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Irreproachable   Listen
Irreproachable

adjective
1.
Free of guilt; not subject to blame.  Synonyms: blameless, inculpable, unimpeachable.  "Of irreproachable character" , "An unimpeachable reputation"






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"Irreproachable" Quotes from Famous Books



... continued he, how many reasons a man may have to be disgusted at marriage. Well, but to go further: let this princess be ever so perfect, accomplished, and irreproachable, I have yet a great many more reasons not to desist from my sentiment, or ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... tired cultured voice faltered as he spoke; and now, without apparent reason, he moved a step to the right and glanced oddly along the room. I followed the direction of his glance, and saw a tall man in conventional morning dress, irreproachable in every detail, whose head was instantly bent upon his catalogue. But before his eyes fell I knew that their long almond shape, as well as the peculiar burnt pallor of his countenance, were undoubtedly those ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... year she was supposed to have spent with them, but which she had really spent in cohabitation with a notorious thief. Here lordship indulged in severe remarks against those who enabled not wholly irreproachable characters to obtain situations by false pretences, a very common habit, and one attended with great danger to society, one which society would do well to take precautions to defend ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... reformation. Gardner deceived the masses of his fellows, however, by adhering strictly to his solemn pledge to 'serve God in the future as zealously as he had served Satan in the past,' and to this day he has indorsed that oath with a life of the most irreproachable character. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... wealth and ambition, did not approve of what he chose to call her childish fancy, and, being desirous that his daughters should form brilliant marriages, frowned scornfully on the suit of one who had only his irreproachable character and his commission in the army of the United States to offer as his credentials. Opposition in this case, however, had its usual effect, and Lizzie, in all things else obedient and complying, felt that here, even her father should not interfere, when his objections ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve

... inward. The irony of life, and of his own position, was a subject of inexhaustible amusement to him. There was nothing in his nature low, sordid, or petty. It was not money, nor rank, but power which he coveted, and at which he aimed. Irreproachable in domestic life, faithful in friendship, a placable enemy, undaunted by failure, accepting final defeat with philosophic calm, he played with political passions which he did not share, and made use of prejudices which he did not feel. Froude loved him, as he loved ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... nearer, with loving at a more conscious distance; by loving kindness and truth he continued doing all he could to bring the kingdom whose end is unity. Hence he had come to restrain his manner—nothing could have constrained his manners, which now from the conventional point of view were irreproachable; but if he did not so often execute a wild dance, or stand upon one leg, the glow in his eyes had deepened, and his response to any advance was as ready and thorough, as frank and sweet as ever; his eagerness ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... integrity, to affirm that he was one of the best of the rulers of his age. According to his ideas of religion, he was a religious man. According to his ideas of honesty and of honor, he was both an honest and an honorable man. According to his idea of what is called moral conduct, he was irreproachable, being addicted to no ungenteel vices, or any sins which would be condemned by his associates. His ambition was not to secure for himself ease or luxury, but to extend his imperial power, and to aggrandize his family. For these objects he passed his life, ever tossed upon ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... considerable sum of money due to himself. He denied that he was privy to the contents of the papers found upon him; he complained of his having been denied time to prepare for his trial; and called several persons to prove him a protestant of exemplary piety and irreproachable morals. These circumstances had no weight with the court. He was brow-beaten by the bench, and found guilty by the jury, as he had the papers in his custody; yet there was no privity proved; and the whig party themselves ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... one of the humblest of the humble. Always a man of irreproachable life and warm heart, it never had occurred to him that anything could be lacking in his church methods. But he also was a man of quick perceptions: so, as the meetings went on, and he realized that their impetus was due ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton

... of men of judgment, and the better to induce your faith, are willing to help out the business with something more than is really true, of their own invention. Now in this case, we should either have a man of irreproachable veracity, or so simple that he has not wherewithal to contrive, and to give a colour of truth to false relations, and who can have no ends in forging an untruth. Such a one was mine; and besides, he has at divers times brought to me several seamen and merchants who at the same ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... if, regarding the other genealogy, exegesis has since obscured the luminousness of the method adapted by the Church, the latter's intention was none the less irreproachable, and that alone imports. Before it, before the miracle of the nativity and the divine episodes of the transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, reverently the Occident has knelt. They are indeed divine. If they did not occur in Judea, they have occurred ever since. Continuously, ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... mail-coach on the Great Northern Route stopped to change horses and allow the passengers to dine. People in the county, wishing to take the early mail Portsmouth-ward, put up over night at the old tavern, famous for its irreproachable larder and soft feather-beds. The tavern at that time was kept by Jonathan Bayley, who rivaled his wallet in growing corpulent, and in due time passed away. At his death the establishment, which included a farm, fell into the hands of a son-in-law. Now, though Bayley left ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... whispered to Dorothy, "that you picked out me, when you could have any one in 19—. I can't realize it!" She glanced at her shabby coat, made over from Babe's discarded golf cape, and then at Eleanor Watson's irreproachable blue walking suit and braided toque to match. "Here all girls are really created free and equal, aren't ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... the hounds met on Sir Charles's estate. Sir Charles and Lady Bassett breakfasted in Pink; he had on his scarlet coat, white tie, irreproachable buckskins, and top-boots. (It seemed a pity a speck of dirt should fall on them.) Lady Bassett was in her riding-habit; and when she mounted her pony, and went to cover by his side, with her blue-velvet cap and her ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... most of the members had retired, to cultivate adipose tissue on pensions, and they made him feel adolescent and slender and energetic.) I had left him in the library writing letters (he said he found a voluptuous pleasure in writing letters on the club paper under that irreproachable address), and I rushed off in a taxi ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... I went to the "Frivolity," to see the latest rays of the lamp of burlesque. That scene, at any rate, was familiar. There, in all their spotless panoply of expressionless face, and irreproachable shirt-front, sat the golden lads of the Metropolis in their rows, images of bored stupidity, stiffly cased in black and white. There too, were to be seen the snowy shoulders and the sparkling jewels of the ladies both of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various

... a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the country, damp and mild. The abb called again some days later and hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes and understand and lend him ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... fifty years of age, who still possessed remains of beauty. She had been a widow for long years, and never had thought of marrying again. Although her wedded life had been a happy one, she considered that liberty is to be prized above all else; she employed hers in a most irreproachable manner. She was self-possessed, even better acquainted with numbers than with dress, and managed her property herself, which was by no means a trifling thing to do. Liking to make good use of her time, she thought to do ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... the rest.) You all know the old custom, that when a woman is sentenced to death for a capital offence, as she is, her life will be saved and she will be free if an irreproachable man comes forth and upholds her innocence and declares himself ready and willing to marry her. That ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... a quick glance of surprise and relief with her husband as she started across the room to meet her guests, and in her gratitude to them for being so irreproachable, she threw into her manner a warmth that people did not always find there. "General Lapham?" she said, shaking hands in quick succession with Mrs. Lapham and Irene, and now addressing herself ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... horseman. Stung to the quick by this unjust refusal, the lieutenant of dragoons applied to the Emperor, who gave him permission to race with the others, after having learned that this brave officer supported by his own exertions a numerous family, and that his conduct was irreproachable. ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... worth having the churches for more than the bells. But it was useless to argue with Nancy. Her morals and Anthony's were irreproachable. That is, from the modern point of view. They played cards for small stakes, drank when they pleased, and, as I have indicated, Nancy smoked. She was, also, not unkissed when Anthony asked her to marry him. These were not the ideals of my girlhood, but Anthony and Nancy felt ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... consideration that many of the class were good citizens, patterns of industry, sobriety, and irreproachable conduct, there were difficulties of a practical character in the way of those who advocated the bill. The free colored population of Charleston alone pay taxes on $1,561,870 worth of property; and the aggregate taxes reach $27,209.18. What will become ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... afterwards in Dante) fuses the elements of thought and language into a single white heat. We shall not find in him the luminous and untroubled calm, as of a spirit in which all passion has been fused away, which makes the poetry of Sophocles so crystalline and irreproachable. Nor shall we find in him the peculiar beauties of his own Latin predecessors, Lucretius or Catullus. All this is merely saying in amplified words that Virgil was not Lucretius or Catullus, and that still less was he Homer, or Pindar, or ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... those also were not wanting, but by matrimonial and amatory; which have rendered him conspicuous to his fellows-creatures, and still keep him mentionable in History, briefly and for a sad reason. Duke Eberhard Ludwig was duly wedded to an irreproachable Princess of Baden-Durlach (Johanna Elizabeth) upwards of thirty years ago; and he duly produced one Son in consequence, with other good results to himself and her. But in course of time Duke Eberhard Ludwig took to consorting with bad creatures; ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... and irreproachable consistency of Marvell, as a statesman, have secured for him the honorable appellation of "the British Aristides." Unlike too many of his old associates under the Protectorate, he did not change with the times. He was a republican in Cromwell's day, and neither ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Carol. "You! I thought you were going to get married and have eleven children." Even with the dignity of nineteen years, the nimble wits of Carol and Lark still struggled with the irreproachable ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... the afternoon they both worked in silence. Of the two, the boy was the more completely engrossed. Towards five o'clock Burton made tea, which they took together. Alfred first carefully washed his hands, and his manners at table were irreproachable. Burton began to feel uncomfortable. He felt that the spirit of some older person had come to him in childlike guise. There was so little to connect this boy with the Alfred of his recollections. In looking over his work, too, Burton was conscious of an almost awed sense of a power in this child's ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Olga de Coude had but seen him then—could she have recognized the well-dressed, quiet young man whose well-bred face and irreproachable manners had so captivated her but a few short months ago? And Jane Porter! Would she have still loved this savage warrior chieftain, dancing naked among his naked savage subjects? And D'Arnot! Could D'Arnot have believed that this was the same man he had introduced ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... scheme hastily arranged and executed, mainly in revenge of the Martyr's own fate, and ALTOGETHER UNCONNECTED AND UNINFLUENCED by any former plots devised by Crichton of Brunstone, but which have been employed to implicate the irreproachable ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... flannel shirts with celluloid collars, and coats that hung about him all anyhow. But Dr. Cautley was not in the least like Andrew Mackinnon. He had a distinguished voice; his clothes fitted him to perfection; and his linen, irreproachable ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... shrink from manly labour, take pleasure in wild adventure and useless fatigue. In this satire, which is the most condensed of all, the literary defects of the author are at their height. His moral taste is not irreproachable; in his desire not to mince matters he offends needlessly against propriety. [16] The picture he draws of the fashionable rhetorician with languishing eyes and throat mellowed by a luscious gargle, warbling his drivelling ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... quite popular in France, but not so much so as the journalists and letter-writers would make out. She is exceedingly handsome, and this fact goes a great way with the Parisians. Her conduct since her marriage has been irreproachable, which should always be mentioned to her credit. But that she is naturally a very lovely woman, gentle, and filled with all the virtues, few who know her early history will believe. She is, like the emperor, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... only time was able to obliterate the resentment caused by the whole affair. In Serbia itself a great change took place. The new sovereign, though he laboured under the greatest possible disadvantages, by his irreproachable behaviour, modesty, tact, and strictly constitutional rule, was able to withdraw the court of Belgrade from the trying limelight to which it had become used. The public finances began to be reorganized, commerce began to improve in spite of endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... that they could not reproach each other. When Maurice Dupin married Sophie-Victoire, a month before the birth of Aurore, he had some difficulty in obtaining his mother's consent. She finally gave in, as she was of an indulgent nature. It is possible that Sophie-Victoire's conduct was irreproachable during her husband's lifetime, but, after his death, she returned to her former ways. She was nevertheless of religious habits and would not, upon any account, have missed attending Mass. She was quick-tempered, jealous and noisy and, ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... Revolution had stayed away from Tournebut; but as soon as he heard of their arrest he hurried to Rouen to be near his mother and brother in prison. The letters he exchanged with Bonnoeil, as soon as it was permitted, show a strong sense of the situation on the part of both, irreproachable honesty and profound friendship. This family, whom it suited Licquet to represent as consisting of spiteful, dissolute or misguided people, appears in a very different light in this correspondence. The two brothers ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... bibulous Welshman who at times would startle the unwashed denizens of the neighbouring slums by appearing in a tall hat and irreproachable shirt front. He was a doctor by profession, who succeeded in maintaining a certain reputation in polite circles, but an alcoholic soaker by inclination, one of those men who somehow contrive to keep ahead of ruin by sleeping out periods of financial ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... all the bygone dames who haunt the grand Chateau, the only one I detest is probably the most irreproachable of all—Madame de Maintenon. There is something so repulsively sanctimonious in her aspect, something so crafty in the method wherewith, under the cloak of religion, she wormed her way into high places, ousting—always in the name of propriety—those ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... keys, and, finally, the certainty and spontaneity with which they all, without exception, recognized and named various sounds vocalized, showed clearly that they possessed a very superior knowledge of intonation. All the pieces which they sung were rendered with irreproachable correctness, though the professor did not beat the time, except through the first bar to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... An elegant, irreproachable, high-minded model of dignity and reserve has just knocked and inquired what we will have for dinner. It is very embarrassing to give orders to a person who looks like a Justice of the Supreme ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... it might, perhaps, be best to place a married couple, rather advanced in life, and without children, at the head of the institution; but, whoever are employed in that situation, care should be taken that they should be persons of irreproachable character, and such as the Poor can have no reason to ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... you by telling you the truth. Do you think I had nothing of that sort to get over when I began to find that I was thinking a little more about you than was quite convenient under the circumstances? Your manners, dear Harry, though irreproachable, just had not the tone that I had been accustomed to. There was a diffidence about you also that did not at first advance ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... ridiculous! As for Sam Wright, all that sort of thing was impossible, because it was repugnant. No married woman, "respectable," as such women call themselves, could have found the boy's love-making more repugnant than she did. And certainly her conduct in Old Chester was absolutely irreproachable: she went to church fairly often; she gave liberally to all the good causes of the village; she was kind to her servants, and courteous to these stupid Old Chester people. And yet, simply because she had been forced by Frederick's ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... by now to the Strand, that street down which every day he moved to the Law Courts, to his daily work; his work so dignified and regular, so irreproachable, and solid. No! The thing was all a monstrous nightmare! It would go, if he fixed his mind on the familiar objects around, read the names on the shops, looked at the faces passing. Far down the thoroughfare he caught the outline of the old church, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... cleanest-living men in the station, and had never been charged with drunkenness in his life. At one of the lectures B.-P. was surprised to find the young soldier absent, and he was still more surprised on the following day to find that this irreproachable sergeant was up on a charge of drunkenness. "What on earth made you go and get drunk?" asked B.-P. "Well, sir," said the sergeant doggedly, "I was late yesterday and couldn't get in to your lecture, so of course I had to go and get ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... whatever passage, phrase, or word, could be deemed unsuited to an audience of "jeunes filles." I noticed more than once, that where retrenchment without substitute would have left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness, he could, and did, improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than irreproachable; the dialogue—the description—he engrafted was often far better ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... moments the door was thrown open, and a spruce, dapper looking gentleman, clothed in sombre colored garments, irreproachable linen, and carrying a small merino bag in his hand, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... "The theory that the popular leaders were playing a game of hypocrisy may be tested in the case of Washington, whose sterling patriotism was not more conspicuous than his irreproachable integrity. The New York Provincial Congress, in an address to him (June 26th, 1775), on his way from Philadelphia to the American camp around Boston, say that accommodation with the mother country was 'the fondest wish of each American soul.' Washington, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... G. sate cheerful and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio in the person of John Philip Kemble at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a piece—the protasis—should do. The cue of the spectators was to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... Rashi's conduct was always honorable and his manners irreproachable. To be virtuous was not to possess some special merit; it was the strict fulfilment [fulfillment sic] of the Law. We have seen that Rashi's life was pure; and his life and more particularly his work reveal a firm, controlled nature, a simple, frank ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... friendship with La Rochefoucauld glided imperceptibly into the intimacy which became so important a feature in her life. This intimacy was naturally a matter of some speculation, but the world made up its mind of its perfectly irreproachable character. "It appears to be only friendship," writes Mme. de Scudery to Bussy-Rabutin; "in short the fear of God on both sides, and perhaps policy, have cut the wings of love. She is his favorite and his first friend." "I do not believe he has ever been what one calls in love," writes Mme. ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... rising from their prim chimneys; and over all, the pallid skies of New England, where the sun wheeled his shorn beams from east to west as coldly as if no tropic seas mirrored his more fervid glow thousands of miles away, and the chilly moon beamed with irreproachable whiteness across the round gray hills and the straggling pond, beloved of frogs and mud-turtles, that Greenfield held in honor under the name ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... it is our opinion that some connivance is useful, and that at least the consciences of men, ought to remain free and unshackled. Let every one remain free so long as he is modest, irreproachable in his political conduct, and so long as he does not offend others or oppose the government. This maxim of moderation has always been the guide of our magistrates in this city. The consequence has been that ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... rarely make a parade of social irregularities, drink without enthusiasm, and never ruin themselves by horse-racing. In short, their general conduct is beyond all praise; and the life of dolls made to say "Papa!" and "Mama!" is equally irreproachable. ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... our day is quite a different person, more likely than not to be found hobnobbing with dukes and duchesses—as irreproachable in dress and demeanour as Leech himself. Thackeray discovered and christened him for us long ago; and he is related to most of us, and moves in the best society. He has even ceased to brag of his intimacy with the ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier

... Jane the irreproachable. "And to think that I, in any way, should be responsible ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... than any man's action has the right to be, and—in the second place—to-morrow you will forget my sincerity along with the other lessons of the past. In this transaction, to speak grossly and precisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle intentions of my immorality were defeated by the moral simplicity of the criminal. No doubt he was selfish too, but his selfishness had a higher origin, a more lofty aim. I discovered that, say what I ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... treated her with deference and respect rare at that time. Husband and wife were perfectly congenial, and their happy and peaceful life was a great contrast to that led by the majority of the married couples of the day. Absolutely irreproachable in conduct, she set a worthy example for ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... to know indeed why children are not to be "silly." Are grown-up people always so rational in their amusements or irreproachable in their demeanour? "Let the child alone," poor Uncle Harry used to say; and once I overheard him mutter, "I've more patience with a young fool than an old one." Such training has not had a good effect on Cousin Amelia. She has been so constantly tutored ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... gentleman, Mr. Bullsegg of Killancureit that now is, has good blood in his veins by the mother and grandmother, who were both of the family of Pickletillim, and he is well liked and looked upon, and knows his own place. And God forbid, Captain Waverley, that we of irreproachable lineage should exult over him, when it may be, that in the eighth, ninth, or tenth generation, his progeny may rank, in a manner, with the old gentry of the country. Rank and ancestry, sir, should be the last words ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... of censor was esteemed more honorable than that of consul, although attended by less power: no one could be elected a second time, and they who filled it were remarkable for leading an irreproachable life; so that it was considered the chief ornament of nobility to be ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... necessary for any servant to pay to herself. Mr d'Avora represented to her how cruel it was that beauty, which was looked upon as one of the most precious gifts of nature, should disqualify a young woman for obtaining a necessary provision. That this young person's prudence was so irreproachable as sufficiently secured her from any disadvantages which might naturally be feared from it. But still he allowed her person would justly deter a married woman from receiving her, and might make a ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... keenest mortification possible for a woman. She had for a moment been horrified by the thought that she had behaved in this way to a groom. But a stranger—a gentleman—was worse! She had not looked at Peter's face, but his irreproachable riding-rig had been noticed. "If it had only been a policeman," she thought. "What ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... that having lived a life of such irreproachable gentility as this, Miss Carew would have the bad taste to die in any way not pleasant to mention in fastidious society. She could be trusted to the last, not to outrage those friends who quoted her as an exemplar of propriety. She died very unobtrusively of an affection of the heart, ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... back to her own way of life. In the following five years she had succeeded in burying all remembrance well out of sight. No one knew if she were satisfied or not; her world was charitable to her and she lived a gay and quite irreproachable life. She wished that she had not come to the races. It was such an irritating encounter. She opened her eyes wearily; the dusty track, the flying horses, the gay dresses of the women on the grandstand, the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... on the table—she, who indulged in little or no reading at any time. This book was the one she used every night as a shade for the night-lamp, the only volume which she had taken within eighteen months from the small but irreproachable library selected by Monsieur Rambaud. Novels usually seemed to her false to life and puerile; and this one, Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe," had at first wearied her to death. However, a strange curiosity had grown upon her, and she was finishing it, at times ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... independently of his own will, as a mere man. He was admired by them, and even by women of other parishes also, in ways not holy; and their admiration interfered with his studies and disturbed his meditations. They found irreproachable pretexts for visiting the temple at all hours, just to look at him and talk to him; asking questions which it was his duty to answer, and making religious offerings which he could not well refuse. Some would ask questions, not of a religious kind, that caused him to blush. He was by nature too ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... this naturally caused his master to ask him, remembering the correction the young aide-decamp had superintended, if he could not find some fault in this model of perfection that might counterbalance so many good qualities. Gregory replied that with the exception of pride he thought Foedor irreproachable. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... factotum, irreproachable from his snowy turban to his white-slippered feet, did not take the hint to retire, but stood motionless just inside the room, waiting with statuesque patience till his master should deign to bestow upon him the favour of his ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... perhaps object in nature, that may not have to some morbid soul specialized erogenic and erethic power."[6] Even a mere shadow may become a fetich. Goron tells of a merchant in Paris—a man with a reputation for ability, happily married and the father of a family, altogether irreproachable in his private life—who was returning home one evening after a game of billiards with a friend, when, on chancing to raise his eyes, he saw against a lighted window the shadow of a woman changing her chemise. He fell in love with that shadow and returned to the spot every evening for many months ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... personable young men in irreproachable afternoon dress, overjoyed to find the Cousin as pretty as her voice was musical, and as entertaining as her skillful jolly of the Boston Lamb had led them to expect. In ten minutes the flock was hers to command. The Philadelphia ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... new to him, the dignity of Mason's demeanour was irreproachable. It was clear that the blood of flunkeys was in his veins. As a matter of fact, one hundred years before, his grandfather had done much escort duty, with a band on his hat and a cane in his ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... of God, that one George Fox, born in Leicestershire, and son to a silk-weaver, took it into his head to preach, and, as he pretended, with all the requisites of a true apostle—that is, without being able either to read or write. He was about twenty-five years of age, irreproachable in his life and conduct, and a holy madman. He was equipped in leather from head to foot, and travelled from one village to another, exclaiming against war and the clergy. Had his invectives been levelled against the soldiery only he would have been safe enough, but he inveighed against ecclesiastics. ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... would you cover up his guilt. Your love is blind to his depravity. But I have witness irreproachable: Tears have I seen, true tears, ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... had watched the courting-box from below, but this year he was in the center of it. Jests and greetings from the boys, and cordial glances from maidens both known and unknown, bade him welcome. But, in spite of his reception, and in spite of his irreproachable toilet, he was not having a good time. With hands in pockets and a scowl on his face, he stared gloomily over the crowd. Twice a kernel of pop-corn struck his ear, ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... this moment, and the mention of this last point, Cosmo had believed Mr. Burns an immaculate tradesman, but here the human gem was turned at that angle to the light which revealed the flaw in it. There are tradesmen not a few, irreproachable in regard to money, who are not so in regard to the quality of their wares in relation to the price: they take and do not give the advantage of their superior knowledge; and well can I imagine how such a one will laugh at the idea that he ought ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... contretemps, there were a score of generals now round Becky's chair, and she might take her choice of a dozen bouquets when she went to the play. Lady Bareacres and the chiefs of the English society, stupid and irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the success of the little upstart Becky, whose poisoned jokes quivered and rankled in their chaste breasts. But she had all the men on her side. She fought the women with indomitable courage, and they could not talk scandal in ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... as a pretender or with political ideas, but simply as a Frenchman coming to establish his moral rights as a citizen by claiming to be allowed to perform his civic duties, and this with a rare combination of youthful dash, irreproachable modesty, and skilful self-possession was admirably fitted to awaken, and it has awakened, the sympathy of all ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... gold buttons; a flowered satin waistcoat reaching to his knees; scarlet silk stockings, and high-heeled worsted shoes. His cuffs would enter a barrel with difficulty, and his chin reposes upon a frill of irreproachable ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... wearying of Juana, without blaming Juana, his passion for her, rendered tranquil by time, allowed his natural character to assert itself. Henceforth his days of gloom were more frequent, and he often gave way to southern excitement. The more virtuous a woman is and the more irreproachable, the more a man likes to find fault with her, if only to assert by that act his legal superiority. But if by chance she seems really imposing to him, he feels the need of foisting faults upon her. After that, between man and wife, ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac

... was also in the great metropolis. [433:3] This man is said to have been born in Pontus, and though some of the fathers have attempted to fix a stain upon his early reputation, his subsequent character seems to have been irreproachable. [434:1] There is reason to think that he was one of the most upright and amiable of the Gnostics. These errorists were charged by their orthodox antagonists with gross immorality; and there was often, perhaps, too much ground for the accusation; ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... Notting Hill. Men bleed and die in the contest and by the magic of the sword the old ideas of local patriotism and beauty in civic life return to England. The conventional politician, Barker, who begins the story in a frock-coat and irreproachable silk hat, ends it clad ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... who was known to the English as Jahandar Shah, is described as "an accomplished gentleman, irreproachable in his private character, constant, humane, and benevolent" (Francklin, p. 162). He was about forty at the time of his death which was caused by a fit, and is narrated in detail at p. 256 of the selections from the Calcutta Gazettes, in a manner somewhat more minute than that of Francklin, ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... of a six years' residence at Oxford and ten years in a country curacy to the more active sphere of duty of a London clergyman. The mere fact that a man of his high reputation for learning and his irreproachable life should have been left unbeneficed until he had reached the ripe age of fifty-two, is another proof of the suspicion with which Methodism was regarded; for no doubt he was early suspected of being ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... in fine, had so long been irreproachable that I rose without misgiving on the morning of Lord Thornaby's dinner to the other Criminologists and guests. My chief anxiety was to arrive under the aegis of my brilliant friend, and I had begged him to pick me up ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... and the lamb seem to have parted safely!" the latter exclaimed. "Now sit by my side and I will show you interesting things. Those four irreproachable young men over there in tennis flannels are all from the German Embassy. The two elder ones behind are Austrians. All those women are the wives of Senators who sympathise with Germany. Their husbands look like ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since," answered Rathbury, smiling. "They've no previous dates to go on. What are you going to do ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... specialty of importing novelties in dress. Her costume for the prospective excursion in the automobile had cost Honora some thought that morning. As the day was cool, she had brought along an ulster that was irreproachable. But how about the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... contrary, there are people of good character and irreproachable minds, who, rather than admit their few little weaknesses, carefully conceal them, and are very sensitive if any reference is made to them; and this just because their whole merit consists in the absence of errors and defects; and ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... how I lived formerly, and what ideas I had of conjugal life. I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality. ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... new society which was destined to be known after the Restoration as the Liberal party; and these, with du Croisier as their unacknowledged head, laughed at an aristocratic oasis which nobody might enter without proof of irreproachable descent. Their animosity was all the more bitter because honest country squires and the higher officials, with a good many worthy folk in the town, were of the opinion that all the best society thereof ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... Virginia? They cattle-range in West Virginia, too. They may sheep-ranch, too, for all I know,—no, that's in Old Virginia. The trouble is that the Virginias, otherwise irreproachable, are not paying fields for such enterprises. They say that one is a sure thing in California, and the other is a sure thing in Colorado. They give you the ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... exterminator, humanity takes alarm; one does not surrender oneself to a political butcher without repugnance. The Revolution demands another interpreter, like itself captivatingly fitted out, and Robespierre fits the bill,[3181] with his irreproachable attire, well-powdered hair, carefully brushed coat,[3182] strict habits, dogmatic tone, and formal, studied manner of speaking. No mind, in its mediocrity and incompetence, so well harmonizes with the spirit of the epoch. The reverse of the statesman, he soars in empty space, amongst abstractions, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... affluent circumstances; that he himself was never reduced to any want, or such exigence as might impel him to any desperate methods of obtaining money; that his fidelity had been often tried, and his life always irreproachable. For these reasons he was acquitted of the crime laid to his charge, and the mystery ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... young girl had as a protection something even better than the irreproachable and worldly example of the handsome Mme. Jenkins: the art that she adored, the enthusiasm which it implanted in her nature wholly occupied with outside things, the sentiment of beauty, of truth, which, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... lawyer, had by his talents and efficiency placed himself at the head of his profession, and was realizing an income which brought all the comforts and elegances of life within his reach. He was a member of the Christian church in the place where he lived, irreproachable in life and conduct. From natural generosity of disposition, seconded by principle, he was a liberal contributor to all religious and benevolent enterprises, and was often quoted and referred to as an example in good works. Surrounded by an affectionate and ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... it ought, where it had begun, among the poets. Several ecclesiastics sounded the alarm, and one Chandieu accused Ronsard with having performed an idolatrous sacrifice; and it was easy to accuse the moral habits of fifty poets assembled together, who were far, doubtless, from being irreproachable. They repented for some time of their classical sacrifice ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... of those thoroughly irreproachable young noblemen whom the upper classes of Britain give to civilisation. He bore everywhere with him the disdainful sense of security which comes from great hereditary wealth, a historic name inscribed in the "Peerage and Baronetage"—a book second only to the Bible in England—and a beauty ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... and taking it all in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a little girl like that, who had always been told what nice, irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... extremely curious. There are three grades of saintship: the first, for which I forget the name, requires irreproachable moral conduct; the second (beatification), two well-proved miracles; the third (sanctification), three. It costs an immense sum of money to effect the whole, in some cases as much as 100,000 piastres. The process begins by an application ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... gas to-night; the lower part of the house was one merciless glare. No flowers graced the square ugly rooms, no decorations of any sort; but the parlours were canvased, the best band in town was tuning up, and the supper would be irreproachable. The dark-brown paper of the hall looked very old and dingy, the carpet was threadbare in places, the big teak-wood tables were in everybody's way and looked as if they were meant for the dead to rest on; but when gay gowns were billowing one ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... wife had left him in the lurch. He assured Babcock that a regular old time outing—a shaking up—would do him good, and Babcock was ready to agree with him, intending thereby a free-handed two days at the fair. As has been intimated, his manner of life before marriage had not been irreproachable, but he had been glad of an opportunity to put an end to the mildly riotous and coarse bouts which disfigured his otherwise commonplace existence. He had no intention now of misbehaving himself, but ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... account a person who has a moderate mind and fortune, and lives in the conversation of two or three agreeable friends, with little commerce in the world besides; who is esteemed well enough by his few neighbours that know him, and is truly irreproachable by anybody; and so after a healthful quiet life, before the great inconveniences of old age, goes more silently out of it than he came in (for I would not have him so much as cry in the exit); this ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... State), and so many others, who have liberty to marry to-morrow, constitute a religious caste, sacrificing its own interests to the interests of the country, and would they become, all of a sudden, irreproachable if they were dressed differently? If we examine the share given the prelates, both priests and non-priests, in the Roman administration, we shall arrive at some results which it is important to notice. Out of Rome, that is, throughout the whole extent of the Pontifical States, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... expressly prohibited the marriage of a senator with any female who had been dishonored by a servile origin or theatrical profession: the empress Lupicina, or Euphemia, a Barbarian of rustic manners, but of irreproachable virtue, refused to accept a prostitute for her niece; and even Vigilantia, the superstitious mother of Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and beauty of Theodora, was seriously apprehensive, lest the levity and arrogance of that artful paramour ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... somehow has the pallor of a flower that is grown in darkness, or as the herb which has never seen the sun, no fragrance breathes from its spirit. To morality, possibly, this organism offers the example of an irreproachable life; but to science it is an instance of arrested development; and to religion it presents the spectacle of a corpse—a living Death. With Ruskin, "I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder often ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond



Words linked to "Irreproachable" :   innocent, blameless, guiltless, unimpeachable, clean-handed, inculpable



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