"Regrettable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... civil service largely filled by Serbs from Hungary and many of the higher offices in the possession of the relatives of the Princess, for Alexander's wife, a lady from the neighbourhood of Valjevo, was as celebrated for her cleverness as for her beauty. It is regrettable that she did not prefer to take in hand the women's legal status, which is still too much like that of minors. When the princely pair had been expelled in 1858 and Milo[vs], to his infinite delight, called back from Bucharest, his place of exile, there was yet a great deal for ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... earliest discoveries on the island was one regrettable from the point of view of romance, though rich in practical advantages; the woods were the abode of numerous wild pigs. This is not to write a new chapter on the geographical distribution of the pig, for they were of the humdrum domestic variety, and had doubtless appertained ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... of next morning's sun throw light upon a sanguinary scene—a tableau terrible, though not regrettable. On the contrary, it discloses a sight which, but for the red surroundings, might give gladness. Fathers, half frantic with joy, are kissing children they never expected to see again; brothers clasping the hands of sisters late ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... a few passages; otherwise the text translated is that of Epigrammatum Delectus, Paris, 1659. It is regrettable that the Latin text, at least of the poems cited, could not ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... and advance is the native African population. I am quoting his words from memory, possibly imperfectly; but there is very little reliable printed matter to go on when dealing with Sir George Taubman Goldie, which is regrettable because he himself is an experienced and reliable authority. I am however quite convinced that these aforesaid distinct regions are regions that the practical politician dealing with Africa must recognise, and keep constantly in mind when attempting to solve the many difficulties ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... By a most regrettable accident, one of my swiftest balls struck the good sheep on the nose. And at that the bad sheep laughed—laughed distinctly and undoubtedly, a husky, vulgar laugh; and, while her friend stood glued to the ground, too ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... problem of evil. It may be that all pain has its ultimate uses that nothing is "really" bad, if we take that to mean that all evil has a necessary existence as a means to a good otherwise unattainable and worth the cost. But however useful as a means evil may be, it is nonetheless evil and regrettable. It is not good qua pain. If the same amount of good could be obtained without the preliminary evil, it were better to skip it. In short, the existence of different values in immediate experience is indisputable; ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... Chichester,' wrote Hazlitt, 'that the poet Collins brought together a certain number of early books, some of the first rarity; his name is found, too, in the sale catalogues of the last century as a buyer of such; and the strange and regrettable fact is that two or three items which Thomas Warton actually saw in his hands, and of which there are no known duplicates, have not so far been recovered.' Mr. Gordon Duff, in his 'English Provincial Printers,' mentions seventeen books described by Herbert at the end ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... friendship for her as for you. I was very glad to have the news, for it seemed to me very sad that a man of your warm affections should be surrounded only by hopeless regrets. Such surroundings inflict a sort of partial paralysis upon one's whole nature, a result which is, to me, far more serious and regrettable than the mere suffering ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... precisely as own coinage was debased in consequence of the recent war. This was done quite openly and the coinage was restored at the earliest opportunity. Intensely national, his policy of attacking the Lombards, exiling the Jews, and suppressing the Templars, however regrettable the methods by which it was carried out, resulted in immense benefits to France; M. Funck-Brentano has graphically described the prosperity of the whole country during the early fourteenth century—the increase of population, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... It was regrettable that a case, which from its very nature was complicated by political considerations, should have arisen in the midst of a campaign of such unprecedented excitement as that of 1840. It was taken for granted, on ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... married the woman I love; and I intend to be faithful to her. You married a woman you did not love—and the result, according to my views, and also according to my experience of my mother and yourself, is more or less regrettable. If I have offended you, I sincerely beg your forgiveness, but you must first point out the nature of the offence. Surely, it must be more gratifying to you to know that I prefer to be a man of ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... though the best possible, was not ideal. The corporal has to sleep at the caserma and pretend to the authorities that he is a free bachelor, he can only visit the mother of his future children in his spare time. And this regrettable state of things had arisen in consequence, or partly in consequence, of my respect for law and order. I did not put it like that to him. I pointed out that if I had sent the 4000 francs I should have been obliged to deny myself the pleasure ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... literate. He was an "upstart crow," and what right had he to be "as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you?" The attitude was perhaps natural to jealous rivals, but it should never have been used to show that Shakespeare was destitute of a decent school education. Perhaps the most regrettable outcome of this notion is that Milton should have written the amazing line which ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... thronging stream of men on foot came another elephant— a little one, alone, carrying three gentlemen in fine white raiment—Bimbu and Pinga and Umra to wit, who, it is regrettable to chronicle, were very drunk indeed and laughed exceedingly at most unseemly jokes, exchanging jests with the crowd that would have made Tess's hair stand on end, if she could have heard and understood them. From windows, and roofs that overhung the street, people threw flowers at ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... The regrettable thing about Gaelic is its hopelessly bewildering spelling. The sounds are pleasing and melodious in a high degree, but they hide themselves behind most peculiar disguisements of print. Most people will admit, I think, that a language which spells Avon, Amhuinn, and Rory, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... a little overmuch on this regrettable affair, but to assess my disappointment it is necessary to think back to the period in question and recall the important position occupied by battalion commanders in the imperial army, which resulted in several instances of colonels who refused promotion to general and asked only ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... hale old Dutchman who paints daily and looks forward to seeing his ninety years. In Holland octogenarians are not few. The climate is propitious; above all, the absence of hurry and worry. To see The Hague without visiting this collection would be a regrettable omission. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... disappointment to Cecil Rhodes. He had all along nourished a bitter animosity against Kruger, and in regard to him, as well as Messrs. Schreiner, Merriman, Hofmeyr, Sauer and other one-time colleagues, he carried his vindictiveness to an extent so terrible that more than once it led him into some of the most regrettable actions in ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... was visibly amazed. This was, indeed, to put a new face on matters and make more regrettable his complacent surrender after his ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... only, the need to earn became more insistent, when so many more things than before had to be bought with the wages. Consequently, it had to be approached in a more businesslike, a more commercial, spirit. Unemployment, hitherto not much worse than a regrettable inconvenience, became a calamity. Every hour's work acquired a market value. The sense of taking part in time-honoured duties of the countryside disappeared before the idea—so very important now—of getting shillings with which to go to a shop; while even the ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... serious disarrangement, to clear all that objectionable stuff out of the story, and so a little ease my conscience on the score of this ungainly lapse. I have also, with a few strokes of the pen, eliminated certain dishonest and regrettable suggestions that the People beat Ostrog. My Graham dies, as all his kind must die, with no certainty of ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... persuaded to care for books. She was naturally illiterate, and even late in life had a fixed aversion to writing her own letters; whereas, at the age of seven, Mary had been public scrivener for the whole village. But with these regrettable instincts, from the first Matilda had also manifested a whimsical liveliness, an unconquerable lightheartedness which made you forgive her anything, and for which, poor soul, she had use enough before ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... connection between the two. That this ignorance exists is largely to be deplored. The subject, if once thought of, is always thought of and talked of, and information is at length generally gained in a regrettable manner. From personal experience I know the evil results that this ignorance and constant endeavoring to find out everything has on the mind and bodies of school-girls. If children had the natural and simple laws of creation carefully explained to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... what there was of tragedy, it was destined to be yet shorter-lived than comedy, but it was evidently very brilliant and it is regrettable that it has not been preserved. Livius Andronicus and Nasvius wrote tragedies, but the three greatest tragedians were Ennius, his nephew Pacuvius, and Attius. Ennius imitated Euripides, Pacuvius Sophocles, and Attius Aeschylus. All three soared to the grand, the majestic, and the sublime; ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... decent folks. The cup of endurance was full, overbrimming. Once again she had passed the night in the lock-up. Questioned as to her motives for this particular incident, she artlessly blamed the darkness which misled her, she said, into the regrettable delusion that it was night; "and at night, you know. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... in Bacchanalian measure! One time he gave an unconscious exhibition of his technical ability that, while regrettable, would have been of immense interest to psychologists who are seeking to prove that music depends upon a separate operation of a special "faculty." During his American tours I called frequently upon this virtuoso for the purpose of investigating ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... said Linda. "But since I am the daughter of the finest gentleman I ever knew, I should not do hasty, regrettable things. On the living-room table I found a note sweeter than honey, and it contained a cheque for me that wouldn't pay Eileen's bills for lunches, candy, and theaters for a month; so in undue heat ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... demand payment for letting him operate on them, but now many come of their own accord, so that the hospital never lacks patients. The good that Dr. B. does these people can hardly be overrated, and the Presbyterian Mission deserves great credit for having established the hospital; but it is a regrettable fact that all these efforts are not strong enough to counteract other effects of civilization, such as alcoholism, which is the curse of the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... was commonly said, and generally credited, that he died of a broken heart {69} in consequence of the furious attacks which had followed upon his unhappy quarrel with Wilkes. It was a pity that the closing hours of Hogarth's life should have been occupied with so petty and so regrettable a squabble. Hogarth was entirely in the wrong. Hogarth began the quarrel; and if Hogarth was eager to give hard knocks he should have been ready to take hard knocks in return. But the world at large may very well be glad that Hogarth did lurk in the court by Justice Pratt and did ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... which have escaped your pen suggest to me that you blame Julian Gray as the cause of Lady Janet's regrettable visit to the Refuge the day after Mercy Merrick had left her house. This is not quite correct. Julian, as you will presently see, has enough to answer for without being held responsible for errors of judgment in which he has had no ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... anonymity of the third person must be cast aside and the regrettable egotism of the first person allowed to enter, for I was a girl, and the modest chronicle of my early educational and philanthropic adventures must be told after the manner of ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the young man, with, however, a sense of its not being at all well. It was to him a regrettable fact that he seldom saw much of the various members of the household, and of one particular member so little that he was tempted to wonder if she ever took the trouble to evade him. But, of course, there was always the chance of an encounter, and he never opened the house door without ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... much I admire your poem in this morning's Times. You have never voiced the feeling of the moment with more force or keener insight. But you will, I am sure, pardon me when I say that in the fifty-eighth stanza there is a regrettable flaw, which could however quickly be put right. To me, that fine appeal to Monaco to give up its neutrality is impaired by the use of the word "cope," which I have always understood should be avoided by good writers. "Deal" has the same meaning and is a truer word. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... of regrettable restlessness up and down the world, a sort of wave of revolt against the constituted authorities. If it goes too far—nothing for us ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... another Chancellor, Prince Bernhard Ernst von Buelow, now living in retirement at Rome, will enlighten the world as to that of the last ten or twelve stirring years, quorum pars magna fuit. Both Bismarck and Hohenlohe were excellent judges of character, and have, described, though with regrettable brevity, the character of Prince William about this time. Talking to his confidant, Dr. Busch, in June, 1882, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... smoother its working, the less does it prepare for the rutty road afterwards, and in this there is some consolation when school machinery jars from time to time in the working; if it teaches patience it is not altogether regrettable, and the little trouble which may arise in the material order is perhaps more educating than the regularity which ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... or Old Palace, which by its imposing mass and severe elegance at first attracts the attention, occupies a corner of the Place, instead of the middle. This idea, a happy one, in our opinion, regrettable for those who only see architectural beauty in geometrical regularity, is not fortuitous; it has a reason wholly Florentine. In order to obtain perfect symmetry, it would have been necessary to build ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... gifts to her Court, beseeching an interview. The Princess would name a date, and a formal meeting would take place; after which everything usually buzzed along pretty smoothly. But in the case of King Merolchazzar's courtship of the Princess of the Outer Isles there had been a regrettable hitch. She had acknowledged the gifts, saying that they were just what she had wanted and how had he guessed, and had added that, as regarded a meeting, she would let him know later. Since that day no word had come from her, and a gloomy spirit ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Agriculture to interest the members of the Womens' Institute in Ontario in planting nut trees, but not much progress was made until last spring. The writer had in Ontario about 800 fine seedling heartnuts which he was unable to sell and which had to be moved. It seemed regrettable to destroy them and finally the trees were given to Mr. Geo. Putnam, Supt. of Institutes for distribution in my old home county and in another county where I worked for some time. The trees were readily accepted ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... before it broke out. But it was delightful to share in the heroic sentiment of the time, and to feel that I had a country,—a consciousness which seemed to make me young again. One thing as regards this matter I regret, and one thing I am glad of. The regrettable thing is that I am too old to shoulder a musket myself, and the joyful thing is that Julian is too young." [Footnote: J. ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... direction of Huguet: but the downfall of the nave has been so complete that it is only possible to make out that there must have been a well-developed clerestory and a high vaulted central aisle. What makes this destruction all the more regrettable is the fact that the church was full of splendid tombs, especially that of the Holy Constable himself: a magnificent piece of carving in alabaster sent from Flanders by Dom Joao's daughter, ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... system that could allow any young girl to feel any married man, any father, her natural prey. She had come to love Warren just as in a few years she might come to love someone else. That was all permissible; regrettable perhaps for Warren's wife, an unmistakable calamity for Warren's boys, but, from Magsie's standpoint, comprehensible and acceptable. If Warren were free, Magsie was well within her rights; if he were not, Rachael was the last woman in the world to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... school, of which we have heard so much lately, is identical with that of the New English Art Club, and the two societies are in a measure affiliated. Nearly all the members of the Glasgow school are members of the New English Art Club, and it is regrettable that they do not unite and give us an exhibition that would fairly stare the Academy out of countenance. Among the Glasgow painters the most prominent and valid talent is Mr. Guthrie's. His achievements are more considerable and more personal; and he seems to ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... in progress. A small party of Sikhs had already come up with him; but even so the odds were heavily on the wrong side. It was simply a case of "dying game";—of adding one more to the list of "regrettable incidents" which figure too frequently in ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... walking, I thought the lights of our Ruhmkorff devices would automatically attract some inhabitants of these dark strata. But if they did approach us, at least they kept at a distance regrettable from the hunter's standpoint. Several times I saw Captain Nemo stop and take aim with his rifle; then, after sighting down its barrel for a few seconds, he would straighten ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... criminals, certainly in the case of crimes of passion. Even in cases where self-interest is the motive, the important thing is to prevent the crime, not to make the criminal suffer. Any suffering which may be entailed by the process of prevention ought to be regarded as regrettable, like the pain involved in a surgical operation. The man who commits a crime from an impulse to violence ought to be subjected to a scientific psychological treatment, designed to elicit more beneficial impulses. The man who commits ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... at him with a smile. She was conscious of an overwhelming relief. The dim interior of Ye Cosy Nooke no longer seemed depressing. She could have kissed this unknown "Babe" whose businesslike action had enabled her to close a regrettable chapter in her life with ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... hands, and the like. This sort of thing has been put down, not without probability, to the Oriental suggestion which would come so readily into Spain. It may be so or it may not. But it certainly imports an element of puerility into romance, which is regrettable, and it diminishes the dignity and the poetry of the things rather lamentably. Whether it diminishes, and still more whether it originally diminished the readability of these same things, is ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... silence, holding himself above the small gossip of the day that engaged Amos and his wife. What to him meant the announcement that Amos expected a new line of white goods on the morrow, or Mrs. Gashwiler's version of a regrettable incident occurring at that afternoon's meeting of the Entre Nous Five Hundred Club, in which the score had been juggled adversely to Mrs. Gashwiler, resulting in the loss of the first prize, a handsome fern dish, and ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... ideas of the author—an author, by-the-by, who happens to be very meticulous about having his ideas carried out, and therefore is in the habit of attending rehearsals and expressing his opinion at them. It is regrettable that criticism should be written in this fashion, since it causes a feeling of distrust. Probably the writer had no desire to be unjust, or even unfair in the comparatively venial way of doing rather less than justice ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... very deplorable thing," says the black gentleman, "to have befallen the first person I have found ready to speak a kind word for evil. And in all these centuries, too! Dear me, this is a most regrettable instance of mismanagement! No matter, Jurgen, the morning is brighter than the evening. How I will reward ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... Bayne," he orated fluently, "how sorry I am that this has happened—especially beneath our roof. It is our first case, I assure you, of anything so regrettable. If it gets into the papers it won't do us any good. Now the important thing is to take the fellow out by the rear without courting notice. Why, where is he?" he asked hopefully. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... house in order I find it of moment that I should attend in person to one or two matters which men in my position have long had the habit of leaving wholly to others, with consequences often most regrettable. I wish to speak of only one of these matters at this time: Obituaries. Of necessity, an Obituary is a thing which cannot be so judiciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In such a work it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... with the best books on every subject that interested him, were evidence of his wide reading. His library has now been broken up and, except for a few books retained by his nearest relatives, scattered to the winds; such dispersions are inevitable, but they are none the less regrettable. It always seems to me that one of the saddest things about the death of a literary man is the fact that the breaking-up of his collection of books almost invariably follows; the building up of a good library, the work of a ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... progress round the room arm-in-arm with an imaginary companion of reverend years, with occasional halts at imaginary clubs, where—imaginary steps being leisurely ascended—imaginary papers were glanced at, imaginary scandal was discussed with elderly shakings of the head, and—regrettable to say—imaginary glasses were lifted lipwards. Heaven only knows how the germ of this dreary pastime first found way into his small-boyish being. It was his own invention, and he was proportionately proud of it. Meanwhile, Charlotte and I, crouched in the window-seat, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... for the protection of the pinnated grouse, or prairie chicken, and others of their tribe. These laws have been enforced and have aided materially in the great work of bird-protection. They have also, it is regrettable to state, been violated and ignored. Too often the land owner is too lenient; being blinded to his own interests or being keenly alive to the need of protecting the grouse within his realm, is powerless to act because of lack ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... four once more got together in the doctor's study, each had had a chance to consider the Sanusian situation pretty thoroughly. All but Billie were convinced that the humans were deserving people, whose position was all the more regrettable because due, so far as could be seen, the insignificant little detail of ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... of the faults that have been found with it are quite serious. The worst of these consists in the difficulty of catching the exact moment at which the turbidity of the basic liquid is at the proper point for arresting the operation. In addition to this capital defect, it is regrettable that it is necessary to shake the flask that contains the solution after every insufflation of air, and also that the play of the valves soon becomes imperfect. Finally, Mr. Wolpert rightly sees ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... looked up at him rather pitifully, her eyes meeting his own, her chin invitingly raised with its delectable dimple. Now, Mark wished devoutly that the idea of that dimple as a sort of point d'appui had never entered his thoughts, but there was the regrettable fact. Of course he had hitherto always resisted the temptation, which was the greater because he knew that he need not fear opposition; but still, there was Carrissima ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... with a special edition announcing that, inasmuch as disrespect had been shown to five German officers by a Broadway crowd, it now became necessary to give the city an object lesson that would, it was hoped, prevent such a regrettable occurrence in the future. That evening five six-inch shells would be fired by German siege guns in Brooklyn at five indicated open spaces in Manhattan, these being chosen to avoid losses of life and property. The first shell would be fired ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... visit with him in his study, and to discuss "the present situation in Mexico." As I sat down, he turned to me in the most serious way and said: "Tumulty, you are Irish, and, therefore, full of fight. I know how deeply you feel about this Columbus affair. Of course, it is tragical and deeply regrettable from every standpoint, but in the last analysis I, and not the Cabinet or you, must bear the responsibility for every action that is to be taken. I have to sleep with my conscience in these matters and I shall be held responsible for every drop of blood that may be spent in the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... anticipation of married life. The girl in the factory, who hesitates between the hard work at the machine for the smallest pay, without pleasures, and the easy money of the street, with an abundance of fun, may in the regrettable life of prosaic reality balance the consequences very differently from the moralist. She has discovered that the ideal of virtue is not so highly valued in her circles as in the middle classes. The loss of her virtue is not such ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... minister and the documents which accompany it give, as I believe, an unexaggerated statement of the lamentable incident, and present impressively the regrettable circumstance that the proceedings, in the name of justice, for the ascertainment of the crime and fixing the responsibility therefor were a ghastly mockery of justice. So long as the Chinese minister, under his instructions, makes this the basis of an appeal to the principles and convictions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... now? I don't know whether I mentioned it, but she hasn't actually said "yes" yet. She had certain objections, or rather a certain objection which I found it necessary to meet in a—a somewhat regrettable manner. I was compelled to adopt strategy. She thought our proposed contract (we do things in a business manner) might not be quite fair to me. She was ready to admit that I was getting a good thing ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... nature had been completely eradicated, under the influence of our insular climate and our insular customs. No matter how often the strain of the lively French blood might assert itself, at inconvenient times and under regrettable circumstances, he never recognized this foreign side of his character. His excellent spirits, his quick sympathies, his bright mutability of mind—all those qualities, in short, which were most mischievously ready to ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... (Society for the Promotion of Steam-heating in Kaffir Kraals) displayed a regrettable lack of judgment in choosing Christmas Day for the laying of its foundation pipe, Christmas being the South ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... this novelty led to the coat of yellow wash that undoubtedly did infinite harm to the paintings. At the subsequent restoration, which was carried out by degrees as the necessary funds were forthcoming, it was found that portions of some of the figures had perished, and it is a most regrettable fact that the restoration included the painting in of certain missing parts whose details could only be supplied by analogy. From Mr Lightfoot's description it seems that in the large picture of ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... (lament) 839; repine, cast a longing lingering look behind; rue, rue the day; repent &c. 950; infandum renovare dolorem [Lat]. prey on the mind, weigh on the mind, have a weight on the mind; leave an aching void. Adj. regretting &c. v.; regretful; homesick. regretted &c. v.; much to be regretted, regrettable; lamentable &c. (bad) 649. Adv. regrettably, unfortunately; most unfortunately. Int. alas!; what a pity! hang it! Phr. 'tis pity, 'tis too true; "sigh'd and look'd and sigh'd ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... so cold, so beautiful. With her white wings she has skirted the edge of the dusk with an incredible calm. No whimpering here. Too much artistry for that; too much of eye to let heart rule. The gifts of Adelaide Crapsey were high ones, and that she left so little of song is regrettable, even though she left us a legacy of some of the best singing of the day. It is enough to call her poet, for she was among the first of this hour and time. She had no affectations, no fashionable theories and ambitions. ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... relation of sex and life has persisted even in some ecclesiastical teachings of the twentieth century, and probably has had not a little responsibility for the widely accepted and depressing view that sex is a necessary but regrettable fact of ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... falls into a common and regrettable error when he continually writes England when he really means the British Empire. It is the British Empire that is at war, for which, though a citizen, Mr. Shaw has no authority to speak or to be considered ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... shilling enclosure Mr. Tanquery McBrail, who had been playing with marvellously decorative effect, had his ball blown into the bunker at the tenth by the laughter of the less well-informed onlookers, while a regrettable incident was the contribution of several empty ginger-beer bottles to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... of the analytic and genetic tendency displayed by Freud, Clark and the Freudian school in general, it is regrettable to me that the analytic tendency and reconstructive efforts of the Freudians in the field of neurology and psychopathology have been seriously marred by their insistence on forcing all observed physical and psychical phenomena and reactions ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... royalty is the meanest, the most heartless, the most faithless and the most unjust of the species—that in addition she herself disgraced its womanhood, after the famous Louise of Prussia rehabilitated queenship, is regrettable, but to call it altogether unexpected would ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... or two of newspaper forecast and fear, a week or two of recrimination and feverish preparation, an ultimatum—England at war. The navy mobilized, the army mobilizing, auxiliaries warned to be in readiness, overseas battalions, batteries and squadrons recalled, or re-distributed, reverses and "regrettable incidents,"—and outlying parts of India (her native troops massed in the North or doing garrison-duty overseas) an archipelago of safety-islands in a sea of danger; Border parts of India for a time dependent upon their various ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... I entreat you, not a movement—There is some regrettable mistake; and that is why we must act in silence and not attract anybody's attention. You will be back, I have no doubt, before the end ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... were going to stay, and if their family was well, and dragged in the weather, and hoped it would get cooler soon, and all that sort of thing, so as to be able to say, when he got home, "I had quite a long talk with them"; but nobody did or said anything of a regrettable kind, and so the great affair went through to the end in a creditable ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... agreed to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported to have said, "In the eyes of the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a tyrant.... As for the Provisional Government, not only does it not depend upon the Soviets, but it considers it regrettable that they ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... will recollect those regrettable incidents on the North Sea belonging to the eighteenth century, when we had to chronicle the names of Captains Mitchell and Whitehead in that connection. Unhappily there were occasional repetitions of these in the early ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... the servants' quarters. For considerately placing the pantry distant from these, it might have been thought that the architect of the house would receive Mr. Morgan's commendation. On the contrary, of his zeal appropriately to execrate the former's memory, the ex-footman employed most regrettable language, and this for the simple reason that the stone sill of the pantry window projected rather farther from the wall than Mr. Morgan, when in the act of lifting his knee, had believed to ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... and relieved here and there by ornate doorways, wall-fountains, niches, and half-domes. On the south, along the Avenue of Palms, are found some very fine adaptations of old Spanish doorways, which deserve to be preserved. It is regrettable that we have no large museum on the coast where these fine doorways in the outer walls of the Palace of Varied Industries could be preserved permanently. The travertine marble has nowhere been used more effectively than in just such details. The entrance ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... others, but could not be ruled; and his official career left many heart-burnings behind. His equally passionate brother, Sir William, who wrote his life, took up the feud as a legacy and pursued it in print for many years. It is regrettable that such men cannot work without friction; but in all things it was devotion to the public service, and not personal ambition, that carried Charles Napier to such extremes. From his youth he had trained himself to such a pitch ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... prolonged. Especially does it seem difficult for the youth who has not yet attained the aplomb which makes him at ease in society, to "tear himself away." Remember that a too abrupt departure, though regrettable, is better ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the King, "I beg your pardon, for a number of beautiful and sacred thoughts, in which you were generally classified as a fool. But there is another thing to be considered. Suppose you send in your workmen, and Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed, but of which, I am sorry to say, I think him ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... number of years immigration into Germany has been much greater than emigration from Germany.... Even in times of peace German agriculture had not a surplus, but a shortage, of labor, and it cannot possibly accord with our interests to increase the shortage by encouraging emigration.... Regrettable though it is, there can be no question at the conclusion of peace of acquiring territory for settlement. There is no appropriate country, and there are no ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... audience stamped with his own personality. He says that the speaker draws inspiration from the audience in the form of mist and pours it back in a flood. It need hardly be added that this refers to speaking without manuscript, but reading, while always regrettable, is sometimes necessary—especially when accuracy is more ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... a regrettable fact that there exists some reason to believe that his sympathy was not purely disinterested. Aguinaldo claims that Pratt wished to be appointed "representative of the Philippines in the United States to promptly secure the official recognition of our independence" ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... lighted it, his hands trembling. He could not think of anything to say. It was as though by that one act he had cut a bridge behind him and on the other side lay all the platitudes, the small give and take of their hours together. What to her was a regrettable incident was to him a great dramatic climax. Boylike, he refused to recognize its unimportance to her. He wanted to talk ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... has heard that Mrs. Cleeve holds regrettable opinions on some points. If so, he may feel surprised that a ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... longer. Disputes had lately arisen between Miss Nightingale and some of the nurses in the Crimean hospitals. The situation had been embittered by rumours of religious dissensions, while the Crimean nurses were Roman Catholics, many of those at Scutari were suspected of a regrettable propensity towards the tenets of Dr. Pusey. Miss Nightingale was by no means disturbed by these sectarian differences, but any suggestion that her supreme authority over all the nurses with the Army was, no doubt, enough to rouse her to fury; and it appeared ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... believe it if the lawyers got to cross-examining you," said Harvey, meaning well, but making a secret enemy of Mr. Brinkley, who thought he knew more of a regrettable visit ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... bitterly of the treatment this play received (note his preface), but of it may be said, as in the case of its predecessor, that it makes better reading than it must have made acting, for the scenes are loosely constructed and often illogical. Our playwright yet betrays the amateur touch. It is regrettable, too, for he chose an excellent theme and setting. The time is near the close of the sixteenth century, under the rule of Philip II. of Spain and the much-dreaded Inquisition. An inventor, a pupil of Galileo, barely escapes the Holy Office because of having discovered ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... somewhat similar lines. The whole trouble, he protested, was due to an anti-Christian, illiberal, and inhuman system. It seems that he was referring to Prussia, and it is regrettable that he did not feel called to explain why that system prevails in the year of the Lord 1915, or how it finds an instrument of its ambition in a militarism that ought to have been denounced and abolished centuries ago. ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... that the possession of a quarter of a million works a radical change in people's characters. Or, again, it may be that he is more deeply devoted to Biddy than I, for one, ever suspected. There is no doubt that given the regrettable position, his behaviour in regard to ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... differentiation, then slavery would be justifiable, and exploitation a reasonable and inevitable process. Since, however, this assumption of materialism is untenable, and since all men are possessed of immortal souls between which is no distinction in the sight of God, the situation, regrettable if you like, is one which at the same time calls for the exercise of a higher humanitarianism than that so popular during the last generation, and as well for a very drastic revision of contemporary political and ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... mere mule-tracks. The only legitimate road in existence was of most recent construction, which represented the new birth of British enterprise, from Larnaca to the capital, Nicosia (or Lefkosia), about twenty-eight miles. The regrettable paucity of stone-hammers rendered it impossible to prepare the metal, therefore huge rounded blocks, bigger than a man's head, had been thrown down for a foundation, upon which some roughly broken and a quantity of unbroken smaller stones ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... toilet; its publicity. Women's dress. Taking food with the fingers; defence of the custom; the touch of the meat-eater. Servants of Europeans. English hospitality restricted by caste. The Rajah's dinner-party. Instance of mutual misunderstanding. Regrettable results of ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... to blame for the professor's regrettable explosion and departure, and he ought by all laws of justice to have suffered for it. As it was, I was the only person materially affected. It did not matter to Ukridge. He did not care twopence one way or the other. If the professor were friendly, he was willing to talk to him by ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... printing. These ideas, he felt, were an important contribution. After devoting half the little book to a rambling account of this subject, including a short history of woodcutting from Duerer onward, the author suddenly shifts to the journal. It is regrettable that he condensed it because we do not know what was left out. It is possible that much autobiographical information was excluded, as well as a picture of woodcutters and woodcutting of the time. The book concludes with the statement that Jackson ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... a day—two days, perhaps—you will hear from your uncle. He will tell you how to send money to the lawless ones. You will follow his instructions, and he will come home with smiles and singing. I know. It is very regrettable, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... with the countrywide summons for a more exacting standard of business ethics. The spirit and practices of railroad administration became standardized, so to speak, at a moral level certainly not inferior to that of any other calling. It is true, certain regrettable abuses and incidents of misconduct still came to light in subsequent years, but these were sporadic instances, by no means characteristic of railroading methods and practices in general, condemned by the ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn
... is regrettable," Longorio went on. "Probably evil men have lied to him—San Antonio is full of rebels conspiring to give our country into the hands of outlaws. What a terrible spectacle it is! Enough to bring tears to ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... innocent people to beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his cruel bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of obscurity, and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, about John Gabriel Borkman, but on the whole it is a work of lofty originality ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... in many cases the Prince prepared a memorandum of an important interview; but there are a considerable number of such correspondences, where no record is preserved of the eventual solution, and this incompleteness is regrettable, but, by the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... might utter something regrettable, she flew down the port passage and entered her cabin, where she remained until dinner. She spent the intervening hours endeavouring to analyze the cause of her temper, but the cause was as elusive as quicksilver. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... of his illness. The suspicion increased, because the physicians and surgeons, having opened his body, declared, from the signs that they found, that he had been poisoned, which made his death more regrettable. [205] The Audiencia buried the governor in the monastery of St. Augustine at Manila, with the pomp and ostentation due to his person and offices. Then, again taking charge of the government, the Audiencia despatched the vessels to Nueva Espana, whence ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... superfluous butter. If good quality cocoa is used, the butter contained in the nib is all that is needful to incorporate sugar and nib into one soft chocolate paste for grinding and moulding, but in the commoner chocolates extra cocoa butter has to be added. It is a regrettable fact that some unprincipled makers are tempted to use cheaper vegetable fats as substitutes for the natural butter, but none of these are really palatable or satisfactory in use, and none of the leading British firms are guilty of using such adulterants, ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... mass of what is often called "rampant modernity," of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The modernity, however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would imply; much of it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it perhaps inevitable; but no one will deny either the modernity or the beauty of Grey Street, one of the finest streets in any English town; or the fine appearance of Grainger Street, Blackett Street, Eldon Square, or any other of the stately thoroughfares with ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... as is the Slavonic way, playfulness could pass with surprising suddenness to dead earnest—with, indeed, so dramatic a precipitance that the actors themselves were afterwards amazed. Of these "little, regrettable mistakes" there had already, during the week, been several examples. To Vera, with the knowledge of the contents of her linen-cupboard, the men seemed terrifying enough. Their leader was a fat and beaming student—quite a boy. He was very polite, saying "Zdrastvuite," and taking off his ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... that we had en route of fresh meat and fish were obtained largely by chance; we having no knowledge of localities where hunting and fishing were likely to be successful, and it being deemed unsafe for members of the party to wander far or remain long away from the train. It seems regrettable that the invention of hermetically-sealed and easily portable foods, and the inducement to cross the plains to California, did ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... true, Stella. It was," Sir Chichester explained naively. "But I have noticed lately a regrettable tendency to indifference on the part of the Flashlight. The management is usually too occupied to converse with me when I ring it up. On the other hand, I am new to the Harpoon. Hallo! Hallo! This is Sir Christopher Splay speaking," and he delivered ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... In the light of subsequent events it is not difficult to realize that both governments were in the wrong. The wisdom born of bitter experience and the sincere friendship of the two nations to-day, sensibly founded on mutual respect, happily renders a repetition of such regrettable scenes ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... like to impress upon you all. We are in trouble, and it behoves each one of us to ask in all earnestness that the cloud may be lifted, and that courage and truthfulness may be given where it is most needed. An accident, however regrettable, is not a serious offence, but in this instance it has been turned into one by the refusal of the culprit to acknowledge her offence. I have made every inquiry, and it seems morally certain that one of you must know ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... all but left Jack Benson's lips, though he tried to keep it there. Hal Hastings made the most successful attempt at looking wholly unconcerned. Eph's face was growing redder every minute. It is a regrettable fact that Eph was really beginning to want ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... opening pages of the history of the new dynasty. The Central Government, after carefully considering the matter, has concluded that it would be better to sort out and burn the documents so as to remove all unnecessary records and prevent regrettable consequences. For these reasons you are hereby requested to sift out all telegrams, letters, and dispatches concerning the change in the form of the state, whether official or private, whether received from Peking or the provinces (excepting those required ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... the other, penetrating and cutting the hill, followed the line of the streets, which they cleared little by little before them. In following the streets on the ground-level, the declivity of ashes and pumice-stone which obstructed them was attacked below, and thence resulted many regrettable accidents. The whole upper part of the houses, commencing with the roofs, fell in among the rubbish, along with a thousand fragile articles, which were broken and lost without there being any means of determining the point from which they had been hurled down. In order to obviate this inconvenience, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... old-fashioned relics of American honesty—a man who thought more of the interests of the people intrusted to his care than of the prospect of innumerable "made dollars" which might have been his had he proved more amenable. It is regrettable that he was not able to deprive the conspirators of their power to juggle with the property of the corporation, for only two weeks later they developed and executed an alternative device which practically accomplished the result which the Massachusetts authorities had declared illegal and the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... forget one regrettable passage in Mr. Seward's letter, in which he said that "if the safety of the Union required the detention of the captured persons, it would be the right and duty of this Government to detain them." I sincerely ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill
... displaying them. He was sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and there, one would have thought the subject—not being a new one—might well have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... hickories, where the differences in total points awarded are generally only 1 point, with several of the same score, this crudeness of determination of one of the most important characteristics is the more regrettable. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... been established in a kind of compound near the links, but their unfortunate tendency to bolt with the club-bags and purloin every ball they found rather impaired their usefulness as caddies. Marshal Federhelm treated his with regrettable inhumanity. ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... not the wonder so much as that they did not make more. The real marvel is that they did so much efficient work. For after we get a little farther away from the details and see the work of these agencies in its broader aspects, when we forget the lapses—which, after all, though irritating and regrettable, were not major—the record as a whole will stand as a most signal piece ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... engaged, however, were likely to be marred by regrettable asperities rising from Sharon's inability to grasp the nicer subtleties of golf. It seemed silly to him not to lift his ball out of some slight depression into which it had rolled quite by accident; not to ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... M. Muller's regrettable efforts to invalidate every Buddhist evidence, he seems to have ill-succeeded in proving his case, if we can judge from the openly expressed opinion of his own German confreres. In the portion headed "Tradition as to Buddha's Age" (pp. 283-288) ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... been the case. The result was that in making this journey the greatest qualities of endurance, self-sacrifice, and patience were called for, and the call was not in vain, as you reading the following pages will realize. It is more than regrettable that after having gone through those many months of hardship and toil, Mackintosh and Hayward should have been lost. Spencer-Smith during those long days, dragged by his comrades on the sledge, suffering ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... vexed us.[330] Ought it to be assumed that in all men the mixture of religion with other elements should be identical? Ought it, indeed, to be assumed that the lives of all men should show identical religious elements? In other words, is the existence of so many religious types and sects and creeds regrettable? ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... three days, the 19th, 20th, and 21st of June, with regrettable persistence. An ascent had to be made to clear the Japanese mountain of Fujiyama. When the curtain of mist was drawn aside there lay below them an immense city, with palaces, villas, gardens, and parks. Even without seeing it Robur ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... fear the school is taking the Commercial side too literally—with unforeseen results. To-day there was a regrettable incident in the tuck-shop, outside the door of which, unknown to Mrs. Harrison, a placard was nailed up announcing "Harrison's Winter Sale. All goods at sacrificial prices. Must be cleared. No offer refused." As a consequence the boys burst into the place in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... regrettable that we should, quite involuntarily, have disturbed your Majesty at a moment when your Majesty's feelings are, ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Balsam City, and things were going badly. Marks and Bullhammer had formed a partnership with the Halfbreed, the Professor and the Bank clerk, and the arrangement was proving a regrettable one for the latter two. It was all due to Marks. At the best of times, he was a cross-grained, domineering bully, and on the trail, which would have worn to a wire edge the temper of an angel, his yellow streak became an eyesore. He developed a chronic grouch, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... A regrettable mistake is reported from South London. A thoroughly patriotic man was sat upon by a Cockney crowd for declaring that the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... shoulders. "I am sorry, Monsieur," he said, "but there is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... official warning. Your absence as a witness to-morrow morning will not be commented upon—events of importance have called you back to England. You will thereby be saved a very large amount of annoyance, and the authorities here will be spared the most regrettable necessity of having to deal with you in a manner unbefitting ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I said. "Take care not to similarly transgress again. We all are constantly committing regrettable actions, but so long as we are careful not to repeat them we may hope ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... from Brighton Central to the Dyke and public conveyances from the Aquarium. The excursion should not be missed, though the visitor who is a stranger must be prepared for a regrettable amount of waste paper and broken bottles left about to mar what would otherwise be one of the finest scenes in the Downs. Refreshment stalls and tea gardens help to vulgarize the surroundings, though the added desecration of aerial railway across ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes |
