|
|
|
More "Decency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Why not let the men eat at tables the same as the women, and have some decency about the matter? Then how much better in another respect. By the present system, rations must be dealt out to all alike, giving the same quantity to each, with the result of having more or less food returned or a part not have enough, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... don't you see? It's one of those things no white man can do. Once it's done, you have put the bars up against decency for ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... have been warned. There is such a thing as a wholesome sense of repulsion, an honest manly recoil, a pure instinct of loathing, a thousand times to be preferred to this morbid mixture of good and evil, friend and foe, life and death, this defiance of decency and general opinion." ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... show that the better dressed and better looking you are the more money you'll get—that is, when it's the men you have to tackle, as in this case. If it had been the women, however, I would have put on the oldest and ugliest things, consistent with decency, I had. This was what Melissa had done, as it was, and she did look fearfully prim and dowdy, except for her front hair, which was as soft and fluffy and elaborate as usual. I never could understand how Melissa always got ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Lord Chiltern. "Her temper is too much like mine to allow her to be happy with such a log of wood as Robert Kennedy. It is such men as he who drive me out of the pale of decent life. If that is decency, I'd sooner be indecent. You mark my words. They'll come to grief. She'll never be able to ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... and he resolved to lose no time in carrying out his intentions. In order to isolate himself more completely from all outward influences he would have sent Frau von Sigmundskron back alone and would have followed her a few hours later; but his sense of common decency, as well as his profound gratitude, forbade such a course. He could not by any means avoid the long drive in her company, and he tried to harden his heart as he submitted to his destiny. It was certain that, unless she had changed her mind, she would talk of the matter of his ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... he pleases or can procure, and dismissing them at pleasure, and this license is common both to men and women. They are little addicted to jealousy, yet much given to lust, in which the women far exceed the men. From motives of decency I here omit describing the expedients they put in practice for satisfying their inordinate desires. The women are very prolific, and do not shun labour or fatigue while pregnant. Their deliveries are attended with little pain, so that they are able immediately ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... Common-sense and common decency, however, should restrain the frivolous from engaging much in the amusements and gayeties of life before six months have passed after the death of any near friend. If they pretend to wear black at all, they cannot be too scrupulous in respecting the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... never left them alone for a moment, made one at all their parties, at the theatre or in the country, joined them in all their walks, was always at hand and in the way, seeking to hold Adele back, and to restore her sense of decency by a word in an undertone: "A mere boy! ain't you ashamed?" she would say to her. And the other would laugh aloud, as if it were ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... to bring all the souls I can to the knowledge of the truth, and to embrace the Catholic doctrine; but as I am here under your permission, and in your family, I am bound, in justice to your kindness as well as in decency and good manners, to be under your government; and therefore I shall not, without your leave, enter into any debate on the points of religion in which we may not agree, further than you ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... warm friendships on circuit, but enjoyed many of the social meetings, and often recurred to them in later years. He only despised tomfoolery more emphatically than his neighbours. Nobody, indeed, could be a more inconvenient presence where breaches of decency or good manners were to be apprehended. I vividly remember an occasion upon which he was one of a little party of young men on a walking tour. A letter read out by one of them had the phrase, 'What a pity about Mrs. A.!' Someone suggested a conjectural ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... conservative prejudice outweighs all other considerations. The Chinese have a very strong instinct for trade, and a considerable intellectual curiosity, to both of which we appeal. Only a bare minimum of common decency is required to secure their friendship, whether privately or politically. And I think their thought is as capable of enriching our culture as their commerce of enriching ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... obstinate, he was resolved to yield and submit to their humors. So a philosopher, midst those companions that slight his excellent discourse, will lay aside his gravity, follow them, and comply with their humor as far as decency will permit; knowing very well that men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but may their philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily, nay, whilst they are piqued upon or repartee. For it is not only ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... but to Hyrcanas, Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 8. sect. 5, has hardly an appearance of a contradiction; Antipater being now perhaps considered only as Hyrcanus's deputy and minister; although he afterwards made a cipher of Hyrcanus, and, under great decency of behavior to him, took the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... be suited with a new suit—certainly not before they were required. In twenty-four hours I was thrust into a new garment by a bandy-legged tailor, assisted by my friend the cook, and turn or twist whichever way I pleased, decency was never violated. A new suit of clothes is generally an object of ambition, and flatters the vanity of young and old; but with me it was far otherwise. Encumbered with my novel apparel, I experienced at once feelings ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a gold top, or a cambric pocket-handkerchief, in lieu of the horrid pig, with a pink coronet in the corner? or suppose you covered the man's hand (which is very coarse and strong), and gave him the decency of a kid glove? But a piece of pork in a naked hand? O nerves and eau de Cologne, hide it, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... good-looking woman, who had once been cook and housekeeper in a gentleman's family, and who still retained something of the decency and respectability of her former appearance, was now by misfortune reduced to be their associate. A few were young and handsome, and, what would appear strange in such ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... am sorry to shock you, my love; but since Juan has stripped every rag of decency from the discussion I may as well tell the ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... however, who has rendered the rest of the citation in terms more abrupt and discourteous than he was warranted by any authority, copies the biographer's blunder, and sneers at De Sade, as using arguments "rather of decency than of weight." Without wearying the reader with all the arguments of the learned Abbe, it may be sufficient to ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... else. For God's sake, Barry, don't fail me. I can and I do trust Gillian to you. I have made you her guardian, it is all legally arranged and my lawyer in London has the papers. He is a well-known man and emanates respectability—my last claim to decency! Gillian is at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris. My only consolation is that you are so rich that financially she will be no embarrassment to you. I realize what I am asking and the enormity ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... he said at last, 'what is there in the man that he should have made you forget love and honour and common decency!' ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... and if the modern adulterers would speak the truth, I am certain they would acknowledge, that half the money which, in the true sense of the word, is misspent upon those daughters of destruction, would keep a family with decency, and maintain a wife with honour. When our author was in this forlorn miserable state, he writ a letter to his wife, which Mr. Winstanly has preferred, and which, as it has somewhat tender in it I shall insert. It has often been observed, that half the unhappy ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... quick-witted nor an imaginative race are we; but we have the roots of poetry in us, and the roots of other arts, for we have reverence for what is above and beyond us. Custom, too, we worship, and decency and order. We fight unwillingly, and are very slow to anger; but we never let go. Witness the last four dreadful years; witness Europe from Mons to Gallipoli. The British private, soldier or sailor, has been ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... antiquated and in need of reform. But we will keep you, when need be, within necessary limits, and so save you from yourselves, for without us you would set Russia tottering, robbing her of all external decency, while our task is to preserve external decency. Understand that we are mutually essential to one another. In England the Whigs and Tories are in the same way mutually essential to one another. Well, you're Whigs and we're Tories. That's ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... room for doubt that he was an attentive reader or consistent admirer of the 'Religio Medici,' or 'Christian Morals'; and though his own personal history might have contributed much to a complete catalogue of Vulgar Errors, Browne's treatise so named did not include divagations from common decency in its scope, and so may have failed to impress the royal mind. The fact is that the King on his visit to Norwich, looking about for somebody to knight, intended, as usual on such occasions, to confer the title on the mayor of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... a terrible betrayer of the character, and a surer guide in judgment than most people know. For men learn to use their voices skilfully and to govern their tones as well as their words; but, beyond not laughing too loud for ordinary decency of behaviour, there are few people who care, or realize, how they laugh; and those who do, and who, being aware that there is room for improvement, endeavour to improve, very generally produce either a semi-musical noise, which is false and affected, or a perfectly inane cachinnation which has ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... are awfully flat and flabby—they have all been rolled about in some one's mind, till they are as smooth as pebbles—some bits of the crudest rudeness, not worked up to—some knock-down schoolboy retorts which most civilised men would have had the decency to repress—and then we get back to the real Boswell again, and how fresh ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and movement was the chief object of those employed at the assemblies of the rich Egyptians; and the ridiculous gestures of the buffoon were permitted there, so long as they did not transgress the rules of decency and moderation. Music was always indispensable, whether at the festive meetings of the rich or poor; and they danced to the sound of the harp, lyre, guitar, pipe, tambourine, and other instruments, and, in the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... baseless, gratuitous, circumstantial lie charging poor Captain Smith with desertion of his post by means of suicide is the vilest and most ugly thing of all in this outburst of journalistic enterprise, without feeling, without honour, without decency. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... on the subject of the toast, who by gulping down port wine at the imminent hazard of suffocation, endeavoured to conceal his confusion. After as long a pause as decency would admit, he rose, but, as the newspapers sometimes say in their reports, 'we regret that we are quite unable to give even the substance of the honourable gentleman's observations.' The words 'present company—honour—present occasion,' and 'great happiness'—heard occasionally, and repeated ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a clatter was storming in the hall by the second hour after midnight! How the lungs of the feasters were choked with overpowering perfumes! What repulsive exhibitions met the eye! How shamelessly was all decency trodden under foot! The poisonous breath of unchecked license had blasted the noble moderation of the vapor of wine which floated round this chaos of riotous topers slowly rose the pale image of Satiety watching for victims on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... simply disgusting! If you don't know yourself how to observe decency, then sit in your hovel! If you haven't anything to wear, then don't have any fancies! You write verses, you wish to educate yourself—and you go about looking like a factory hand! Does education consist in this, in singing idiotic songs? You idiot! [Through his teeth and looking ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... situation. Yet, even when such was the case, you refused this to their prayers. But it is not duty, nor solicitude for their friends; it is religion that has collected them together. They are about to receive the Idaean Mother, coming out of Phrygia from Pessinus! What motive, that even common decency will allow to be mentioned, is pretended for this female insurrection? Why, say they, that we may shine in gold and purple; that, both on festal and common days, we may ride through the city in our chariots, triumphing over ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... Great Britain which at that time pervaded America, and shortly after broke out in open war. This self-sufficient miscreant having, as he fancied, taken ample vengeance upon the Government of his native country, could not, with any degree of decency, remain in the States, from whence he sailed for France in an American sloop-of-war, carrying with him the reward of his treason and the universal contempt of mankind." (Christie's History of the War ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... propose to indulge—each group of us in the Put-Through Clan—the labor group in the town, the employer group and the public group, in self-disciplining ourselves, until the thing is made catching out of sheer shame and decency in others. ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Delight was always shown in beautiful scenery or tales of the marvellous. Commanding or agreeable situations were chosen for temples. But until within the last few years streets and houses were generally unclean, and decency in public frequently absent. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... under the necessity,) I shall on no occasion transgress against the strictest rules of truth and decency, nor be wanting in that respect, which I have ever paid, and shall ever pay to Congress, as the representative body of my fellow citizens. At the same time, I shall with proper firmness, and the dignity becoming a free but injured citizen, expose to public view those, whether in Congress ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... there are Who live a life of virtuous decency, 135 Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel No self-reproach; who of the moral law Established in the land where they abide Are strict observers; and not negligent In acts of love to those with whom they dwell, [17] 140 Their kindred, and the children ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... or two before this, the lower room, in which I then lodged, containing about a hundred and seventy officers, was getting into such a condition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting to see what measures could be adopted to promote comfort and decency. I was not the senior in rank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself authorized to issue orders. Some sort of government must be instituted at once. Nearly all recognized the necessity of prompt action and strict ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... delight than this afternoon. Went to call on Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and saw his fine library of German books. The sight was enough to excite me to the utmost, but to be told that they were all at my service put me into such an ecstasy that I could hardly behave with decency. I selected several immediately and promised myself fuller examination of the library very soon.... Mr. R. proposed to me to translate something for his ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... vaurien," I answered with great heat. "A rank villain; one who outrages all decency, breaks every law, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... of decency," she said—"I say nothing of a sense of honor—you will leave this house, and your acquaintance with that lady will end here. Spare me your protests and excuses; I can place but one interpretation on what I saw when ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... most painful operation. I am quite well aware that it would be next to useless, if not quite hypocritical, in one in my position to lay claim to any considerable delicacy of feeling, or to appear to be over scrupulous in matters of common decency. But there will occasionally, however, be found even amongst convicts those who will bear a pretty long period of imprisonment, during which they are subjected to a variety of contaminating influences, and yet not have their moral sensibilities ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... one bedroom in a cottage contained three beds occupied by eleven people of all ages and both sexes, with no curtain or partition whatever. At Milton Abbas, on the average of the last census there were thirty-six persons in each house, and so crowded were they that cottagers with a desire for decency would combine and place all the males in one cottage, and all the females in another. But this was rare, and licentiousness and immorality of the ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... men have no beards, nor hair on their head, except a round tuft on its crown; but this defect is not natural, as many people are given to believe, but the effect of art, it being customary among them to tear out such hair by the root. They go naked, except those parts which natural decency teaches the most barbarous nations to cover. The huts in which they live are foul, mean and offensive; and their manner of life is poor, nasty and disgustful. In the hunting season they are eager and indefatigable in pursuit of their ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... "that this double game of yours is disgraceful. Your association with Mrs. Sweeny demands the withdrawal of any claim you have upon Miss Baxter at once. If you have no respect for Captain Jim's friendship, you must at least show common decency to her." ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... never!' shouts the woman; 'I shorely sees inebriates ere now, but at least they has the decency not to pull ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... in a moment they had become more intimate. They were discussing their affairs, which had nothing to do with the heroic symbols that surrounded them; but their affairs had suddenly grown so serious that there was no want of decency in their lingering there for the purpose. The implication that his visit might remain as a secret between them made them both feel it differently. To ask her to keep it so would have been, as it seemed to Ransom, a liberty, and, moreover, he didn't care so much ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... at the door of the coach to obtain admittance, it is a matter of some question to know exactly what conduct it is necessary to pursue. If the women are servants, or persons in a low rank of life, I do not see upon what ground of politeness or decency you are called upon to yield your seat. Etiquette, and the deference due to ladies have, of course, no operation in the case of such persons. Chivalry—(and the gentleman is the legitimate descendant of the knight of old)—was ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... details of the Maulville burning were given the author by an eyewitness of the tragedy, a man of national reputation among the Negroes. Some of the more revolting features of that occurrence have been suppressed for decency's sake. We would have been glad to eliminate all of the details, but they have entered into the thought-life of the Negroes, and their influence ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... the lands in the Basin. He took them up under the mineral act, and plainly against all law and decency. It's the plainest case of fraud I know about, and is a direct steal ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... was her feeling about John Mayrant? As Beverly had said, what could she want him for? He hadn't a thing that she valued or needed. His old-time notions of decency, the clean simplicity of his make, his good Southern position, and his collection of nice old relatives—what did these assets look like from an automobile, or on board the launch of a modern steam yacht? And wouldn't it be amusing if John should ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... assured her that there would be no violation of decency in their paying a visit—the little party of three—to the sights of the metropolis; but Mrs. Touchett took a different view. Like many ladies of her country who had lived a long time in Europe, she had completely lost her native tact on such points, and in her reaction, not in itself ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... him out of the corner of his eye, as though he strongly suspected the genuine character of this generosity. Still, he felt that he could not in decency draw back now, so he took the shotgun and tucked it away ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... life-like, and very Smollettian. In Letter V. the Doctor again is very much himself. A little provocation and he bristles and stabs all round. He mounts the hygienic horse and proceeds from the lack of implements of cleanliness to the lack of common decency, and "high flavoured instances, at which even a native of Edinburgh would stop his nose." [This recalls Johnson's first walk up the High Street, Edinburgh, on Bozzy's arm. "It was a dusky night: I could not prevent his ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... ultimately in regard to Miss Polly Neefit. He was somewhat slow of speech, unless specially aroused, and had hardly received the congratulations of his young friend respecting the election, and expressed with some difficult decency his sorrow for the old Squire's death as combined with his satisfaction that the estate had not been sacrificed, when Ralph stopped him just as they had reached the front door, and, with much solemnity of manner, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... happening in the market," he said, "and I think that you have a hand in it. The decency of the place is wonderful, and you said that you thought I might have less trouble with the men than I was wont if you went down with the loaves. What did you? For I went to the baker's stalls and bought, and looked ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... that people make an outward showing of loving God, because they know full well that it is their first duty; yet, for all that, they do not a whit mend their ways, and to sin costs them nothing. They varnish it over with an appearance of honesty and decency, and fair-minded men take them for what they appear to be, and should be, and they pass for such. These watches are pretty to look upon, beautiful, magnificent, but they are stopped, the interior is out ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... to some of the cases of the burning alive of women for civil offences. This practice was considered by the framers of the law as a commutation of the sentence of hanging, and a concession made to the sex of the offenders. "For as the decency due to the sex," says Blackstone, "forbids the exposing and publicly mangling their bodies, their sentence (which is to the full as terrible to sensation as the other) is, to be drawn to the gallows, and there to be burnt alive;" and he adds: "the humanity of the ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... which she cannot share, the conviction that she is rapidly losing health and charm, rouse the molten forces within her. A swelling tide of self-pity suddenly storms the banks which have hitherto held her and finally overcomes her instincts for decency and righteousness, as well as the habit of clean living, established by ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... the perusal of Waterbuck, Q.C.'s opinion, and, going upstairs, entered her room, for she did not lock her doors till bed-time—she had the decency, he found, to save the feelings of the servants. She was brushing her hair, and turned to him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... pedantry by so detestable an allusion or reference to the Georgic. Give me leave to tell you, Sir, that if humanity were a branch of your studies at the university, it has not found a genius in you for mastering it. Nor is either my sex or myself, though a sister, I see entitled to the least decency from a brother, who has studied, as it seems, rather to cultivate the malevolence of his natural temper, than any tendency which one might have hoped his parentage, if not his education, might have given him to a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... of them, especially a leader, or man of influence dies, they have full meetings, not only of the colony, but of the Gypsies from a distance, and those meetings, or Late Wakes, are by no means conducted with sobriety or decency." ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... across the vast and rich plain of Middle England, Leonora's thoughts dwelt on the house at Hillport, on her skilled and sympathetic servants, on Prince and Bran, and on the calm and the orderliness and the high decency of everything. And she pictured the homecoming of Ethel and Fred from Wales—Fred stiff and nervous, and Ethel flushed, beautiful, and utterly bewitching in the self-consciousness of the bride. 'May I call her Mrs. ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... creature then got on the quarter of the boat, without any one's touching her; there she placed herself with her legs outboard, while she sat on the gunwale. She gave one moment to the thought of arranging her clothes with womanly decency, and then she paused to gaze with a fixed eye, and pallid cheek, on the foaming wake that marked the rapid course of the boat. The troughs of the sea seemed less terrible to her than their combing crests, and she waited for the boat to ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... suggest happenings unspeakable? Yet it is the fashion to quote the last sentence above from Boccaccio's letter in the original—"totam noctem comsumpsimus; judicet modo Ex(ma.) Dominatio vestra si bene o male"—as though decency forbade its translation; and at once this poisonous reticence does its work, and the imagination—and not only that of the unlettered—is fired, and all manner ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... "a duty of decency and honour, and to name that girl, foolish as she is, in the same breath with your women—But here, listen to me. Best tell you now, so there may be no mistake and no excuse. Miss Cregeen is to be married to a friend of mine. I needn't say who he is—he comes close ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... grenouillette; just in the very rush and murmur of the first spreading currents, the human wretches of the place cast their street and house foulness; heaps of dust and slime, and broken shreds of old metal, and rags of putrid clothes; they having neither energy to cart it away, nor decency enough to dig it into the ground, thus shed into the stream, to diffuse what venom of it will float and melt, far away, in all places where God meant those waters to bring joy and health. And, in a little pool, behind some houses farther in the village, where ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of that day in particular. The prayer would have been longer, but for the click of the latch of the shop-door, which brought it to a speedier close than one might have supposed even Mr Bruce's notions of decency would have permitted. And almost before the Amen was out of his month, he was out ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... answered, with a peculiar laugh. "You don't appreciate the character of these people. When a man fights for money, just plain, sordid money, he loses all sense of honor, chivalry, and decency, he employs any means that come handy. There is no real code of financial morality, and the battle for dollars is the bitterest of all contests. Of course, being a woman, they couldn't very well attack me personally, but they tried everything except physical violence, and I don't know how long ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... king's heavy faults, vindictiveness was not, at that time, in the faintest degree traceable; but, besides that, he had learned, in the intercourse of the last day or two before the fatal encounter, too much of Elliot's nefarious designs upon Marguerite de St. Martin to suppose that he would with decency punish the conduct of her defender. Nor need we wonder if a bag of Rose Lempriere's pistoles lent ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... as froward and as extravagant as himself; yet, as he surpassed them all in birth and rank, so he did in wickedness and cruelty of disposition. For age he had no reverence, for virtue no esteem, neither truth towards man, nor decency towards woman. On his arrival at Waterford, the new Archbishop of Dublin, John de Courcy, and the principal Norman nobles, hastened to receive him. With them came also certain Leinster chiefs, desiring to live at peace with the new Galls. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... course, nonsense; but in the kingdom of thought, as in that of heaven, there are many mansions, and what would be extravagance in the cottage or farm-house, as it were, of daily practice, is but common decency in the palace of high philosophy, wherein dwells evolution. If we leave evolution alone, we may stick to common practice and the law courts; touch evolution and we are in another world; not higher, ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... thing when it came near her. I have tried to tell myself love was enough, that it would make up to her for the rest. It isn't enough. You can't build life or happiness except on the quarry stuff they keep on Holiday Hill, right, honor, decency. You know that. Tony forgave my past. I believe she is generous enough to forgive even this and go on with me. But I shan't ask her. I won't let her. I—I've given her up with ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... "For decency's sake, you may, and I shall have to pretend that I do. At least," she continued, turning coldly to Malipieri, "you will make such reparation as is ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... his "Ha, ha, ha!" Who would go to see a fellow so void of the sense of common decency! I gave this priest from this ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... with a shrug. "Oh well, anyway the house must be done up—painted and papered and that kind of thing. A trustee has got to see that things of that sort are kept in order, I suppose. But it won't have anything to do with me, except that for decency's sake, no doubt, he'll consult me. I shall be allowed to choose the wall-papers ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... company she enjoyed and who had a sort of right to hers; the right of friendship and kindliness. But then he never did anything to try her shyness or to call up her reserve. He never asked anything of her that she could refuse. He never advanced a step where it could with decency be repressed. He knew it. But he bided his time. He did not know what thorough and full accounts of all ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... and from then on visited her sister more frequently. But if it did not look as though Daniel did everything in his power to avoid her, this much was certain: he never said a word to her more than human decency required, and was an expert at finding reasons why he had to leave the room when she was there. Eleanore was gainfully conscious ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... colony and state in order to demonstrate that the charter was peculiarly a constitution of the people, "made by the people and in a sense not applicable to any other people." He declared the New Haven "address" an outrage upon decency, and it to be the duty of the Assembly to withdraw their commissions from men who questioned the existence of the constitution under which they held them. The day after the hearing, a bill to revoke the commissions was passed unanimously by the governor and ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... from Posey, were written in characters of light across the noon-day heavens, that all the world might read them. (Applause). I have in my drawer numerous other extracts from the writings of the gentleman from Posey, but am not allowed to read them; and, indeed, sir, under the circumstances, decency forbids their use. But if I were permitted to read them, and show their worse than damning influence upon society, in conjunction with this system of separate interests, I venture to aver that gentlemen would turn from them with disgust; aye, sir, they would shun them as they ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... distinguished visitors, including their suite of divine bulls and holy monkeys, their lustrations of cow dung, ecstatic hook swingings, burning of widows, and drowning of children, and other Pantheistic Philosophies, from the banks of the Ganges. What an outrage of decency for such men to call themselves philosophers ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... determination, he had, as well as Christian humanity; and in these he was superior to any of his colleagues on the Paramatta bench, whom he was continually striving to raise to some comprehension of the commonest rules of justice, mercy, and decency; and in this, after a long course of years, he in some measure succeeded; but not till after his strong hand, impartial justice, and hatred of vice, had made him enemies among all parties; and it is only ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... were, with the blessing of God, as snug and comfortable a poor family as any in Munster. We paid but a small rent, and we had always plenty of potatoes to eat, good clothes to wear, and cleanliness and decency in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... delicate reverence for the Thought that led, the quick deference to the guest. You left in quiet regret, knowing that they were not discussing you behind your back with lies and license. God! It was simply human decency and I had to be thankful for it because I am an American Negro, and white America, with saving exceptions, is cruel to everything that has black blood—and this was Paris, in the years of salvation, 1919. Fellow blacks, we must ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... worth noting, both in contrast to the reverence paid by the ancients to wells and springs, and as one of the most interesting traces of the extension of the loathsome habit among the upper classes of Europe and America, which now renders all external grace, dignity, and decency, impossible in the thoroughfares of their principal cities. In connection with that sentence of Moliere's you may advisably also remember this fact, which I chanced to notice on the bridge of Wallingford. I was walking from end to end of it, and back again, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... glories in crimes. Nor, concerning these matters, would intelligent report speak of things unless there was the highest degree of truth, and varied crimes of the worst character called, from a sense of decency, for an apology. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion—a worthy and appropriate religion for such morals. Some say that they ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... this assurance, she allowed herself to be lowered into the boat, which was waiting. The excitement of the crew of the brig, who had been watching her movements with eager interest, got beyond the bounds of all decency as they saw her being pulled ashore with the clothes in ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... there grew up between the gambler and the girl a tacit partnership of mutual defense. No word was spoken of it, but each knew that the sulky brute in the chimney corner was dangerous. He would be held by no scruples of conscience, no laws of friendship or decency. If the chance came ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into it, I realized that in all decency there was ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... all the time, those wicked flying things are going round on the other side of the earth, and there don't seem as if there could be a dove left. Well, now that the time's come when you ought to be paid, if there's any decency left in the place, they comes to me and says, 'Oh, Mrs. Black, what shall we do?' I said, 'Why didn't you listen when I spoke out in meeting about our not being able to afford luxuries like gospel preaching?' and they said they thought matters would have improved by ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... grandfather by practising the foulest lusts, and bedimmed the brightest honours of his ancestors by most shameful deeds. For he was so prone to gluttony, that he had no desire to avenge his father, or repel the aggressions of his foes; and so, could he but gratify his gullet, he thought that decency and self-control need be observed in nothing. By idleness and sloth he stained his glorious lineage, living a loose and sensual life; and his soul, so degenerate, so far perverted and astray from the steps of his fathers, he loved to plunge into most abominable ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... ill-concealed by tinsel, gave him a sort of pain, and it often happened that when he was going to preach somewhere he secretly called together the priests of the locality and implored them to look after the decency of the service. But even in these cases he was not content to preach only in words; binding together some stalks of heather he would make them into brooms for sweeping out ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... all times than a promise given to a tailor. When I expressed an apprehension that you were mortally offended, I meant no more than by the application of a certain formula of efficacious sounds, which had done in similar cases before, to rouse a sense of decency in you, and a remembrance of what was due to me! You masters of logic should advert to this phenomenon in human speech, before you arraign the usage of us dramatic geniuses. Imagination is a good blood ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... kneeling on the floor in church seems fitting and devout, but there surely can be no reason why the floor of a sacred building should not be kept scrupulously clean, or why the lower classes should not be obliged to dress themselves with common decency. Those who are unable to do so, though probably there are not half a dozen people in Mexico who do not wear rags merely from indolence, should certainly have a place set apart for them, in which case this air ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... in twenty-four hours!" I replied. "That man and his family are the pest of the neighborhood, and everyone lives in a sort of abject dread of them. Now, the neighbors must say 'yes' or 'no' to the question whether we shall have decency, law, and order, or not. Merton, unharness the horse. Junior, come with me; I'm going ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... that Province. As he spente and lived upon his owne fortune, so he stoode upon his owne feete, without any other supporte then of his proper virtue and meritt, and lyved towards the favorites with that decency, as would not suffer them to censure or reproch his Masters judgement and election, but as with men of his owne ranke. He was exceedingly beloved in the Courte, because he never desyred to gett that for himselfe, which others labored for, but was still ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... inspiration of science, truncated thoughts. Again we talk of the head of the mob, of the foot of the altar or the throne, of the heart of the riot, of the body of an army, of a phalanx, of trampling under foot, duty, decency, and justice. ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... write them more harm than anybody, confirming them in tearful habits, and teaching eyes unused to weep. I quote again, I believe, but from whom I am innocent. If I ever had a grief, I should have along with it the decency to keep it ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... happens that some of them are suspected whose lives are perfectly pure, none who have deviated from the paths of virtue can long keep their fall concealed. Can the same be said of the other departments of life? No. Now and then indiscretion, accident, or a total abandonment of decency brings to light the misconduct of an individual; but in general the irregularities of private life either escape detection or are hushed up by pride. Sometimes indeed one vitious purpose occasions the detection of another, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... should have remembered that a wire came from Jonah just before dinner—it's in my dinner-jacket—saying he was coming up late to-night with Harry, and that if the latter couldn't get in at the Club, he should bring him on here. He had the decency to add 'Don't ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... by Mormon assassins. His first attempt on politics was made under the auspices of what is called the missionary party, and the canvass conducted largely (it is said with tears) on the platform at prayer-meetings. It resulted in defeat. Without any decency of delay he changed his colours, abjured the errors of reform, and, with the support of the Catholics, rose to the chief power. In a very brief interval he had thus run through the gamut of religions in the South Seas. It does ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... turgid imagination of the first Mrs. Harbottle dealt with it honestly enough. At all events, she saw her opportunity, and the depths of her indifference to Robert bubbled up venomously into the suit. That it was undefended was the senseless mystery; decency ordained that he and Judy should have made a fight, even in the hope that it would be a losing one. The reason it had to be a losing one—the reason so immensely criticized—was that the petitioning lady obstinately refused to bring her action against any other set ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and thrust them quickly in a drawer as he spoke. The interview was plainly at an end. He had welcomed a son as he would have welcomed any stranger who had brought a letter of introduction which decency ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... perceive that her mother was acquainted with the purposes, even the most private, which her father had formed for his governance during this emergency. She was ignorant that Alexius and his royal consort, in other respects living together with a decency ever exemplary in people of their rank, had, sometimes, on interesting occasions, family debates, in which the husband, provoked by the seeming unbelief of his partner, was tempted to let her guess more of his ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... finished my job on the railroad, then A slummed it in th' cities, this was when the bishop tried to turn me school boy at forty, an' to dig in y'r graveyard o' theology; that was before m' brother was bishop and why, A hiked for Indians, Wayland! A know the Cree tongue, an' A know the need o' decency in th' tepees, an' A know the trick o' puttin' Christianity into th' end o' m' fist on white blackguards! ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... civilization pushes back the native,—there are wars and feuds and bloody raids. Not so here. When the homesteader comes down the river we are threading and, in a flood, colonization follows him, he will find British law established and his home ready. The most compelling factor making for dignity and decency in this border-country is the little band of red-coated riders, scarcely a thousand in number. Spurring singly across the plains that we have traversed since leaving Winnipeg, they turn up on lone riverway or lakeside in the North ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... husband to wife for signs of quarrelling, but Elizabeth returned his gaze quietly, and without signs of anger, and John also gave no indication of anything but surprise. After a gasping instant, during which his instincts warned him to keep on the side of decency, John accepted the situation with ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... the precise connexion between you and our host, there can be no objection to giving a perfectly frank reply. The women strike me as being singularly delicate and pretty; well dressed, too, I might add; but, while there is a great air of decency, there is very little high finish; and what strikes me as being quite odd, under such circumstances, scarcely any downright ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... by-ways of life, dropped out of the remembrance of a country that has used and forgotten them. They have given for her, not life, but all that makes life pleasant, hopeful, or even possible. It seems to me, that, in common decency, if she has no laurels to spare, she should at least give them in return—a daily dinner. Already, however, has the idea been set forth, after a better fashion than I can hope to do,—in wood and stone, and by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... liberty," she said wildly. "You have already passed the bounds of decency or consideration. You have been not only impudent but ridiculous. One service you have done me tonight. I thank you. You may do me another—by getting ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... earth, water, and sun, but, as is well known, this pure and beautiful worship, in later times, and especially after it was carried to Greece, became synonymous with the grossest practices and the most lawless disregard of human decency. ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... wit and humour in your admirable writings, have obtained for you a high place in the class of my authors, though not quite so high a one as the Dean of St. Patrick's. Perhaps you might have got before him if the decency of your nature and the cautiousness of your judgment would have given you leave. But, allowing that in the force and spirit of his wit he has really the advantage, how much does he yield to you in all the elegant graces, ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... that could not be permitted on the spot or in public, but must wait the opportunity of seclusion. There were, no doubt, times when the conduct of the game was carried to such a pitch of license as to offend decency; but as a rule the outward proprieties were seemingly as well regarded as at an old-fashioned husking bee, when the finding of the "red ear" conferred or imposed the privilege or penalty of exacting or granting the blushing tribute of a kiss. Actual ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... it isn't a heart-breaker on either side. If Charlotte cares, she doesn't take the trouble to show it. Just the same, on the other hand, I've got a shred or two of decency left, Kenneth. I'm not going to marry myself out of this fight with Jasper Grierson—not in a million years. Stay over and help me see it through; and when we win out, I promise you I'll ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... the druggist, "should she excommunicate actors? For formerly they openly took part in religious ceremonies. Yes, in the middle of the chancel they acted; they performed a kind of farce called 'Mysteries,' which often offended against the laws of decency." ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... mining villages of Scotland are an outrage on decency. In Lowwood there were no sanitary conveniences of any kind, and it was a difficult matter for the women folk to keep a tidy house under these circumstances. But it was wonderful, the homeliness and comfort found in those single apartment houses. It was home, and ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... rule little clothing but it suffices for the essential purposes of decency and travellers will live amongst them for years without once seeing an accidental "exposure of the person." In some cases, as with the Nubian thong-apron, this demand of modesty requires not a little practice of the muscles; and we all know the difference ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... this implied compliment to herself; then she colored as with shame and turned away. "What frauds we women are!" she exclaimed. "If I had any sense of decency left, I'd be ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... marked uniformity of expression in Countenance, especially in that half of the congregation who did not enjoy the advantages of the polish of the village. A sallow skin, that indicated nothing but exposure, was common to all, as was an air of great decency and attention, mingled, generally, with an expression of shrewdness, and in the present instance of active curiosity. Now and then a face and dress were to be seen among the congregation, that differed entirely from this description. If pock-marked and florid, with gartered legs, and ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... ought to make 'em pay taxes on their church property. They've no right to be exempted, because they ain't Christians at all. They're idolaters, that's what they are! I know 'em! I've had 'em in my quarries for years, an' they ain't got no idee of decency or fair dealin'. Every time the price of stone went up, every man of 'em would jine to screw more wages out o' me. Why, they used to keep account o' the amount o' business I done, an' figger up my profits, an' have the face ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... as you call it," said the Major, "about the utterly intolerable absurdity of the whole thing. Can't you see it? You can of course, but you won't. Look here, Father McCormack, you're a man of some sense and decency of feeling. Can we possibly ask the Lord-Lieutenant to come here and unveil a statue of General John Regan—whoever he was—when all we've got is a statue of some other man? Quite possibly the Lord-Lieutenant may have known that Deputy-Lieutenant personally, and if he recognises the statue ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... cut-throat, and the weakest must go to the wall; I will help him; &c., &c.'" Blake electrified the court by calling out "False!" in the midst of the military evidence, the invented character of which was, however, so obvious that an acquittal resulted. "In defiance of all decency," the spectators cheered, and Hayley carried off the sturdy Republican (as he was at heart) to Mid Lavant, to ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... new coiffures with you! I never saw anything so extravagant as their height. At least, Marquis, remember that if Madame la Presidente does not wear one of them incessantly, you can no longer remain attached to her with decency. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... efforts to better the conditions of the fallen women, make timely a rough outline of the methods by which girls are lured into the haunts of vice, and kept there until they have lost all power or desire to escape and win their way back to decency and respectability. It is not pretended that this line is accurate, or that it fits any particular case, but the information on which it is based is gained from what are believed to be reliable sources, ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... to give our meed of praise to the decent and orderly conduct of the sable multitude, and to record that it far excelled the Loco Foco group of bullies and boasters in decency of propriety of demeanor. A kind of spree or scuffle took place between donkey-driver Quallo and another. We don't know if they came to close fisti-cuffs, but it was, we are assured, the most serious ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... for publishing such a falsehood about President Smith. "How dare you tell such wicked lies about God's servants?" she scolded. "President Smith wouldn't do such a wicked thing as attend a prize fight. And you know that no man with any sense of decency would take his young sons to look at such a dreadful thing!" Some time later, when the facts in the case had come to her, in her retirement, from her friends, the editor called upon her to quiz ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... Triumph in them!—fierce and wild; and more disagreeable than the women's at the vile house appeared to me when I first saw them: and at times, such a leering, mischief-boding cast!—I would have given the world to have been an hundred miles from him. Yet his behaviour was decent—a decency, however, that I might have seen to be struggled for—for he snatched my hand two or three times, with a vehemence in his grasp that hurt me; speaking words of tenderness through his shut teeth, as it seemed; and let it go with a beggar-voiced humbled accent, like the vile ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... church and the Catholic mission station up on the hill did less good to the natives than these rough sailors did harm, and at length the more respectable white men could stand the disorder no longer. They formed an association to maintain decency. They seized, tried, fined or sometimes locked up for a time the worst offenders, and twice they stripped the ruffians naked, gave them a coat of tar, stuck them all over with white down from a native plant, and when they were thus decorated, expelled them from ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... the other hand, that sinners who are guilty of gross crimes which shock public decency are virtually excommunicated from Protestant Communions. And as for the poor, the public press often complains that little or no provision is made for them in Protestant Churches. A gentleman informed me that he never ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... savages, and had no reason to suppose that their pity was more than their justice, or that they would forbear the gratification of any ardour of desire or caprice of cruelty. I, however, kissed my maids, and endeavoured to pacify them by remarking that we were yet treated with decency, and that since we were now carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger of violence ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... requires $754 a year to live on." The average number in the family of a mine worker is five or six. "This small income," Roberts observes, "drives many of our people to live in cheap and rickety houses, where the sense of shame and decency is blunted in early youth, and where men cannot find such home comforts as will counteract the attractions of the saloon." Hundreds of company houses, according to Roberts, are unfit for habitation, and "in the houses of mine employees, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... fortitude and composure truly great, the horrible malady, which had, for some time, begun to afflict her, pronounced incurable; and for more than three years, endured with patience, and concealed with decency, the daily tortures of gradual death; continued to divide the hours not allotted to devotion, between the cares of her family, and the converse of her friends; rewarded the attendance of duty, and acknowledged the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... philosopher would not have lost a fashionable dinner in his admiration of a common ant-hill. La Fontaine did so once, because the well-known little community was engaged in what he took to be a funeral. He could not in decency leave them till it was over. Verse-making out of the question, this was to be a genuine poet, though, with commonplace mortals, it was ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on. Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suffered from an excess of delicacy, certain other tales by Mrs. Haywood overleaped decency as far on the other side. The tendency of fiction before Richardson was not toward refinement. The models, French and Spanish, which writers in England found profit in imitating, racked sensationalism to the utmost degree by stories of horrible and perverted lust. All the excitement ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... freely as victims to the greater cunning and strength of men wholly without sense of business honor or personal decency. When we do this, we also attack the whole system of savings banks, which is, or should be, the very bulwark of a nation's financial safety. Says the wolf to the widow, to the busy professional man, to the clerk, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... expressed an apprehension that you were mortally offended, I meant no more than by the application of a certain formula of efficacious sounds, which had done in similar cases before, to rouse a sense of decency in you, and a remembrance of what was due to me! You masters of logic should advert to this phenomenon in human speech, before you arraign the usage of us dramatic geniuses. Imagination is a good blood mare, and goes well; but the misfortune is, she has too many paths before ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... friends had at least the decency to see me off on the train. One, and one alone accompanied me on the long night-ride to New England in order that he might bring back my clothes, my watch, and other possessions from the point where I should enter the woods, together with such few ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... little apart, on a square by themselves, are the houses of the secret societies, surrounded by images and large drums. The dwelling-houses are rather poor-looking huts, with low walls and roofs and an exceedingly small entrance which is only to be passed through on one's hands and knees. Decency demands that the women should always enter the houses backward, and this occasions funny sights, as they look out of their huts like so many dogs ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... before Stokesley, bishop of London, but he escaped through the powerful protection of Thomas Cromwell, whose notice he is said to have attracted by his miracle plays. He was an unscrupulous controversialist, and in these plays he allows no considerations of decency to stand in the way of his denunciations of the monastic system and its supporters. The prayer of Infidelitas which opens the second act of his Thre Laws (quoted by T. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, sect. 41) is an example of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... leurs noms et ne trouvent pas condamnable ce qui est naturel. And they are prying as children. For instance the European novelist marries off his hero and heroine and leaves them to consummate marriage in privacy; even Tom Jones has the decency to bolt the door. But the Eastern story teller, especially this unknown "prose Shakespeare," must usher you, with a flourish, into the bridal chamber and narrate to you, with infinite gusto, everything he sees and hears. Again we must remember that grossness and indecency, in fact les ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... indecorous, primordial quality that he shared, though in less splendor and abundance, with Laurence Furnival. He had kept his head, or had seemed inimitably to have kept it. At any rate, he had preserved his sense of decency. He was incapable of presenting on the terrace at Amberley the flaming pageant of his passion. Straker was not sure how far this restraint, this level-headedness of young Reggy, had been his undoing. It might be that Miss Tarrant had required of ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... by. The churchyard is full of children and teachers, all in their very best holiday attire; and, distressed as is the district, bad as are the times, it is wonderful to see how respectably, how handsomely even, they have contrived to clothe themselves. That British love of decency will work miracles. The poverty which reduces an Irish girl to rags is impotent to rob the English girl of the neat wardrobe she knows necessary to her self-respect. Besides, the lady of the manor—that ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... them to the Juhannam of Ellis Island. Here, the unhappy children of the steerage are dumped into the Bureau of Emigration as—such stuff! For even in the land of equal rights and freedom, we have a right to expect from others the courtesy and decency which we ourselves do not have to show, or ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Tribune reported that "Sir Charles Dilke's speech competes with the Tichborne trial" as a subject of public comment. There was a second article in the Times The Spectator imputed to Dilke a want both of sense and decency, and declared that he "talked sheer vulgar nonsense and discourteous rubbish in order to mislead his audience." But as the correspondent of the New York Tribune said: "No one proved or attempted to prove that Sir Charles Dilke had ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... cleverness and art, but not if, like most people, we consider those persons flatterers who are called their own oil-flask-carriers and table-men, men who begin to talk, as one said, the moment their hands have been washed for dinner,[356] whose servility, ribaldry, and want of all decency, is apparent at the first dish and glass. It did not of course require very much discrimination to detect Melanthius the parasite of Alexander of Pherae of flattery, who, to those who asked how Alexander ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... think his Romans not sufficiently Roman; and Voltaire censures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish Usurper is represented as a drunkard. But Shakespeare always makes nature predominate over accident; and if he preserves the essential character, is not very careful of distinctions superinduced and adventitious. His story requires ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... of every kind," says Blackstone, "the punishment of women is the same, and different from that of men. For, as the decency due to the sex forbids the exposing and publicly mangling their bodies, their sentence (which is to the full as terrible to sensation as the other) is to be drawn to the gallows, and there to be burned alive." "But," says the foot-note, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... their great annoyance, confronted with all the Cabinet except Seward, who had resigned, and they were invited by Lincoln to discuss the matter in his presence with these Ministers. Chase, to his still greater annoyance, found himself, as the principal Minister there, compelled for decency's sake to defend Seward from the very attack which he had helped to instigate. The deputation withdrew, not sure that, after all, it wanted Seward removed. Chase next day tendered, as was natural, his resignation. Lincoln was able, now that he had the resignations of both men, to persuade both ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... all wake up and go to work. There are in the private membership of our churches and in the ministry a great many men who are dead, but have never had the common decency to get buried. With the harvest white and "lodging" for lack of a sickle, instead of lying under the trees criticising the sweating reapers who are at work, let us throw off our own coat and go out to see how good a ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... court, and the gentlemen of the universities, have their supply of this cosmetic fetched in jugs by laundresses and bedmakers, and live in abodes which were erected long before the custom of cleanliness and decency obtained among us. There are individuals still alive who sneer at the people and speak of them with epithets of scorn. Gentlemen, there can be but little doubt that your ancestors were the Great Unwashed: and in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... manner that made him ashamed to interrupt again—especially after the unconscious savage rebukes she had administered. He sat there fighting against the impulse to watch her—denouncing himself—appealing to pride, to shame, to prudence—to his love for Josephine—to the sense of decency that restrains a hunter from aiming at a harmless tame song bird. But all in vain. He concentrated upon her at last, stared miserably at her, filled with longing and dread and shame—and ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... decent of him, too, to hold off a little. Most parsons would have rushed in, hot foot, to administer extreme unction and be sure I was in a proper mood concerning Providence. Brenton has had the decency to wait a little. It was almighty decent, too. I knew him in my palmy days, when life was young. It's young for him still—Hold on, Olive; I'm not going to maunder!—and I had a natural dread of having him come piling in here to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... broke." Again he wrote to an acquaintance, "I often think of the old days in Tacoma. We were a fighting bunch, and I think most of us are fighting for the same things that we fought for then; a little bit more decency and less graft in affairs, and a chance for a man to rise by ability and not by ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... acts before them the farce of deliberation with as little decency as liberty. They act like the comedians of a fair, before a riotous audience; they act amidst the tumultuous cries of a mixed mob of ferocious men, and of women lost to shame, who, according to their insolent fancies, direct, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the castle, and their successors, though dull and uncouth, were meek and manageable; the men of the castle had all, except Matz, been always devoted to the Frau Christina; and Matz, to her great relief, ran away so soon as he found that decency and honesty were to be the rule. Old Hatto, humpbacked Hans, and Heinz the Schneiderlein, were the whole male establishment, and had at least the merit of attachment to herself and her sons; and in time there was a shade of greater ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... even a gum-tree look as if it was growing .... And Gibbs hates having amateur snapshots to work up .... Hopeless to try for a local artist.... I wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea..... Why to goodness didn't Biddy join me! .... If she'd only had the decency to let me know in time WHY she couldn't.... Money, I suppose—or a Man! .... Well, I'll write and tell her never to expect a literary leg-up ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... offender, nine times out of ten, would be left standing in a sort of fog and blinking at the suddenness with which the metaphorical can had, metaphorically speaking, been tied to his caudal appendage. Every large business office has its Skinner—a queer combination of decency, honesty, brains and brutality, a worshiper at the shrine of Mammon in the temple of the great god Business, a reactionary Republican, treasurer of his church and eventually a total loss from diabetes, brought on by lack of exercise and worry ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... the situation," added Miller, summing up. "Their friendship for us, a slender stream at the best, dries up entirely when it strikes their prejudices. There is seemingly not one white man in Wellington who will speak a word for law, order, decency, or humanity. Those who do not participate will stand idly by and see an untried man deliberately and brutally murdered. Race ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... people, Doctor von Kammacher," Arthur Stoss said in a raised voice, "who leave their decency in Europe when they travel to America, though that does not reduce the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... were wanting, it might be found in this address, Ad Pontifices. Cicero himself was a man of singularly clean life as a Roman nobleman, but, in abusing his enemy, he was restrained by no sense of what we consider the decency ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... the phrase "fundamental character." It is a reminiscence of Stevenson's phrase "fundamental decency." And it is the final test by which one judges one's friends. "After all, he's a decent fellow." We must be able to use that formula concerning our friends. Kindliness of heart is not the greatest of human qualities—and its general effect on the progress of the world is not entirely ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... companions of each other. And surely this is a national barbarism: within these beautiful walls is the ugliest church that was ever beheld—if it had been hewn out of the side of a hill it could not have been more dismal; there was no neatness, nor even decency, and it appeared to be so damp, and so completely excluded from fresh air, that it must be dangerous to sit in it; the floor is unpaved, and very rough. What a contrast to the beautiful and graceful ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... I mean. You saw me at the milliner's that day. And night before last, Ethel. We're all disgusted. If you must go about with people like that, please have some sense of decency." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... generally one of the featured speakers at these seminars. He speaks effectively, arousing his audience to an awareness of the Soviets as an ugly menace to freedom and decency in the world. He makes his audience squirm with anxiety about how America is losing the cold war on all fronts, and makes them burn with desire to reverse this trend. But when it comes to suggesting what can be done about the terrible situation, Mr. Barnett seems only ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... had an opportunity of seeing a civilized dinner, and fancying that their own obscene modes of feeding prevailed every where, got up the name of the Silver-fork School, (which should have indicated the school of decency,) as representing some ideal school of fantastic or ultra refinement. At length, however, when cheap counterfeits of silver have made the decent four-pronged fork cheaper than the two-pronged steel barbarism, what has followed? Why, this—that the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Wilton rose immediately, saying, "I understand you, my lord," and approaching the place where Lord Sherbrooke was seated, he waited till the laughter which was going on around him was over, and then said in a low voice, "For pity's sake, Sherbrooke, and for decency's sake, do pay some attention to the Duke and his daughter; remember, they are new guests of your father's, and merit, at all events, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... utmost endeavours to efface these terrifying impressions, always having as many of the principal people among them as there was room for to dine at his table; and giving strict charges that they should at all times, and in every circumstance, be treated with the utmost decency and humanity. In spite of this precaution, they hardly ever parted with their fears for the first few days, suspecting the gentleness of their usage to be only preparatory to some after calamity; but at length, convinced of our sincerity, they grew perfectly easy and cheerful, so that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... demanded the reason of the distinction that was made between him and the other pensioners of the Queen, with a degree of roughness which, perhaps, determined him to withdraw, what had only been delayed. This last misfortune he bore not only with decency, but cheerfulness, nor was his gaiety clouded, even by this disappointment, though he was, in a short time, reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and often wanted both lodging and food. At this time he gave another instance of the insurmountable obstinacy of his spirit. His cloaths were worn ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... in the various chambers of the Castle, still followed by a guard. Now he would tarry awhile in the guard-room, and stand over against the soldier's table, his head resting very sadly against the chimney, and listen to their wild talk, which was, however, somewhat hushed and shaped to decency so long as he abided there. And anon he would come into the Governor's apartment, and hold Colonel Glover for some moments in grave discourse on matters of history, and the lives of Worthy Captains, and sometimes upon points and passages of Scripture, but ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... they said, discounted; and she herself could but show, of course, for an interested party, however much she might claim to be none the less a decent girl—to whatever point, that is, after all that had both remotely and recently happened, presumptions of anything to be called decency could ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... things makes me advise, what I know and find I need not advise, your saying as little as possible in your own defence, nay, as much as you can with any decency for the others. I am neither acquainted with, nor care a straw about, Sir John Mordaunt; but as it is known that you differed with him, it will do you the greatest honour to vindicate him, instead of disculpating yourself. My most earnest desire always is, to have your character continue ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Catholic World for September, October, and November, 1871. For the incredible filthiness of the great cities of Spain, and the resistance of the people, down to a recent period, to the most ordinary regulations prompted by decency, see Bascome, History of the Epidemic Pestilences, especially pp. 119, 120. See also the Autobiography of D'Ewes, London, 1845, vol. ii, p. 446; also, for various citations, the second volume of Buckle, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the full development of her powers. She (England) was watching only for a favorable opportunity when she could break out suddenly against Germany, and she therefore promptly seized on the necessary German invasion of Belgium in order that she might cover with a small cloak of decency her brutal national egotism. Or is there in the whole wide world any one so simple as to believe that England would have declared war on France also if the latter had invaded Belgium? In that event she would have wept hypocritical tears over the unavoidable violation of international ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... you must have hours and hours of spare time in the long days down there. I expect you play chess with Major Wyndham all the while, and quite forget about writing to me. I suppose if you were ill some one would have the decency to write and tell me. But if you don't write yourself directly you get this, I shall think something dreadful has happened; and it's such a nuisance not to know if you are all right. I can't enjoy ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... of life are more powerful than even youthful cynicism and youthful heart-break. Prior to devoting herself to a loveless life and the commonplaces of the stoic's tub, Miss Hugonin was compelled by the barest decency to bid ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... dancing, and here and there firing their pistols into the air out of pure wantonness. From the interior of the shanty behind there came a similar chorus. Maule, Phillips, and the roughs who followed them were in the ascendant, and all order and decency was ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but not publicly, of course. At least, he respected public decency. He married her under his own name, to be sure, but by special licence, and at a remote little village on the far side of the moor, where nobody knew either himself or Lucy. In those days, he hadn't yet come into possession of the Tilgate estates; and if his father had ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Cuban disorders was followed in 1895 by a renewal of the revolutionary movement. The contest between the rebels and the Spanish troops, marked by extreme cruelty and a total disregard for life and property, exceeded all bounds of decency, and once more raised the old questions that had tormented Grant's administration. Gomez, the leader of the revolt, intent upon provoking American interference, laid waste the land with fire and sword. By a proclamation of November 6, 1895, he ordered ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... beyond the trifling sum which a few of them may be able to earn, is more than ten millions of dollars per annum. Nor is this all, or even the worst feature of their case. The greater part of them are without sense of shame, without any notions of chastity or decency, and so weak in moral sense as to be the ready tools and dupes of artful villains, and often themselves exhibit a perverseness and malignity of character which render them dangerous members of society. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... concern to all who loved their country. He knew the government to be composed of men who thought only of their own interests. This semblance of authority was the sole bar that prevented the insubordinate masses from overriding law and decency. How long would President Bagshaw be able to withstand the popular clamor for a liberty that was akin to pillage? This foolish conspiracy had biassed thousands of order-loving citizens against ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... the matter philosophically. He has not annoyed me, except by being alive on earth. He showed a certain primitive decency in not recognizing me when he might have done it in a very disagreeable fashion. I think he was absolutely astonished to see me there; but he never winked an eyelash. I give the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... discommending, where the whole is insipid; as when we have once tasted of palled wine, we stay not to examine it glass by glass. But while they affect to shine in trifles, they are often careless in essentials. Thus, their Hippolitus is so scrupulous in point of decency, that he will rather expose himself to death, than accuse his step-mother to his father; and my critics I am sure will commend him for it: But we of grosser apprehensions are apt to think, that this excess of generosity is not practicable, but with ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... have moved in general social decency one realizes after listening to such conversations as I have hinted at, where respect and affection dominate, and then turning to some of the children's books of a century ago—the kind of book in which the parents are always right and made in ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... lying advertisements, do more to encourage abortion than even the professional abortionists themselves? There seems to be but one remedy: Speed the time when in their acceptance of advertising those publishers who fail to recognize decency as a moral obligation may be forced by public opinion to recognize its value as a ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... more than enough! Your hobby has become a mania, sir! How you obtained possession of the vase I do not know, nor do I know how my friend has traced the theft to you; least of all how this scandal is to be hushed up. But have the decency to admit facts! There is ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... did that!" Jerry hotly accused. "I wonder if she'll have the decency to come back. She must know she ran some one down. I heard the girls in her car scream. I guess she turned in at the gate. Keep off the road, girls. Here come the rest of the picnickers. One accident is enough for today. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... interrupt their intercourse, Miss Emmerson, instead of trying to discover her niece's secret, employed herself in persuading her to appear before the family with composure, and to take leave of them with decency and respect. In this she succeeded, and the happy moment arrived. Anna in vain pressed near her friend to receive the invitation—and her mother more than once hinted at the thousand pities it was to separate two that loved one another so fondly. ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... built. And all our special reform work to-day is but patching the old, until with a knowledge of the true laws of social science we can begin to build the new aright. There is much surface work we must do in reform, for decency's sake, but all this patching up of ignorant, diseased, criminal, unfortunate humanity is temporary and transient, effecting no radical improvement anywhere. The real work that will tell on all time and the eternities, is building the new life and character, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... enactments against christians belonging to other sects. It is also true that most of those persons who are said to have been persecuted and oppressed, suffered not so much for their religious opinions, as for their offences against the state. Some of them outraged all decency and order, and committed such acts as would unquestionably, at the present day, subject a man to imprisonment, if not to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves.... Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it." Melanchthon then cites the passages in the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... bear these taunts! I grow sick to read these vile, insulting papers that seem written expressly to goad us into madness!... There must be many humane, reasonable men in the North; can they not teach their editors decency in ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... And the talk at table was singularly disconnected, with an average of interest uncommonly low. People were obviously saving themselves up. There was no lingering over tobacco; the last course served, the guests dispersed in all haste compatible with decency. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... no defence; For want of decency is want of sense. What moderate fop would rake the park or stews, Who among troops of faultless nymphs may choose? Variety of such is to be found: Take then a subject proper to expound; But moral, great, and worth a poet's voice; For men of sense despise a trivial choice; And such applause ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... hasn't kind of agreed with me on that point. I can't see why he took to the whiskey, anyway. Moderation's my motto and always was. It's the motto of The Aura. There ain't a bar east nor west of the Rockies, Miss Sheila, believe me, that has the reputation for decency and moderation that my Aura has. She's classy, she's stylish—well, sir—she's exquisite"—he pronounced it ex-squisit—"I don't mind sayin' so. She's a saloon in a million. And she's famous. You can hear talk of The Aura in the ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... leaf, and as it was the last day—that is, Sunday was—why, dang it, he would take a good honest jorum. Frank, who had a greater regard for Art's character than it appeared Art himself had, Spoke to him privately on the morning of the christening, as to the necessity and decency of keeping himself sober on that day; but, alas! during this friendly admonition he could perceive, that early as it was, his brother was not exactly in a state of perfect sobriety. His remonstrances were very unpalatable to Art, and as a consciousness of his conduct, added to the ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... relation to Man; sin therefore has no positive existence.[470] As a result the followers of Besht, calling themselves the "New Saints," and at his death numbering no less than 40,000, threw aside not only the precepts of the Talmud, but all the restraints of morality and even decency.[471] ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... embracing in the manner which both Lucretius and l'Amour Conjugal have recommended. The greater part of the intermediary subjects have been removed, to the despair of seekers of comical things, like ourselves; they have been removed in cold blood, with deliberate intent, for the sake of decency, and because, as one of the servants of his Majesty informed us convincingly, "a great many were improper for the ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... gave himself a respite, thinking, perhaps, common decency called for it, so that some one else might have a chance of speaking as well as himself. But the fact was he had talked all the talk out of the company, and no one cared to enter on the arena of conversation to be instantly pushed off by his ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... Stewart had rented his apartment. It is hard to say by what psychology he found their respectability so satisfactory. It was as though his own status gained by it. He had much the same feeling about the order and decency with which Marie managed the apartment, as ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hand upon the affectation; yet admires her niece-elect. She distinguished between chamber-vows and church-vows. She mentioned the word decency. She spoke plainer, on Charlotte's unfeeling perverseness. If a bride meant a compliment by it to the bridegroom, that was another thing; but then let her declare as much; and that she was in an hurry ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... followed in his mind, so strange is the caravan of pictures that hurries through in action. It was the beauty above and ghastly waste of the infantry that brought back to his brain the reason and decency of the ants in the burning log—their order ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... pardon. Mila was nowhere to be seen, and with a sinking at the heart new to his buoyant temperament, Gerald bade the magician good night. It was arranged that he would leave the next day, for, like Milton, he was haunted by "the ghost of a linen decency." But that night he did not sleep, and no sound of music came to his ears from Mila's chamber. Once he tried to open his ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... decision, I have adopted that line of conduct which comported with the dignity and faith of congress, the reputation of these states, and the honour of our arms. I have sent on definitive proposals of co-operation to the French general and admiral. Neither the period of the season, nor a regard to decency, would permit delay. The die is cast, and it remains with the states either to fulfil their engagements, preserve their credit, and support their independence, or to involve us in disgrace and defeat. Notwithstanding the failures ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of the plebs. At the same time, however, with the institution of these protective officers, the plebeians were allowed the right of having two aediles chosen from their own body, whose business it was to preserve order and decency in the streets, to provide for the repair of all buildings and roads there, with other functions partly belonging to police officers, and partly to commissioners of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... this—if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is lost, or rather never found—if they would but turn aside from the wide thoroughfares and great houses, and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only Poverty may walk—many low ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... roared Captain Wellsby, shoving them headlong. "Half to the Yemassees and half to us. Our word is given. Stand back, ye lunatics, while we do the thing with order and decency." ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... will use our money on the gambling-table, at the race-tracks, squander it on stage harlots, or in turning their wives and daughters or their neighbours' wives and daughters into worse than stage harlots. Men, Jim, who are not fit, measured by any standard of decency, to walk the same earth as you and Judge Sands. Men whose painted pets pollute the very air that such as Beulah Sands must breathe. I've learned my lesson to-day. I thought I knew the game of finance, ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... preached at my house before the war, but I paid very little attention to what he said. I always admired his earnestness, and the simplicity of his manner, but beyond these I paid him but little respect outside of the civilities of common decency. But now it is different. I would willingly part with all I have to enjoy but one hour's conversation with him, to but tell him how I now feel toward him in my new life, and how much I now appreciate what I then ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... unchecked licence of speech, has often been made a subject of reproach against Aristophanes, and it appears to the best modern critics that the poet would have been not a whit less diverting or effective had he respected the dictates of common decency. But it is only fair, surely, before finally condemning our Author, to consider whether the times in which he lived, the origin itself of the Greek Comedy, and the constitution of the audience, do not entitle him at any rate to claim the benefit of extenuating ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... his own inspired laws for his personal accommodation; if, when found guilty of adultery, he could compel his friend and follower to divorce his wife that he might take her; if upon each violation of purity and decency he did not shrink from the blasphemy of claiming a special revelation which made God the abettor of his vices, and even represented Him as reproving and threatening his wives for their just complaints—if all this does not stamp a man as a reckless impostor, what ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... magnificent. I was met at the door by two black eunuchs, who led me through a long gallery, between two ranks of beautiful young girls, with their hair finely plaited, almost hanging to their feet, all dressed in fine light damasks, brocaded with silver. I was sorry that decency did not permit me to stop to consider them nearer. But that thought was lost upon my entrance into a large room, or rather pavilion, built round with gilded sashes, which were most of them thrown up, and the trees planted near them gave an agreeable shade, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... Broadway and the "main street" of Wallacetown, and other places of its type—small railroad or manufacturing centres, standing alone in an otherwise purely agricultural community—the odds in favor of virtue, not to say decency, are all in favor of Broadway; and Wallacetown, to the average youth of Hamstead, represents the one opportunity for a "show," "something to drink," and "life" in general. Sylvia had unlocked the door of material opportunity for ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... and this it is our privilege, and our necessity, to make, if we are to comprehend with any sympathy that which was later termed his "madness." The examination shall be made quickly and with all decency. ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Church that might abolish ignorance and pauperism must be given to uphold the royal state of lord bishops, who sit in parliament, and make a heavy incubus on all real progress, obstructing the measures which might uplift into comfort, decency, and intelligence, England's three millions of submerged classes who ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... 22, he warned Sir Edmund Head, Governor of Canada, urging him to make defensive preparation[215]. The following day he dilated to Russell, privately, on "the difficulty of keeping Mr. Seward within the bounds of decency even in ordinary social intercourse[216] ..." and in an official communication of this same day he records Washington rumours of a belligerent despatch read by Seward before the Cabinet, of objections by other members, and that Seward's insistence has carried ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... Bas Rowlett who stood looking solicitously down at him and licked his lips. There was an acknowledgment which decency required his making in their presence, and he keyed himself for a feeble ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... her decency, Mrs. Mitchell; but I doubt very much whether she is fit to have the charge of children; and as she is a friend of yours, you will be doing her a kindness to give her a hint to that effect. It may save the necessity for my taking further and ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... have granted me the happiness of free conversation, I think is my duty as my profession obliges me, to save what souls I can, by bringing them to the knowledge of some Catholic doctrine, necessary to salvation; and since these people are under your immediate government, in gratitude, justice, and decency, for what you have done for me, I shall offer no farther points in religion, that what shall merit your approbation. Being a-pleased with the modesty of his carriage, I told him he should not be worse ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the performances, in which under-graduates of some three hundred years ago were the actors, the "Oxford Theatre" of those days, if it had more wit in it than the present, had somewhat less decency: the ancient "moralities" were not over moral, and the "mysteries" rather Babylonish. So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting up of a tragedy of Sophocles or Aeschylus, or even a comedy of Terence—classically managed—as it could be done in Oxford—and well acted, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... signs now seen in street cars and railroad trains, in halls and office buildings, are intended not altogether for consumptive patients, but also for those who need laws to force them to observe ordinary rules of cleanliness and decency. It is, however, the main step towards doing away with consumption, and the faithful observance of the injunction ought to be insisted upon quite as much in the individual home as in a city street ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... including utility, respectability, and imbecility, and I would sit, quite frankly poor, with a piece of bread, and a pot of geraniums, and a book. I conclude that if I did without the things erroneously supposed necessary to decency I might be able to afford a geranium, because I see them so often in the windows of cottages where there is little else; and if I preferred such inexpensive indulgences as thinking and reading and wandering in the fields to the doubtful gratification arising from kept- up appearances ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... by an indiscreet action of the Legislature of this State an insult of the grossest nature—an insult to all common decency and to all civilization, has been thrust into our faces by way of an election for judges of the respective circuits of Judges Maher, Reed and Shaw; and whereas, it was not expected or desired by either political party of said circuits that either of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... you," said his voice, ringing out so that the two listeners could hear, "those squatters have got to go. I'm not the only one who thinks that way. If they had the instincts of decency I wouldn't say a word, but they haven't. I say it's ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... long as personification elucidates a true, a scientific principle, so long as it is not pressed to tortuous lengths which actually give false impressions, so long as it is kept within the bounds of aesthetic decency, so long as it is recognized as a play device and does not confuse a child's thinking,—so long as it is justified. No more. It is a useful intellectual tool and a charming device for play. Kipling is preeminently the master here. It is a dangerous tool in lesser hands. Yet I have ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... for her a family and a temperament and a sorrow and all that a young woman could most desire. From out the nothing a conscious something I have evoked. It would be most ungracious—ungrateful—of Ann to refuse to be what I made her. I invented her. By all laws of decency, she must be Ann. Indeed, ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... fine!" said Sir Wilfrid; "but I wanted a big fight—Achilles and his Myrmidons going for the other fellows—and somebody having the decency to burn the temple of that hag Artemis! I say!" He spoke, smiling, in Marcia's ear. "Your brother Arthur's in very bad company! Do you see where he is? Look ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is so common as to create no remark, and to be considered as a matter of course. With us, at least, the converse of the proposition prevails: it is the man professing irreligion who would be remarked and reprehended in England; and, if the second-named vice exists, at any rate, it adopts the decency of secrecy and is not made patent and notorious to all the world. A French gentleman thinks no more of proclaiming that he has a mistress than that he has a tailor; and one lives the time of Boccaccio over again, in the thousand ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... laws of society, with the means at hand of acquiring the few necessaries of life that Nature in this generous part of her domain fails to provide readymade, a Beachcomber of virtuous instinct, and a due perception of the decency of things, may enjoy a happy life. Should, however, he be of the type that demands a wreck or so every month to maintain his supplies of rum or gin, and other articles of his true religion, and is prepared if wrecks do not come with regularity, to assist ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... women and young girls have been of appalling frequency. We have proved a great number of them, but they only represent an infinitesimal proportion of those which we could have taken up. Owing to a sense of decency, which is deserving of every respect, the victims of these hateful acts usually refuse to disclose them. Doubtless fewer would have been committed if the leaders of an army whose discipline is most ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... hundreds of young lives whom the morning light awakes to hunger, filth, and wretchedness, and whom the evening shadows limit to rooms in which you would not care to keep your dogs. They are growing up without the least sense of decency, or the slightest reverence for God. Their existence is one long struggle against the constituted guardians of society; or if they do not resist, they are always eluding. In addition to these are the children of our homes and families ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... call,—for want of a truer word that shall not in its truth be offensive,—a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought her back at last from degradation, at least to decency. I have not married her to a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain that though there was possible to her a way out of perdition, still things could not be with her as they would have been had ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... mighty little to be done with a nose like mine unless I have paraffin injected under the skin right on top. Of course, I could make it up for the stage from the outside, but not for close inspection. Are my skirts too short for decency?" ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... be put to the trouble of finding out, nor of obtaining the object and transmitting it to you. Will you, therefore, buy something for yourself and send the bill to me. Of course, a sense of social decency will prevent you from spending more than a small sum, and I shall be spared all exertion beyond signing a cheque. Yours insincerely and loggishly * * *." So managed, the contrivance of present-giving becomes positively sinister in its working. But managed with the sympathetic imagination ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... to extricate itself by an outrageous expedient. The legislature passed an act especially permitting a huge lottery, and for three days in 1870 the town was given over to gambling, unabashed and unashamed. The result seemed a triumph. Half a million dollars was realized, but it was a violation of decency that sounded the knell of the institution, and it was later absorbed by the plodding Mechanics' Institute, which had always been most judiciously managed. Its investments in real estate that it used ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... came when Clarissa began to fancy that her visit had lasted long enough, and that, in common decency, she was bound to depart; but on suggesting as much to Lady Laura, that kindly hostess declared she could not possibly do without her dearest Clarissa for ever ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... analysis, intended to be applied to lofty constructive purposes. They may, in their desire to speak practically, forget the moral values which should underlie this intimate information. Never should the spirit of levity intrude itself in these intimate personal sex colloquies. Restraint and decency should ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton
... purpose—to save, in spite of herself, if need be, the daughter of my dead friend from a life of suffering which would inevitably fall to the lot of any pure-hearted woman who linked her life with that of an unscrupulous scoundrel, in whom even common decency is dead, if, indeed, it ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... blow in a sort of spasm of frenzy, scarce remembering that her object was merely to wake her lodger, and almost staving in the lower panels with her kicks. Then she turned the handle and tried to open the door, but it was locked. The resistance recalled her to herself—she had a moment of shocked decency at the thought that she had been about to enter Constant's bedroom. Then the terror came over her afresh. She felt that she was alone in the house with a corpse. She sank to the floor, cowering; with difficulty stifling a desire to scream. Then she rose with a jerk ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... had been disposed of a brief interval was allowed, for the sake of decency, to ensue. That Eldon Parr would not lead the charge in person was a foregone conclusion. Whom, then, would he put forward? For obvious reasons, not Wallis Plimpton or Langmaid, nor Francis Ferguson. Hodder found his, glance unconsciously fixed upon Everett Constable, who, moved nervously and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... who shot a boy in the back while in the act of doing his duty, and who had called her a "damn fool" in her own house, and was even then off on the trail of another man he had sworn to kill on sight. By all the laws of justice, equity, and decency, she should hate this man! She was conscious of no other feeling toward him than a burning, unquenchable hate. And yet, deep down in her heart she knew—by the pain of her discovery of his treachery—she knew she loved him, and utterly she despised herself ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... obsessed by the disappearance of this flirtatious little fool who had tried to entrap him. But she did not believe it. A glance at this brown-faced man was sufficient evidence that he trod with dynamic force the way of the strong. A look into his clear eyes was certificate enough of his decency. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... committee a true and full discovery, he should be indemnified for the crimes which he might confess; and that, till he made such a discovery, he should remain in the Tower. To this arrangement Leeds gave in public all the opposition that he could with decency give. In private those who were conscious of guilt employed numerous artifices for the purpose of averting inquiry. It was whispered that things might come out which every good Englishman would wish to hide, and that the greater part of the enormous sums which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... utmost facetiousness into a conversation which I thought most to her taste. By degrees she assumed her usual vivacity; cheerfulness and good humor again animated her countenance. I tarried as long as decency would admit. She having intimated that they were to dine at my friend Lawrence's, I caught at this information, and determined to follow them, and tease the jealous Mrs. Richman by playing off all the gallantry I was ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... this time Mary knew that he was all the world to her. Darnley had shrunk from the hardships of battle. He was steeped in low intrigues. He roused the constant irritation of the queen by his folly and utter lack of sense and decency. Mary felt she owed him nothing, but she forgot that she owed much ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... foul vapours are created, which not only offend the sight and smell, but endanger the health of the inhabitants in the highest degree. Is it to be wondered at, that in such localities all considerations of health, morals, and even the most ordinary decency are utterly neglected? On the contrary, all who are more intimately acquainted with the condition of the inhabitants will testify to the high degree which disease, wretchedness, and demoralisation have here reached. Society ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... his "attorney" Vipper is careful to tell us—no fewer than two hundred and eight of those animals. Now, before he took upon himself to become an emancipationist, he might—one cannot help thinking—have had the decency—like Saint Fowell Buxton—to sell his slaves to somebody else, and to come into court with clean hands. But so far from doing so, Vipper having discovered that Julie is a run-away slave from Vincent's estate, just as she is ending ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... Wainwright, when he heard it, lay thoughtful for a long time, a puzzled, half-sullen look on his face. He saw that everybody considered Cameron a hero. There was no getting away from that the rest of his life. One could not in decency be an enemy of a man who had saved one's life. Cameron had won out in a final round. It would not be good policy not to recognize it. It would be entirely too unpopular. He must make friends with him. It would be better to patronize ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... to incite weak minds to things less seemly, I have noted no act, no word, in fine nothing blameworthy, either on your part or on that of us men; nay, meseemeth I have seen and felt here a continual decency, an unbroken concord and a constant fraternal familiarity; the which, at once for your honour and service and for mine own, is, certes, most pleasing to me. Lest, however, for overlong usance aught should grow ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... that! A flashy, plausible, shallow-pated, carpet-bagger,—that is what all the world knows of him. The man's a political adventurer,—he snatches a precarious, and criminal, notoriety, by trading on the follies of his fellow-countrymen. He is devoid of decency, destitute of principle, and impervious to all the feelings of a gentleman. What do you know of him ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... suffered the crestfallen Mash to rise; who crept from his place of confinement, with looks infinitely more expressive of mildness than he had brought with him; nor was the lesson lost upon the others, for they behaved with the greatest decency during the rest ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... to defend her," said Mrs. Mirvan; "but indeed, as she belongs to our party, we cannot, with any decency, leave the place till she is, by some ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
