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Blameless   Listen
adjective
Blameless  adj.  Free from blame; without fault; innocent; guiltless; sometimes followed by of. "A bishop then must be blameless." "Blameless still of arts that polish to deprave." "We will be blameless of this thine oath."
Synonyms: Irreproachable; sinless; unblemished; inculpable. Blameless, Spotless, Faultless, Stainless. We speak of a thing as blameless when it is free from blame, or the just imputation of fault; as, a blameless life or character. The others are stronger. We speak of a thing as faultless, stainless, or spotless, only when we mean that it is absolutely without fault or blemish; as, a spotless or stainless reputation; a faultless course of conduct. The last three words apply only to the general character, while blameless may be used in reverence to particular points; as, in this transaction he was wholly blameless. We also apply faultless to personal appearance; as, a faultless figure; which can not be done in respect to any of the other words.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Blameless" Quotes from Famous Books



... that the present King was blameless in the matter of Lord Torrington's marquisate. It was inherited from a great-grandfather, who may have had an ordinary, possibly even a beautiful nose. But he attempted no explanation. His anxiety made him disinclined for a discussion of the ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... offered rewards, ascribing all to the violence of party spirit, and deprecating the infernal measures of their opponents. I did not understand their political differences; but it was easy to see that the true Gospel preachers joined all on one side, and the upholders of pure morality and a blameless life on the other, so that this division proved a test to us, and it was forthwith resolved that we two should pick out some of the leading men of this unsaintly and heterodox cabal, and cut them off one by ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... him better. "Be humbled as you may before God, my father, but stand up boldly before man: for in his sight, and by his law, you are little short of blameless. I would not, dearest father, speak to you of sins, except for consolation under them; for it ill becomes a child to see the failings of a parent. But when I know at once how innocent you are in one sense, and how not quite guiltless in another, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... to be observed should the vow be violated, the case of a Nazarite who has duly fulfilled his vow is next dealt with. He has carried out all GOD'S requirements, and his conscience is void of offence: before GOD and man he is blameless. May he not now congratulate himself, and claim some measure of merit, seeing he has rendered to GOD an acceptable service, and among men has borne a consistent testimony? The offerings to be made on the conclusion of his vow give an impressive answer to this question, and ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor

... meanness, your cowardice, your sin require no words on my part to deepen their vileness. Through pure wantonness you have cast a cruel shadow on an innocent young life. If that girl dies, you indeed are not blameless in the cause of her early removal, for through you her heart and spirit were broken. Miss Drummond, I pray God you may at least repent and be sorry. There are some people mentioned in the Bible who are spoken ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... from heaven, descended round her path the showers of the painted butterflies, to feed, sleep, or die—undisturbed by her—upon the wild flowers—with wings, when motionless, undistinguishable from the blossoms. And well she loved the brown, busy, blameless bees, come thither for the honey-dews from a hundred cots sprinkled all over the parish, and all high over-head sailing away at evening, laden and wearied, to their straw-roofed skeps in many a hamlet-garden. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various

... of wisdom and rectitude, as of gentleness and beauty, to whom in yesterday's sunset hour of surprise and ecstatic yearning he had implied things so contrary to their "perfect understanding," and who now, not for herself selfishly, but in the name and defence of all blameless womanhood, was punishing him for his wild presumption. O but if she would only accuse him—here—this instant, so that contrition might try its value! But under the shade of her hat her eyes merely waited with a beautiful sort ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... of his snares, hear on every hand his doctrines proclaimed by men of blameless lives "transformed as the ministers of righteousness," and are allured by the pleasure, place and power ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer

... unwarrantable liberty. Gaston Probert was an American who had never been in America and was obliged to take counsel on such an emergency as that. He knew that in Paris young men didn't call at hotels on blameless maids, but he also knew that blameless maids, unattended by a parent, didn't visit young men in studios; and he had no guide, no light he could trust—none save the wisdom of his friend Waterlow, which was for the most part communicated ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... Habsburgs. Following the death of Rudolph II (1576-1612), a narrow-minded, art-loving, and unbalanced recluse, his childless brother Matthias (1612-1619) had desired to secure the succession of a cousin, Ferdinand II (1619-1637), who, although a man of blameless life and resolute character, was known to be devoted to the cause of absolutism and fanatically loyal to the Catholic Church. Little opposition to this settlement was encountered in the various Habsburg Bohemian dominions, except in Bohemia. In that country, however, the nobles, many of whom were ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... previous step taken—all safe, by experience shown to be safe, for the long-desired consummation. The time has come, the trial has been made, the hour is striking; you have no longer a pretext for hesitation, or faltering, or delay. The slave has shown, by four years' blameless behaviour, and devotion to the pursuits of peaceful industry, that he is as fit for his freedom as any English peasant, ay, or any ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... which led to the defeat of Saint Louis and the capture of his army in 1249 A.D., and which Bonaparte avoided in his campaign of 1798." Anyhow, it seems that the fault must be laid on Pharnabazus alone, and that Iphicrates was entirely blameless. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... branded as representing the gates of hell to guilty souls, and to the innocent being merely wood, stone, and iron, sufficed equally to shut the blameless in, and I doubt if the reflection suggested was ever of any real comfort to them. For one thing, the captives could not read the inscription; it seems to have been intended rather for the ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells

... Dion entered the assembly, and presented to the king the answer of the oracle, sealed up; and Leontes commanded the seal to be broken, and the words of the oracle to be read aloud, and these were the words:—"Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, and the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found." The king would give no credit to the words of the oracle: he said it was a falsehood invented by the queen's friends, and he desired the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits—and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. A prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness, was regarded with contempt. The utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... as we have just seen, all the subversive powers of ordinary superstition. It turns the natural world, man's stamping-ground and system of opportunities, into a self-justifying and sacred life; it endows the blameless giant with an inhuman soul and then worships the monstrous divinity it has fabricated. It thereby encounters the same dilemma that defeats all mythology when it forgets its merely poetic office and trespasses upon moral ground. It must either ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... Boccaccio or any of his school, is certainly from one hand, and the book does not seem one that could have been connected with the Queen's name unless she had really had much to do with it. Much of its piquancy comes from the thought of the association of one whose life was on the whole quite blameless with anecdotes of a most blameworthy style. Unlike the lady in the French novel who liked to play at innocent games with persons who were not innocent, Margaret seems to have liked to talk and write of things ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... instrument; and so literally, that in precise manner as this hope disappears, the power of song is taken away, and taken away utterly. When the Christian falls back out of the bright hope of the Resurrection, even the Orpheus song is forbidden him. Not to have known the hope is blameless: one may sing, unknowing, as the swan, or Philomela. But to have known and fall away from it, and to declare that the human wishes, which are summed in that one—'Thy kingdom come'—are vain! The Fates ordain there shall be no singing after ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... is only eighteen. Being intended for the theatre, it has never been sharpened or pointed but, except for this it is a real mala vita knife. They told me there would be nothing to fear so long as I continued the life of blameless respectability which had no doubt become habitual to me—or some nonsense of that kind—but that if I should happen to be caught by the police in doubtful surroundings and searched, even this knife, in spite of its arrested adolescence, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... tentatively taken up but decisively seized. People had resented Sir Hugh's indifference to Charlock House, the fact that he had never lived there and had tried, just before his marriage, to sell it. But Augustine was yet blameless, and Augustine would one day be a wealthy not an impecunious squire, and Mrs. Grey had said that she would see to it that Augustine had his chance. "Apparently there's no one to bring him out, unless I do," she said. "His father, it seems, won't, and his mother can't. One doesn't know what ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... of every suspicion of indelicacy; but if it is necessary to add other proofs, I could obtain them from those who lived nearest to the Emperor, and who were in a condition to both know and understand what passed between us; and lastly, I invoke fifty years of a blameless life, and I can say: "When I was in a situation to render great services, I did so; but I never sold them. I could have derived advantages from the petitions that I made for people, who, in consequence of my solicitations, have acquired ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... senses; there is no contradiction either with the subject-matter of the section, or with scripture in general; and not a shadow of imperfection such as Nescience, and so on, attaches to Brahman, the blameless, the absolutely blessed. The co- ordination with the individual soul thus proves only the difference of Brahman from the soul, which is a mere mode of Brahman; and hence we hold that different from the Self consisting of knowledge, i.e. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... reigned together for many years, and it is said that the former was so blameless and strict in all his duties that though he constantly wore the ring which Candide had restored to him, it never once pricked his finger ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... loved so much service, though resolved to discharge what he conceived to be an imperious duty: "this pilgrim and his friend will be of our party, in order that, when we quit the mountain, all may leave it blameless and unsuspected." ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... right or wrong. They simply did not consider them at all. When the war left them free, they simply said, "Poor fellows!" as they would of a dog without a master. When the blacks were entrusted with the ballot, they said again, "Poor fellows!" regarding them as the blameless instrument by which a bigoted and revengeful North sought to degrade and humiliate a foe overwhelmed only by the accident of numbers; the colored race being to these Northern people like the cat with whose paw the monkey dragged his chestnuts from the fire. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... Ben really loved the actor, he is telling a disgustingly hypocritical and wholly needless falsehood, both before and after the death of Bacon. To be silent about the authorship of a book, an authorship which is the secret of your friend and patron, is one thing and a blameless thing. All the friends, some twenty, to whom Scott confided the secret of his authorship were silent. But not one of them publicly averred that the author was their very dear friend, So-and-so, who was not Scott, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... said the Governor, "to congratulate your Honour on the high office to which it has pleased Her Majesty to appoint you, and to wish you long life and health to fulfil its duties, with blameless credit to yourself and distinction to ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... part, I should be sorry to think that there was nothing between Anthony and Cleopatra but an economic situation; and it will require a great deal more evidence than is ever likely to be available, thank God, to persuade me that Tiberius was as blameless a monarch as King George V. Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz has dealt in such terms with the Rev. Robert Strickland's innocent biography that it is difficult to avoid feeling a certain sympathy for the unlucky parson. His decent reticence ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... the discourse, where I found I had no power over her, on the abusing her friends and acquaintance. He allowed indeed, that Flora had a little beauty, and a great deal of wit; but then she was so ungainly in her behaviour, and such a laughing hoyden—Pastorella had with him the allowance of being blameless: but what was that towards being praiseworthy? To be only innocent, is not to be virtuous. He afterwards spoke so much against Mrs. Dipple's forehead, Mrs. Prim's mouth, Mrs. Dentifrice's teeth, and Mrs. Fidget's cheeks, that she ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... course, forgetful of God's wrath, or endeavoring to trust in false security. Indeed, it is a very common thing for men to do just as they please and yet pretend innocence and seek to avoid censure. Some would represent themselves guileless as lambs and blameless; no act of theirs may be regarded evil or even wrong. They pretend great virtue and Christian love. Yet they carry on their insidious, malicious frauds, imposing falsehoods upon men. They ingeniously contrive to ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... given to many poets To frame so fair a thing As this of mine, of Spring. Indeed, the world grows Lilliput All but A precious few, the heirs of utter godlihead, Who wear the yellow flower of blameless bodlihead! ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman

... satisfactorily explained why, after the events in the former town, no precautions were taken, by the general commanding, to prevent the recurrence of scenes that brought disgrace on the British army, and for which he cannot be held blameless. Five thousand men and officers were killed or wounded in the siege; of these, three thousand five ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... He had been a candidate for the Presidency ever since 1844, but had not shown much strength. He was originally a Federalist. He was somewhat cold in temperament and austere in manners, but of upright character and blameless life. He lacked the affability of Cass, the gracious heartiness of Pierce, the bluff cordiality of Douglas. But he was a man of ability, and had held high rank as a senator and as secretary of State. Above all he had never ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... by a man who had ceased to regard her more than all other women? Were he to marry her now, would not that deceit be worse than the other deceit? Or, rather, would not that be deceitful, whereas the other course would simply be unfortunate—unfortunate through circumstances for which he was blameless? Damnable arguments! False, cowardly logic, by which all male jilts seek to excuse their own treachery ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... one! While I am certainly not in the habit of seeking conversation with strange gentlemen, there are always exceptions to everything, and I concluded that this was one. I smiled! We chatted on the subject of the flora and fauna of California in a perfectly blameless way till my train whistled, when he said, "I am going to carry those bags for you, if you will allow me!" I thanked him aloud and inwardly remarked, "I have known that for ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... in the war has lately closed a blameless life. There may be a difference of opinion on the military qualities of the generals who fought on either side in the civil war; but it is no disparagement to the capacity of Grant or of Sherman to say that they had no opportunity of rivalling the achievements ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... women, one of them still but a girl, who on the morrow, amidst the jeers and curses of superstitious men, were to suffer the cruelest of deaths for no crime at all, unless the traffickings of Emlyn with Thomas Bolle, in which Cicely had small share, could be held a crime. Well, thousands quite as blameless were called on to undergo that, and even worse fates in the days which some name good and old, the days of chivalry and gallant knights, when even little children were tormented and burned by holy and learned ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... the Duke of PLAZA-TOR' Would call himself, I'm pretty sure, A "public entertainer." But I and my blue-blooded wife, We lead a simple blameless life, No ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various

... haughty, noble soul? The excesses, dissipation, and intrigue which served to divert other bruised royal hearts were as far beneath this imperial nature as if they did not exist. Her life, in its crystal purity and its scorn of intrigue, is unique in royal history. Yet she, this blameless princess, this woman of imperial beauty, this noblest of all empresses, was marked to be stricken down by the red hand of anarchy, to whose crime, and poison, and danger we open our national ports with an unwisdom which is criminal stupidity, and of which we shall inevitably reap the benefit. ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... their natural place: the father a Warrender like the last dozen Warrenders who had gone before him, and the girls cast exactly in the mould of all the previous Minnies and Chattys of the family. They were all dull, blameless, and good—to a certain extent; perfectly satisfied to live in the Warren all the year long, to spend every evening of their lives round the same hearth, to do the same thing to-day as they had done yesterday and should do to-morrow. To be so easily contented, to accommodate one's self with ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... if so much power there lies, As once you owned, in Indamora's eyes, Lose not the honour you have early won, But stand the blameless pattern of a son. My love your claim inviolate secures; 'Tis writ in fate, I can be only yours. My sufferings for you make your heart my due; Be worthy me, as ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... land; not seized by the hand of power, nor grasped by superior cunning, but possessed as the free gift of simple gratitude; and upon these they lived in peace, surrounded by savages, but protected by the respect inspired by blameless and beneficent lives. Many of those whose vows permitted it, intermarried among the converted natives, and left the seeds of many meliorations in a stony soil; and many of them, when they died, were as sincerely mourned by the simple children of the forest, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... recollection, that I was blameless in her trials, at length calmed me. I felt, that to protect her had been wholly out of my power, from the day when she left Valenciennes; and, while I honoured the decision and loftiness of spirit which had led to that self-denying step, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... the one woman in all the world? But it is not easy to be angry in nine parts and loving-kind in the tenth—anger being one of the inclusive emotions. Nevertheless, he made the effort, for her sake. However inconsiderate Mr. Colbrith was, she was blameless. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... the worth of Beauty; such her power, So blameless, so revered. It now remains, In just gradation through the various ranks Of being, to contemplate how her gifts Rise in due measure, watchful to attend 520 The steps of rising Nature. Last and least, In colours mingling with a random blaze, Doth ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... I desire to hear thee relate thine own prowess." The lady replied, "O hero with long arms, I am Avala[30] (weak) but my husband must be powerful. And by the potency of my father's boon, he will be respected by gods and Asuras alike." Indra said, "O blameless creature, I wish to hear from thee, what sort of power thou wishest thy husband to possess." The lady replied, "That manly and famous and powerful being devoted to Brahma, who is able to conquer all the celestials, Asuras, Yakshas, Kinnaras, Uragas, Rakshasas, and the evil-minded ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the near-by masks failed to single out one of those she had marked and memorised in the boudoir, and without detecting any overt interest in her actions, she slipped her blameless message into the box, then turned back and, steadfast to her purpose, made her way forward through the ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... Bessieres, who had led a simple and blameless life, and whose only crime was that he had served under the Usurper, anticipating that under existing circumstances this would be regarded as a capital crime, made his will, which was afterwards found among his papers. It began with the ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... deputy or as senator. Tired of fighting, he obtained a judicial appointment by the influence of his political friends. He became president of court. A case was brought before him where the accused, a person not perhaps of altogether blameless life, was clearly not guilty of any indictable offence. The accused, however, a former prefet, appointed by a government now become very unpopular, and known as a reactionary and an aristocrat, was pursued by the animosity of the whole democratic ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... although no great power; he was economical in his habits; on occasion he displayed great splendour and lived in a fine palace. His manners were agreeable and his appearance fascinating, but, like many other prelates of the day, his morals were far from blameless, his two dominant passions being greed of gold and love of women, and he was devotedly fond of the children whom his mistresses bore him. Although ecclesiastical corruption was then at its height, his riotous mode of life called down upon him a very severe ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Marignan. Homer says: "Diomedes cuts the throat of Axylus, son of Teuthranis, who dwelt in happy Arisba; Euryalus, son of Mecistaeus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, Esepius, and that Pedasus whom the naiad Abarbarea bore to the blameless Bucolion; Ulysses overthrows Pidytes of Percosius; Antilochus, Ablerus; Polypaetes, Astyalus; Polydamas, Otos, of Cyllene; and Teucer, Aretaon. Meganthios dies under the blows of Euripylus' pike. Agamemnon, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... to a corner of the room, fearing she would not live through the last confession of her blameless life. A dim lamp, from which she was carefully screened, shed a sickly gleam around the apartment; and, even in the deep silence of that awful hour, the low and labored whispers of her voice scarcely reached my ear. Suddenly I was startled by a suppressed, but fervent exclamation from ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... against the folly, if not the falsehood, of extremes. Moderation, quiet consistency of life, and unswerving loyalty to a faith which had been the joy and comfort of his dear mother, whose loveable nature he inherited and reflected, a blameless life and unfailing charity enabled him when the time came to live a life of incessant toil, and face a martyr's death. I remember the present Bishop of Carlisle inciting Cambridge undergraduates to become, by virtue of earnestness, gentleness, and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wiped out my sin a little by this bitter penance and mortification, till even I can feel I have suffered and repented enough, I will come back and look on your dear face again. And this for you, Margaret; know that in the blameless, hard-working life I lead that I have forgotten none of your counsel, and that I so walk in the hard and lonely path that I have marked out for myself that even you ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... honest man do in my closet? There is no honest man that shall come in my closet.' Even so say I. There is no good man who shall make us his slaves. If he break his word to his people, is it a sufficient defence that he keeps it to his companions? If he oppress and extort all day, shall he be held blameless because he prayeth at night and morning? If he be insatiable in plunder and revenge, shall we pass it by because in meat and drink he is temperate? If he have lived like a tyrant, shall all be forgotten because he hath ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... that for a moment her voice shook; but no angry word escaped her lip, nor did she even deign to repudiate the charge, which was, as it were, conveyed in Lady Arabella's request. The doctor knew, or thought he knew—nay, he did know—that Mary was wholly blameless in the matter: that she had at least given no encouragement to any love on the part of the young heir; but, nevertheless, he had expected that she would avouch her own innocence. This, however, she ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... source of every joy. He envied not, he never thought of kings; Nor from those appetites sustain'd annoy, That chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy; Nor Fate his calm and humble hopes beguiled; He mourn'd no recreant friend, nor mistress coy, For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smiled, And her alone he loved, and loved her from ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... remonstrance, had gone by. A more vigorous schooling was needed if Stephen La Mothe was to be saved from folly. "If you must go girl-drunken as every sentimental boy does sooner or later, do not go blind-drunk or sense-drunk, but keep your eyes open and your mind clear. Mademoiselle de Vesc may be blameless or she may not: that is what we are here to prove. You call her weak, but the greatest folly of a foolish man is to despise weakness. Contempt of weakness has lost more battles than strength of arms has won. Charles the Bold despised the weakness ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... doubtful whether he could speak a word of English, and it is certain that from the beginning he surrounded himself with French favorites, and filled the Church with French priests. Edward's piety and blameless life gained for him the title of "the Confessor," or, as we should say ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... the housemaid with unusual severity. To all appearance Molly had got through her after-dinner work in an exemplary manner, had "cleaned herself" with great dispatch, and now came to ask, submissively, if she should sit down to her spinning till milking time. But this blameless conduct, according to Mrs. Poyser, shrouded a secret indulgence of unbecoming wishes, which she now dragged forth and held up to Molly's ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... one amiable indiscretion, in which an assistant housemaid had equally participated, the history of Mr. Weller's conduct was so very blameless, that Mr. Pickwick felt fully justified in closing the engagement that very evening. With the promptness and energy which characterised not only the public proceedings, but all the private actions of this extraordinary man, he at once led his new ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... Hancock, Hooker, Keyes, Naglee, Baker, Ord, Farragut (the blameless Nelson of America), Canby, Fremont, Shields, McPherson, Stoneman, Stone, Porter, Boggs, Sumner, Heintzelman, Lander, Buell, with other old residents of the coast, drew the sword. Wool, Denver, Geary, and many more, whose abilities had been perfected in the struggles ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... to his feet. "I told the whole truth, or I would not have lived here a day. Rosamond, I have greatly sinned, but she has not been blameless. She insulted me in every possible way, even to giving you her wedding ring, and then, lest I should not see it, wrote to me 'to look upon your finger.' No wonder you ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes

... how false have been your dealings with her, and now, if she be defrauded of one penny in the future, or if you in any way seek to take advantage of her, you shall be thrown into a felon's cell. Your past shall only be forgiven on the condition that your future be blameless." ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... clearly but just occurred to her, yet she was talking of it, at the end of a minute, as her favourite dream. He didn't believe in it, but he pretended to; this helped her as well as anything else to treat him as harmless and blameless. She was so engaged, with the further aid of a complete absence of allusions, when the highest effect was given her method by the beautiful entrance of Kate. The method therefore received support all round, for no ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... we have richly deserved death, not on account of any heresy or sin of which ourselves or our order have been guilty, but because we have yielded, to save our lives, to the seductive words of the Pope and of the King; and so by our confessions brought shame and ruin on our blameless, holy, and orthodox brotherhood." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... despicably have I acted,' she cried; 'I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameless distrust.' ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... china, known as Haviland, which can be bought for $35—and the blue-and-white English porcelain of different makes—Copeland, Trenton, etc., a desirable set of which costs $15 and higher. All-white is entirely blameless from the standpoint of good taste, and has a dainty fineness in the Haviland of which one rarely tires, while it never clashes with anything else on the table. It is so infinitely preferable to cheap, gaudy decorations, so sincerely and honestly what it seems to be, that ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... the same hue; and all worldly conditions and all the fame of her children—for Elizabeth Whittier then shared the fame—were to her wholly subordinate things, to be taken as the Lord gave. On one point only this blameless soul seemed to have a shadow of solicitude, this being the new wonder of Spiritualism, just dawning on the world. I never went to the house that there did not come from the gentle lady, very soon, a placid inquiry from behind her knitting-needles, 'Has thee any farther information ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... scar, there are a thousand unseen mutilations that cripple, each of them, some one or more of our highest faculties? If what Sophy told and believed was the real truth, what prayers could be agonizing enough, what tenderness could be deep enough, for this poor, lost, blighted, hapless, blameless child of misfortune, struck by such a doom as perhaps no living creature in all the sisterhood of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... by no means displeasing to her: that I saw. She had not been accustomed to your glib, off-handed, smartly dressed youths. Here was a good-looking young man, of blameless life, who helped her draw up the bucket, took her to sail, taught her to row, brought her home bushes of huckleberries and branches of swamp-pinks from the pasture, and shells from ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... do not know all." Impulsively Bertrand threw back the words. "You cannot refuse to listen to me," he said. "I appeal to your honour, to your sense of justice. If you knew all, as you say, you would not leave her thus. If you believed her to be blameless—as she is—you would not abandon her in her hour of trouble. I tell you, monsieur"—his breath quickened suddenly and he caught his hand to his side—"if you know the truth, you are committing a crime for which no ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... something peculiarly savage and ungenerous in the breast of Mr Sharp, one would have thought, to induce him to suspect a man whose character was blameless. But he did suspect that man on the faith of that almost imperceptible touch of discomposure, and his suspicion did not dissipate although the man came ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... move, And rising seek the vacancy above.— So when the Mother, bending o'er his charms, Clasps her fair nurseling in delighted arms; 375 Throws the thin kerchief from her neck of snow, And half unveils the pearly orbs below; With sparkling eye the blameless Plunderer owns Her soft embraces, and endearing tones, Seeks the salubrious fount with opening lips, 380 Spreads his inquiring hands, and ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... toward the sky with ruddy blaze, shining with weird effect against the black fir-trees and the blacker night. Three cheers more! God save the Queen! May she reign over us, happy and glorious! And we cheered lustily, too, you may be sure! It was more for the woman than the monarch; it was for the blameless life, not for the splendid monarchy; but there was everything hearty, and nothing alien in our tone, when we sang "God Save the Queen" with the rest of the ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Master Cole," spoke the Dean of Cardinal College, "because it is told to me that you, whilst yourself a blameless son of Holy Church, have strong friendship for some of those unhappy youths who are lying now in ward, accused of the deadly sin of heresy; and in particular, that you are well known to Anthony Dalaber, one of the most notable and ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Governments do not prevent the sort of thing depicted by Mr. Raemaekers the people will see to it themselves. The cartoon is not, of course, intended to reflect personally on the owner of Krupp's works, who is said to be a gentle-minded and blameless lady. It is her misfortune to be associated by the chance of inheritance with the German war machine and one of the underhand methods by which it has ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... meant, if I am not mistaken, by the great contrast so often and so vividly drawn by St. Paul between the spirit and the flesh, between the children of light and the children of darkness, between the sleep or the death of the world and the waking to life in Christ, between the blameless and the harmless sons of God and the crooked and perverse generation among whom they shine as lights in the world. I confess that I never realised this contrast fully or intelligently until I read through the Pauline Epistles from beginning to end with a special historical object in view. ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... already told the truth, the inquisitor gravely protested that he was bringing himself to the torture by his own obstinacy; and that if he should suffer loss of blood, or even expire, during the question, the holy office would be blameless. Having thus spoken, the inquisitor left him in the hands of the tormentors, who stripped him, and compressed his body so tightly in a pair of linen drawers, that he could no longer draw breath, and must have died, had they not suddenly relaxed ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... has lived to see about one-half of them go down to drunkard's graves, and the other half are either dead or forgotten, while she today stands as one of the brightest, cheeriest women, young or old, to be found in our own or any other land. What a tremendous battle she has fought, what a blameless life she has led, rejoicing in the strength which enabled her to mingle with the weak and erring of her sex when necessary without even the smell of smoke on her garments. She made an address, and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... sofa) My precious jewels, how thankful I am to find you safe and well, (aside) I'll give it you when I get you home. I know all! (to Doctor) Two dear girls, Doctor. who have never given me a moment's uneasiness all their blameless lives, (aside to Ruby) Have you settled? ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient

... away to the fireplace). These repeated insults to a man of blameless life are as disgraceful to you as they are undeserved by me, Lady Corinthia. Such suspicions invite the conduct they impute. (She raises the pistol.) You need not be alarmed: I am only going to leave ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw

... stimulate exhausted nature, help to destroy the very fundamentals of the constitution. He reviewed his own conduct with the utmost severity, and could not recollect one circumstance which could justly offend the idol of his soul. The more blameless he appeared to himself in this examination, the less excusable did her behaviour appear. He tasked his penetration to discover the cause of this alteration; he burned with impatience to know it; ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... Free-soiler." We deprecated violence, and wished a peaceful discussion of the subject. It was therefore most fitting that a man whose profession forbade him to go armed should put to the test of actual experiment whether an American citizen of blameless life could be permitted to enjoy the right of free speech—the privilege of expressing views favorable to making Kansas a free State—such views being uttered without anything of angry, abusive or insulting language. It was for this purpose the above words were ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... secondarily to educate meet persons for the sacred work of the ministry, in the churches of Christ among the English; so it is of the last and very special importance, that all who shall be admitted here in any capacity, and especially for an education, be of sober, blameless and religious behavior, that neither Indian children nor others may be in danger of infection by examples which are not suitable for their imitation. And accordingly I think it proper to let the world know there is no encouragement given that such as are vain, idle, trifling, flesh-pleasing, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... at the change of commanders, for the campaign from Louisville on was looked upon generally as a lamentable failure, yet there were many who still had the utmost confidence in General Buell, and they repelled with some asperity the reflections cast upon him by his critics. These admirers held him blameless throughout for the blunders of the campaign, but the greater number laid every error at his door, and even went to the absurdity of challenging his loyalty in a mild way, but they particularly charged incompetency at Perryville, where McCook's corps ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan

... Wherethrough the spirit of man may steer In life and death less dark or dear, Laid hand thereon, and fared as they. With half a smile his hand he drew Back from the spell-bound thing, and threw With half a glance his heart anew Toward no such blameless may. ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... arrest. Then they stood at a distance making sorrowful gestures; and the King, who understood, laid a silver coin upon the palace window shelf and went his way. The King must obey the law, but he can forget the principles of alms-giving, as may the rest of us at Christmas, and be blameless. ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... of the causes which had led their ancestors to forsake their native country, was cherished like the traditions of religion, and became a motive to themselves, for indulging in the exercise of those blameless principles, which had been so obnoxious to the arrogant spirit of the Old World. The associates of the Wests and the Pearsons, considered the patriarchs of Pennsylvania as having been driven from England, because their endeavours to regulate their conduct by the example of Jesus ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... Phineas has nothing whatever to do with this matter. He is altogether blameless. So am I too, if you ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... many a one other 1860 With good things shall greet o'er the bath of the gannet; And the ring'd bark withal over sea shall be bringing The gifts and love-tokens. The twain folks I know Toward foeman toward friend fast-fashion'd together, In every way blameless as in the old wise. Then the refuge of warriors, he gave him withal, Gave Healfdene's son of treasures yet twelve; And he bade him with those gifts to go his own people To seek in all soundness, and swiftly come back. Then kissed the king, he of noble kin gotten, 1870 The lord of the ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... diligence have been absolute,—if all has been done which, under the circumstances, could be done,—I doubt not they are blameless. But I fear there are very few who can absolutely say this; and for those who cannot say it at all, their guilt is proportionate to the demands which the momentous nature of the subject made ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... disappeared, the churches turned to the people for that support which was no longer accorded by government. Thus there came into general use the famous Half-Way Covenant, a wide-open back door through which all men of blameless lives and orthodox beliefs might press into the churches, a kind of ecclesiastical manhood suffrage undermining the aristocracy of the fully regenerate. As a partial remedy for the evils arising out of this democratization of religion and church government, a closer union of the churches under ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... emigrant who got drunk and proposed to raid the "Welshman's house" all alone one dark and threatening night.[11] This house stood half-way up Holliday's Hill ("Cardiff" Hill), and its sole occupants were a poor but quite respectable widow and her young and blameless daughter. The invading ruffian woke the whole village with his ribald yells and coarse challenges and obscenities. I went up there with a comrade—John Briggs, I think—to look and listen. The figure of the man was dimly risible; the women were on their porch, but not visible in ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... the Turks and in other distress and calamity. For this reason we should, with a thankful heart and serious mind, pray, as Paul here does for his Corinthians, that God would keep us steadfast in the possession of his gifts and blameless in the day ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... Tannhauser become a great success. But as he was an exceedingly cold and cautious man, he thought he had discovered serious flaws in M. Lorbach's proposals, and when the latter began to stipulate for certain commissions, Perrin immediately fancied that he detected a not quite blameless savour of speculation in the whole business, and declared that if he wanted to found a Wagner Theatre, he would manage to procure the necessary funds in his own way. As a matter of fact, he did actually entertain the notion of securing a large cafe, the 'Alcazar,' ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... Against Eric's blameless life the arrows of slander were like darts shot toward the sun. They fell back upon the archers' heads. That was a lively night in the tobacco lagoon when the election returns came in and State after State swung to Eric's column. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... secluded site would be better," he declared. "He was very fond of shade. In fact, rather a shady customer himself in his young days. But not a word against the dead. His old age was dignified and blameless. You don't remember the time when he used to steal chickens, ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... little detailed in the literature. The general opinion is that such cases arising from a background of degeneracy are incurable. One of her cases was free from attacks for two periods of three years each, and had been blameless in an honorable position as editor for seven years at the time of the publication of her monograph. She suggests that the profession he has chosen may be particularly suited to the talents of the pathological liar. She also ventures to state that where pathological ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... Lady Hamilton Arrival of the party in England Lady Nelson's attitude at this time Her letters to Nelson His reception and conduct in London Growing estrangement between him and Lady Nelson Anecdote of his visit to Fonthill Final breach with Lady Nelson Her blameless character, and subsequent life Nelson's testimony to her conduct Hoists his flag on board the "San Josef" at Plymouth Birth of the child Horatia Nelson's care to conceal his relations ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... of the place also lent a willing hand; for although some of them were bad men, yet they were constrained to respect the consistent character and blameless life of the missionary, who not unfrequently experienced the fulfilment of that word: "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." Besides this, all of them, however unwilling they might be to accept Christianity for themselves, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... after we had pried him loose from his last predicament, perfectly optimistic under his fresh haircut, and thinking the traffic cops would not remember him. Thinking, too—as he confided to the Little Woman—that Los Angeles looked pretty good, after all. He was resolved to lead henceforth a blameless life. It was time he settled down, Casey declared virtuously. His last trip into the desert was all wrong, and he wanted you to ask anybody if Casey Ryan wasn't ready at any and all times to admit his mistakes, if he ever happened to make any. He was starting in fresh now, with ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower

... Bengel had procured a decided reception for his labors on the Revelation of St. John, from the fact that he was known as an intelligent, upright, God-fearing, blameless man. Deep minds are compelled to live in the past as well as in the future. The ordinary movements of the world can be of no importance to them, if they do not, in the course of ages up to the present, revere prophecies which have been revealed, and in the immediate, as well as in the most ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... hostility. In this matter of Hester Prynne, there was neither irritation nor irksomeness. She never battled with the public, but submitted, uncomplainingly, to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it, in requital for what she suffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies. Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy, was reckoned largely in her favor. With nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man so given to prayer, of such a blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judgment may pronounce,—is it fitting that a father in the Church should leave a shadow on his memory that may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let not this thing be! Suffer ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... resounding to the clash of arms, lost its sombre and martial aspect. Garlands of soft spring flowers, the tribute of the women of Virginia, rose high above the bier, and white pyramids of lilies, the emblems of purity and meekness, recalled the blameless life ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... love. There is nothing strange, after all, in this; nothing abnormal, nothing unwholesome. Gruenwald loved the marble head and shoulders of the lovely Amazon in the Munich Museum; he died unmarried, leaving the charities and good deeds of a blameless life to justify him. Sir Henry Guest, the great surgeon who worked among the poor without recompense, loved Gainsborough's 'Lady Wilton.' The portrait hangs above his tomb in St. Clement's Hundreds. D'Epernay loved Mlle. Jeanne Vacaresco, ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers

... is blameless. You and I, John, must suffer, not she. It would be wicked to ruin her young life. You won't denounce me, John. You can't. You won't have me sent to prison. You won't disgrace me in the eyes of my friends. You won't do anything—at least, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... these questions. The professional rules, be they good or bad, are rules to which many wise and virtuous men have conformed, and are daily conforming. If, therefore, Bacon did no more than these rules required of him, we shall readily admit that he was blameless, or, at least, excusable. But we conceive that his conduct was not justifiable according to any professional rules that now exist, or that ever existed in England. It has always been held that, in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... which continued for generations to exert an unhappy influence, commenced in the metropolis during the short episcopate of Cornelius. The leader of this secession was Novatian, a man of blameless character, [356:1] and a presbyter of the Roman Church. In the Decian persecution many had been terrified into temporary conformity to paganism; and this austere ecclesiastic maintained, that persons who had so sadly compromised themselves, should, on no account ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... is the devil. People lose their tempers and rush into rows which end in lawsuits, and then find they can prove nothing. If I were a villain," slightly showing his teeth in an agreeable smile—"instead of a man of blameless life, I should go in only for that branch of my profession which could be exercised ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... He is very depressed. He said he could not think how he happened to behave in such an abominable way. He entreated me to put in a word for him with you. He begged me to tell you how he regretted the brutal assault, and asked me to mention the fact that his record had hitherto been blameless." Jimmy paused. He was getting no encouragement, and seemed to be making no impression whatever. Mrs. Pett was sitting bolt upright in her chair in a stiffly defensive sort of way. She had the appearance of being absolutely ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... mysteriously devoted to Miss Anne Hamilton, whose conventional perfections evidently held within their limit Uncle Jack's highest ideals. Uncle Jack had shown a neat talent with his pen. He had grown middle-aged at an imperceptible and blameless pace, and now he was raging about like a sort of cave man with nothing less than the universe to bound his wild leaps ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... his reverend aspect, and revered his blameless name; And in peace he dwelt with strangers, in the fulness of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... of the kingdom. This very enlightened understanding, which was so marked a feature in Brother Emmanuel, had been one of the strongest bonds between him and his patron, and it seemed little short of monstrous to the knight to hear such an accusation brought against one who had lived a godly and blameless life, had observed far more rigorously all the laws of the Church than the prior or the fraternity thought of doing, and was a far truer and better son than they ever attempted ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... letter to all the princes wherein he taxed Aman, the Macedonian, with having by manifold and cunning deceits sought the destruction of Mardocheus, who had saved the king's life, and also of the blameless Esther, partaker of his kingdom, with their whole nation. The king revoked the decree procured by Aman, who, with all his family, was hanged at the gates of Susa. And the king commanded the day of their deliverance ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... Scriptures had constant influence on his sentiments and conduct. For the last two or three years of his life, he regularly attended divine service in his parish church of St George's, Hanover Square, where his looks and gestures indicated the fervour of his devotion. In his life he was pure and blameless."—(Vol. i. 209.) ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... the path of the blameless naturalist everywhere blocked by "Moses": the believer in revelation was generally held to be forced to a choice between revealed cosmogony and the scientific account of origins. It is not clear how far the change in Biblical interpretation ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... The blameless life he had led, his high character, his gentle and unassuming manners, won for him not only the respect but the admiration of all with whom he came ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... person of hitherto blameless life is charged with an act of indecency, he should be examined for G.P.I. The condition of his prostate should also be investigated. He may be suffering from either mental or physical disease, ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... to the valiant Raduan, Where underneath the myrtles Alhambra's fountains ran: The Moor was inly moved, and blameless as he was, He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus his cause. "Oh, lady, dry those star-like eyes—their dimness does me wrong; If my heart be made of flint, at least 'twill keep thy image long; Thou hast uttered cruel words—but I grieve the ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... ambiguous "slip" was slipped upon a too confiding clientele! It was sharp practice; and its employment at a moment when suspense had thrown us off our guard was superb. We bristled with indignation, but the coup (as such) was splendid. We, the victims, were not entirely blameless; we had had ample experience of the risk attached to speculation in Specials. It was ever thus. An ancient number of the Cape Times would drop from the clouds, and for weeks the news it contained would be administered in homeopathic doses to the public ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... in righteousness arrayed, The pure and blameless liver, Needs not the keen Toledo blade, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... the arms of our mother we come, Our broad strong mother, the innocent earth, Mother of all things beautiful, blameless, Mother of hopes that her strength makes tameless, Where the voices of grief and of battle are dumb, And the whole world laughs with ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... things against his father, for what could be his object in wishing it kept a secret that he was paying for 'Lena's lessons, or why did he pay for them at all—and did 'Lena know it? He thought not, and for a time longer was she blameless ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... Fern, coolly. "No one is so blameless that he can claim exemption from misfortune ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... we all love and understand; dear Amabel, you who were so unjustly punished for trying to give pleasure to an unresponsive aunt; poor, ill-used, ill-treated, innocent Amabel; blameless, suffering Amabel, we await your words,' that fluttering, tiresome butterfly-thing inside her seemed suddenly to swell to the size and strength of a fluttering albatross, and Amabel got up from her seat of honour on ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... man worthy of the name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To twist the lady's upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct may be classed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. King Arthur's knights used to do this sort of thing all the time, and look what people think of them. Lucille, therefore, coming out of the hotel just as the operation ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... authority, and smote him to the heart." Could Flinders have known what Peron was capable of doing, in the endeavour to advance himself in favour with the rulers of his country, he would certainly not have believed him so blameless. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... perform what is right. It is a maxim in law that what we do by another we do ourselves. We are responsible for those whom we choose to make our laws, and if we help to choose unworthy men we cannot be held blameless of the consequences that may follow. (c) As it is our duty to exercise this privilege of citizenship rightly, we are also bound not to refrain from exercising it. We hear people say sometimes that they have nothing to do with politics. ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... me what's the proper thing to do." And he went away to do it there and then, like the blameless exception that I found him to so ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... ate the show-bread, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? (5)Or have ye not read in the law, that on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? (6)But I say to you, that a greater than the temple is here. (7)But if ye had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the blameless. (8)For the Son of man ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... after, or any decision to make; but it was easier to end the conversation than the visit. He threw himself back in his chair in despair, and half closed his eyes. "Oh, those good Irvingites," he thought, "blameless men, who came only to protest, and vanished at the first word of opposition; but now thrice has the church-clock struck the quarters since her entrance, and I don't see why she's not to stop here as long as it goes on striking, since she has stopped ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... good qualities, by his various biographers. Very few pen-portraits of royal personages that pass through the hands of the publishers can be said to present a true picture of their subject. Either the writer holds up the object of his literary effort as a person so blameless as to suggest the idea that he is an impossible prig, or else every piece of malevolent gossip is construed into a positive fact, his shortcomings magnified until they lose all touch of resemblance, while every word and action capable of misrepresentation is construed in the manner most ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... No man, no woman, had ever been found who surpassed these in righteousness and piety. When, therefore, Jupiter, looking down from heaven upon the earth, saw that only a single pair of mortals remained of the many thousand times a thousand, both blameless, both devoted servants of the gods, he sent forth the North Wind, recalled the clouds, and once again separated the earth from the heavens and the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... persecuting spirit, consented to the death of Stephen, who was no ignorant Galilean, but a learned Hellenist; nor is there evidence that the bitter and relentless young pharisee was touched either by the eloquence or blameless life or terrible ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... of your blameless and constant disposition through patience, which not only appears in your outward conversation, but is naturally rooted and ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... look at Helm that evening when he came for his mail. She was a grave, gentle little thing—a child still whose childhood had been a tragedy and whose womanhood promised only that shadow of happiness called contentment which comes from a blameless life and a nature which accepts ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... that he had not been induced to incur what he regarded as guilt. The lofty consciousness of unerring rectitude which sustained his fortitude could not fail to be chequered by the recollection of acts which in his own estimation were not purely blameless. Had success attended the suggested proposals, they would receive the world's unqualified approval; while failure, explained through the medium of a malicious law, and a warped and cowardly public opinion, would brand them as iniquitous. But Mr. O'Brien's scrupulous ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... glad heart—kind and therefore glad—be any part of sanctity, then might the robe of Motley, with which he invested himself with so much humility after his deprivation, and which he wore so long with so much blameless satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... moved her family back to the Villa Ponitowski and had set the stage demurely and convincingly for the arrival of the trust company's emissary. She impressed Mr. Smith easily as an intelligent and prudent woman, who was terribly concerned over Adelle's false step, and quite blameless in ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... garden of God's own planting, wherein grew "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food;" to that paradise into which the Lord God put the new-created man, "to dress it and to keep it." It was here that Adam and his partner learned to speak, while yet they stood blameless and blessed, entire and wanting nothing; free in the exercise of perfect faculties of body and mind, capable of acquiring knowledge through observation and experience, and also favoured with immediate communications with their Maker. Yet Adam, having nothing which he did ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... is not mocked, we ought to walk worthy both of his command and of his glory. Also the deacons must be blameless before him, as the ministers of God in Christ, and not of men. Not false accusers; not double-tongued; not lovers of money; but moderate in all things, compassionate, careful; walking according to the truth of the Lord, who was the servant of all. Whom if ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... of his difference if he did nothing more. But when you had said this, you seemed to have said all there was to say against him. The more the Hilarys learned about the young fellow the more reason they had to respect him. His life, on its level, was blameless. Every one who knew him spoke well of him, and those who knew him best spoke enthusiastically; he had believers in his talent and in his character. In a society so barometrical as ours, even in a city where it was the least barometrical, the obstacles to the acceptance ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... were those who better estimated Gladstone's worth and looked approvingly upon his course, as "the blameless schoolboy became the blameless undergraduate; diligent, sober, regular alike in study and devotion, giving his whole energies to the duties of the place, and quietly abiding in the religious faith in which he had been trained. Bishop Charles Wordsworth said that no man of ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... wife might take a dislike to her husband and set her face to leave him and deny him conjugal rights. This was probably equivalent to desertion. Then a judicial inquiry was required. If his ill treatment or neglect was made clear and she was blameless, a divorce was granted. She took her marriage-portion and went back to her family. But as this was of her own seeking, she received no alimony.(326) It is assumed that it was an unhappy marriage from the first and ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... that day from America, and without a sound or movement had passed away. The heart disease which killed so many of his family was his fate also. A merciful one it always seemed to me, which took him thus suddenly and without pain from the life in which he had played so fruitful and blameless a part. That word "blameless" has always seemed to me particularly to fit him. And the quality to which it points was what made his humor so sharp-tipped and so harmless. He had no hidden interest to serve—no malice—not a touch, not a trace ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... clerical atmosphere, and whose gentle and playful enjoyment of quiet country life relieves the painfully deep pathos of his disordered imagination; and the excellent W. L. Bowles (1762-1850), whose sonnets first woke Coleridge's imagination, who spent eighty-eight years in an amiable and blameless life, and was country-gentleman, magistrate, antiquary, clergyman, and poet.[21] Such names are enough to recall a type which has not quite vanished, and which has gathered a new charm in more stirring and fretful times. These most excellent people, however, were not likely to be prominent ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... solitude was sweet to him, leaving him free of petty cares and anxieties—he moving forward, ignorant of the gossip which in point of fact surrounded him, innocent of the feminine plots and counterplots of which his blameless bachelorhood was at once the provoking cause and the object; while in his eyes—though of this, too, he was ignorant—dwelt increasingly reflection of that mysterious and lovely light which, let obstinately purblind man deny it as he may, lies ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... was permitted to enjoy; and he found himself so beset with spies and suspicion, that a very few months after his release he requested and obtained the royal license to travel. Proceeding into Italy, he shortly after ended at Padua his blameless and unfortunate career. Popular fame attributed his early death to poison administered by the Imperialists, but probably, as in a multitude of similar cases, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... meridian of life. You have heard about him from his neighbors. They pronounce him a fair, upright, moral man. No suspicion hitherto was ever breathed against his honesty. He was a professor of religion, and, so far as we know, had walked in all the ordinances and commands of the law blameless. Now, in all cases of doubt, a fair and exemplary character, especially in an elderly man, is a great capital to begin with. This prisoner may have been mistaken in his views as to matters of human right; but, as to violating what he believed to ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... woven against me, and open violence as well. All the honours which a physician can possess I either enjoy, or have refused when they were offered to me. I have raised the fortunes of my family, and have lived a blameless life. I am well known to all men of worship, and to the whole of Europe. What I have written has been lauded; in sooth, I have written of so many things and at such length, that a man could scarcely read my works if he spent his life therewith. I have taken good ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... you!" she says briefly in Tamil; but there is a wealth of forgiveness in the tone as she offers her armful of flowers. Chellalu wonders at grown-up hearts which can harbour unworthy suspicions about blameless little children. As if she would have ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... pages, told of many encounters between the whites and the Indians that were narrated to him by the Indians. He holds the Indians blameless for many of the attacks attributed to them, and calls attention to the Chivington Massacre and the Massacre of the Nine Mile Ridge, related in ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... the people of God, while they walk in all his ordinances and commandments blameless, is a warranted motive to duty. "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."[778] Their practice in the discharge of the duty of Covenanting, accordingly, is worthy of imitation. Were we doubtful whether or not their observation of the exercise ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... keeping the verse, and it would not as a rule be much the worse. You cannot do either of these things with poets who are poets. Therefore I shall conclude that save at the rarest moments, moments of some sudden gust of emotion, some happy accident, some special grace of the Muses to reward long and blameless toil in their service, Crabbe was not a poet. But I have not the least intention of denying that he was great, and all but of the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... of your span - As all must end—the world shall say, "His best he gave: he left us not A line that saints could wish to blot, For he was blameless, though a man, And though the ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang

... gateways of the morn. No so; no guiding light would Punch extinguish, Or chill true champion of the toiling crowd; But wisdom at its kindliest must distinguish Between true guides and tricksters false as loud. The blameless King his headlong knights upbraided In kindly grief for "following foolish fires," False flames that in mere dun marsh-darkness faded, Leaving lost votaries to its mists and mires; And here's an ignis fatuus, fired by folly, And moved by violence as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various

... Alcestis thus to wife, And these with mated hearts and mutual love Lived a life blameless, beautiful: the king Ordaining justice in the gates; the queen, With grateful offerings to the household gods, Wise with the wisdom of the pure in heart. One child she bore,—Eumelus,—and he throve. Yet none the less because they sacrificed The firstlings of their flocks and fruits and flowers, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... others to follow his example—to charge their children to "keep the way of the Lord, and walk in his ordinances and commandments blameless." Who knows that his posterity may not imitate those of this man of God? And for as long a term? Who can determine that his good example, and counsels may not do good on earth, when his body shall be mouldering in the grave, and ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... the girl is a result of conflicting elements of heredity. I haven't met her father, but I gather that he is a good old Tory of blameless respectability, and has a deep-seated disbelief in evolution. On the other hand, the girl's mother is rather a buxom and florid descendant of a vigorous North of England family, the former members of which, with the exception of her father, were highly ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... more to confine your exertions, in that way, to your own more lofty mind. Again I refuse to have my mind, or whatever it is that does duty for it, habituated to anything. A gracious Providence knows that I should die outright, after all my blameless life, if reduced to those horrible straits you always picture. And I have too much faith in a gracious Providence to conceive for one moment that it would treat me so. I decline the subject. Why should we make such troubles? There is clear soup for dinner, and some lovely sweet-breads. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... told Dr. Lavendar about—last night," William said; "but if you have no objection I would like to just hint at—at a reason. He would know how entirely blameless you were." ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... have no need to justify yourself in my eyes, whether in this or any other thing. I am your mother; for me you will always be blameless. I will speak to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... have suspended their EYRE, we are not called upon to suspend our anger. We decline to believe that he can justify himself in leaving the Oneida, however blameless he may have been in the matter of the collision. Because the Oneida was Left it does not follow ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... attract attention, ought to warn off every healthy mind from their perusal. Every scandal in society that can be brought to the surface is eagerly caught up and paraded, while the millions of people who lead blameless lives of course go unnoticed and unchronicled. Such journals thus inculcate the vilest pessimism, instead of a wholesome and honest belief in the average decency of human nature. The prolixity of the narrative, too, is always in monstrous disproportion to its importance. "Does ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... sitting at the instrument as usual, and my thoughts began to busy themselves with the sublime tragedy of Calvary. I mused, playing softly all the while, on the wonderful, blameless, glorious life that had ended in the shame and cruelty of the Cross, when suddenly, like a cloud swooping darkly across the heaven of my thoughts, came the suggestive question: "Is it all true? Was Christ indeed Divine—or is it ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli



Words linked to "Blameless" :   blamelessness, inculpable, clean-handed, unimpeachable, irreproachable, guiltless



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