as the enemy of mankind, the eternal disturber of the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... the ethics of the manner of our acquisition of a part of Panama and the Canal wholly defensible from the point of view of international democracy. Yet it must be remembered that President Roosevelt was dealing with a corrupt, irresponsible, and hostile government, and that the Canal had become a necessity not only for our own development, but for that of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... syringe in his face. For months he studiously avoided them, calling his collie away with quite unnecessary caution if they happened to pass him on the road, and bolting into his own premises if they met near the gate. But one day, about Christmas-time, Sam, the collie, who was a giddy and irresponsible sort of dog, given to aimless yapping at passing conveyances, overdid his supposed guardianship of his owner's property, and blundered into a motor that was whisking by. The car did not trouble to stop, and when it was a hundred yards away, Sam picked ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... in it, but Katrine pushed on at the same even pace without even an apprehensive glance round. Her spirits rose as she walked. She felt the old sense of gladness in her youth and strength and health, and in her freedom, and she bounded along over the hard, glittering snow, full of a mere irresponsible animal pleasure, such as moves the young chamois in his bounds from rock to rock. Darkness had come like a blot upon the earth before she had done half the distance, but now she had the twinkling lights and the reddish haze of Dawson before her. Her own eyes ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... has a cold-blooded look to the Anglo-Saxon; and a girl is not flattered (though perhaps she ought to be) by being the subject of this sensible choice. "As if I were a housekeeper or a cook!" she is apt to say, and is far better pleased to be fallen in love with in the most rash and irresponsible way than to be thus selected from the crowd: though that, everybody must allow, after due comparison and inspection, is by far the greater compliment. John having arrived at the conclusion that it would ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... rather. The game where chance hasn't a show—the game of the intelligent future. That very irregular and disconcerting move of his.... And he got taken, you might say. She's an irresponsible beast, your queen." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and the Lamb? We all know that old tale. But the Wolf, though a tyrant, was scarcely a cur. He bullied and lied, but he didn't turn pale, Or need poltroon terror as cruelty's spur. But a big, irresponsible, "fatherly" Prince Afeared—of a Jew? 'Tis too funny by far! The coldest of King-scorning cynics might wince At that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... apathetic, beaten aspect of a southern town; he and the temperate sky have fixed the tone for ever; and the nimble air—"nimbly and sweetly" recommending itself— has given the quaintness and the freaksomeness of the North. This bursts out, young and irresponsible, in pinnacle, crocket, and gable, in towers like spears, and in the eager lancet windows which peer upwards out of Orsammichele and the Dominican Church. This mixture is Florence and has made her art. The blue of the sky gives the key to her palette, the breath of the west ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... stone, and unconsciously commit a sacrilege from which every Chaldaean in his senses would have shrunk back. The formula provides for such cases, and it secures that the curse shall fall not only on the irresponsible instruments, but reach the instigator of the crime, even when he had taken no actual part in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... At the irresponsible suggestion of the gossiping game-warden a demon of jealousy had arisen within him. Was it true that Dan McCloud had cast his sodden eyes on Ellie Elton? If it were true, was the girl aware of it? Perhaps she had even exchanged words with the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... this letter to show that Morse was still surrounded by dangers of various sorts, and it is also a good pen-picture of the irresponsible actions of a cowardly mob, especially of a ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... shocked none of those around me was evident. Theirs were not the looks of women, however young and thoughtless, startled by an affront to their sex; but of children amazed at a child's folly in provoking capricious and irresponsible power. The angry quickness with which I turned to Eunane received a double, though doubly unintentional, rebuke, equally illustrative of Martial ideas and usages. The culprit cowered like a child expecting a brutal blow. A gentle pressure on my left arm evinced the same ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... his hands behind the tails of his frock-coat, stood smiling radiantly on the hearthrug. A wit much less alert than my irresponsible friend's would have instantly appreciated the fact that the real Simon Pure had ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... of my calling, I think it well to put before you. It is that there may be, from the point of view of an actor distinguished by your favor, some sort of official utterance on the subject. There are some irresponsible writers who have of late tried to excite controversy by assertions, generally false and always misleading, as to the stage and those devoted to the arts connected with it. Some of these writers go so far as to assert that Acting is not an Art at all; and though we must not take such ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... got me there! I never have had enough experience in this line that I could go into the detail work. I have to be guided by the main points in the case. Then, again, I gave Brown's testimony very little thought, as I considered him unreliable and irresponsible." ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... me a lot better than I deserved,” I said, with a heartache that I had not known often in my irresponsible life; but I could not afford to show ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... farmers saw themselves as innocent victims of happenstance, needing to hire the chemical plant doctor much as sick people are encouraged by medical doctors to view themselves as victims, who are totally irresponsible for creating their condition and incapable of curing it without costly and dangerous ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... Mr. Price replied, "she is quite irresponsible. Certain powers of perception have developed in her to a point beyond that which has been reached by the people about her, and she is forced to act up to what she perceives to be right. They blame her because they cannot see so far in advance of themselves, and she has small patience ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... to be so. The members of this body, standing about the hall and platform, were animated and perturbed; the more irresponsible juniors seemed amused, others anxious. The Secretary-General was talking ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... long as Mr. HENRY AINLEY was just allowed to sparkle, with beaded bubbles winking all round the brim of him, everything went well and more than well; the trouble began when the author, Mr. DOUGLAS MURRAY, remembered that no British audience would be contented with mere irresponsible badinage, however fresh and delicate; that somehow he must provide an ending where virtue ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... repeat, it was never our chance to see him. We know it from hearsay, and we mention it in connection with this sad infirmity of physical constitution; which puts it upon very nearly the ground of a temporary and almost irresponsible insanity. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... towards betterment grew rapidly into the remarkable prosperity of to-day. For a time, however, the government was obliged to use extreme parsimony in order to keep the country from further falling under the control of the irresponsible bondholders. Finally, in the year 1888, Sir Evelyn Baring wrote to the home government that the situation was so far improved that in his judgment "it would take a series of untoward events seriously to endanger the stability of Egyptian ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... contemplate the West, that white people do not understand comfort because they have no leisure to enjoy contentment; THEY measure life by accumulation, WE by morality. Family ties are stronger with the so-called colored races than they are among the more irresponsible white races; consequently the social sense is keener among the former and much individual suffering is avoided. We have our vices, but these are not peculiar to US; and, at least, we have the merit of being easily governed. Wherever there are ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... so irresponsible, sitting there with her face near his, and so childishly, or perhaps thoughtlessly, happy, that he could only admire her levity, and even the slight shock that her flippant allusion to his wife had given him seemed to him only a weakness of his own. After all, was not ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... Lovejoy was shot down like a dog, and William Lloyd Garrison was dragged half naked and half lifeless through the streets of Boston, and other outrages of like import were being perpetrated all over the North, it was carefully given out that those deeds were not the work of irresponsible rowdies, but of "gentlemen"—of merchants, manufacturers, and members of the professions. They claimed the credit for such achievements. There were reasons for such a state of things—some ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... He was not a common type of man, happily; but I have met other specimens in other parts of the world in which his leading quality was as fully developed, though their lives had nothing in common with his except the opportunities of irresponsible power. ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Terry & Barnum were added to the debts of the Company, he was obliged to resort to various expedients to raise money to pay them. This led him to the exchange of notes on a large scale, which proved to be a great loss, as many of the parties were irresponsible. There was a loss of thirty thousand dollars by one man, and I am sure that there must have been more than fifty thousand dollars lost in this way. He was also obliged to issue short drafts and notes and raise money on them at fearful rates. The Terry & Barnum ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... nonsense as to retrenchment and economical administration, every creditor I had in the world is pestering me. You cannot realize the annoyance to which I have been subjected during the last fortnight. Life was becoming intolerable, just because Alec was talking galimatias to a number of irresponsible journalists." ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... unknown, for Boston, US. Mrs. Jacox, the widow whose wrongs had made such an impression on Malkin, announced herself, in a thin, mealy face and rag-doll figure, as not less than forty, though her irresponsible look made it evident that years profited her nothing, and suggested an explanation of the success with which she had been victimised. She was stylishly dressed, and had the air of enjoying an unusual treat. Her children were of more promising type, though Earwaker would hardly have supposed ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... fearlessly told the members of the Commune their opinion without concealment or circumlocution. The French press has undoubtedly committed many offences during the last few years, and is not altogether irresponsible for the troubles which have overwhelmed the unhappy country; but reparation is being made for these offences in this present hour of danger, and the fearless attitude which it has maintained before these ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... lessons of experience, and much study of her constitutional restrictions, as well as obligations, had greatly modified Her Majesty's strong partisan prejudices, and any proclivities she may have had toward personal and irresponsible government. ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... a colony, where large funds are provided by the State for Church purposes, and where he is beyond the reach of the public opinion of England, exercises a very great and irresponsible authority. If a zealous man, of extreme views on points of doctrine, the clergy of the diocese, looking to him alone for advancement in their profession, are apt to echo his sentiments; and the wide folding doors of our mother Church, which she flings ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... the House in opposition to the policy of the Government of that day. I was told I was too late; and it has been also said repeatedly in this debate that those who take the views which I take are too late on this occasion. It seems to be one of the consequences of the, I would say, irresponsible system of diplomacy in this country with regard to foreign affairs, that we are never allowed to discuss a mischief when it is growing, but only when it is completed, and when no remedy can be applied. And now we are at liberty to discuss ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... unprecedented relative number of individuals thus elevated, herein do we exceed all other peoples. By subjective elevation I mean, liberation from the outward, downward pressure of dogmatic prescription, of imperious custom, of blindfolded tradition, of irresponsible authority. The despotic objectivity of Asia—where religion is submissiveness, and manhood is crushed by obedience—has been partially withstood in Europe. The emancipation therefrom of the Indo-Germanic race is completed in Anglo-America. Through ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert |
