"Peccadillo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suspicion than Swift asserts Anne's to have been. Essex's gallantries at Court, after as before his marriage, were notorious and many. Lord Southampton and his bride were the subjects of a similar tale a few years later. Palace gossip treated it as a very ordinary peccadillo. Cecil in February, 1601, tells Carew of the 'misfortune' of one of the maids, Mistress Fitton, with Lord Pembroke, as if it were a jest. Both the culprits, he remarks, 'will dwell in the Tower a while.' His phrases show none of the horror ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... as typical of the enormous influence wielded by Bunyan in his own time. The most innocent among us had overwhelming qualms in regard to our sins, as children when we listened to our mothers read the book. I remember having confessed some childish peccadillo that was weighing on my small mind as the first result of my thoroughly aroused sense of guilt. In these early years of the Twentieth Century, such a feeling seems almost as far removed as the days of Bunyan. A sense of guilt is not a distinguishing ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... criminal offence if you carry off a will and suppress it, but it is only a misdemeanor to look at it; and anyhow, what does it amount to? A peccadillo, and nobody will see you. Is ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... immorality. Had he been, they would have known it, and, untutored heathen though they be, would have despised him in consequence. Secret vice becomes known throughout the tribe; and while one, unacquainted with the language, may imagine a peccadillo to be hidden, it is as patent to all as it would be in London had he ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... a little too much of me. One owes consideration to one's position. In the world's eyes a matrimonial slip outweighs a peccadillo. No. To much the maid might wheedle me, but to Hymen! She's decidedly fresh and pert—the most delicious little fat lips and cocky nose; but cease we to dwell on her, or of us two, to! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... indictment against her, she felt she would not clear herself at her brother's expense. To allow Miss Maitland to call at Orley Grange would expose Dermot's peccadillo to his headmaster, and involve him in as serious a trouble as her own. If one or other must be expelled, she would rather it were herself. She, of the two, had less to fear from her father's anger; and, besides, there was a further reason. Dermot was destined for ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... he has only acted a little insincerely; white lies, my dear, white lies may be pardoned. Forgive him his peccadillo. He will have much to forgive in you, as you have confessed to me yourself. Tell him you are sorry for what you have said. He will then embrace you ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... it was—it was like the starting of an expedition to conquer all Central Africa! His Excellency's concubine still occupies the seat of honour, where she frequently goes to sleep. The courtiers of his Excellency wink at this little peccadillo. Essnousee remarked to me it was all right; "The Mudeer must have some sort of a wife." Had some conversation with an intelligent Moor on the trade of Sockna. It appears the merchants are in the same predicament as those of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... persiko. Peacock pavo. Peak pinto, pintajxo. Peak (of cap, etc.) sxirmileto. Peal (of bells) sonorilaro. Pear piro. Pear-tree pirarbo. Pearl perlo. Pearl, mother of perlamoto. Peasant vilagxano, kamparano. Peat torfo. Pebble marsxtono, sxtoneto. Peccadillo peketo. Peculiar stranga. Pecuniary mona. Pedagogue pedagogo. Pedagogy pedagogio. Pedal pedalo. Pedant pedanto. Peddler kolportisto. Peddle kolporti. Pedestal piedestalo. Pedestrian piediranto. Pedigree ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... girl, fluted and fiddled in a dancing measure into that most serious contract, and setting out upon life's journey with ideas so monstrously divergent, I am not surprised that some make shipwreck, but that any come to port. What the boy does almost proudly, as a manly peccadillo, the girl will shudder at as a debasing vice; what is to her the mere common sense of tactics, he will spit out of his mouth as shameful. Through such a sea of contrarieties must this green couple steer their way; and contrive to ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which the good lady did not fail to point out that he must undoubtedly inherit. His father, at Mrs. Newcome's instigation, certainly whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers in the go-cart; but upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other peccadillo performed soon after, Mr. Newcome refused at once, using a wicked, worldly expression, which well might shock any serious lady; saying, in fact, that he would be deed if he beat the boy any more, and that he got flogging enough at school, in which ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have mentioned Carnival's peccadillo had not the thing been so uncommon in France. This, for instance, was the only case of dishonesty or even sharp practice in our whole voyage. We talk very much about our honesty in England. It is a good rule ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... observe more wholesome caution if he conceived his character unsuspected, than if he were detected, and suffered to pass unpunished. For after all, she said, it would be cruel to dismiss an old Highland soldier for a peccadillo so appropriate to ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... my dear fellow, is now a woman of high {2} character; has not the moral Marquis of Hertford undertaken to remove all ———and disabilities? and did he not introduce the lady to the fashionable world at his own hotel, the Piccadilly (peccadillo) Guildhall? Was not the fete at Holly Grove attended by H.R.H. the Duke of York, and Mrs. C—y, and all the virtuous portion of our nobility? and has she not since been admitted to the parties at the Duke of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... not refer to the past," he said meaningly and was so impressive that Hamilton began to search his mind for some forgotten peccadillo. ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace |
