FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • More 'Self-reproach' Quotes from Famous Books

... sharp; she knew that she was self-willed and was not humble. But she had not taken herself in hand, religiously; to take one's self in hand morally, or on grounds of expediency, never amounts to much; and such taking in hand was all that Charlotte had as yet attempted. In a little passion of self-reproach and mortification, she occasionally lopped off ugly shoots; but the root was still vigorous and lusty, and only grew the better for its petty pruning. Richard looked very much displeased at his brother's rudeness, and tried to make up for it by ...

— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... he protested, in the keenest self-reproach. "There isn't a horse or a mule in camp that you could get a mile an hour out of. In fact, I'm thinking there ...

— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... of gaining self-respect. I will not deny also that I was savagely stung by mortification; for a man is so made that he does not relish a refusal any the more for being aware that he has not too anxiously sought acceptance; but, on the contrary, his self-reproach for that tardiness of his is made more bitter by the rebuff. He feels that he has deserved it, and ...

— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... to be ashamed of his heart; and it was with no self-reproach that he let tears come, and then wiped them away. He slept at last; and the sleep of a tired man should be sweet. But "as he slept he dreamed." He fell to his journeyings again. He thought himself back on the wearisome road he had come that ...

— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... not take long vacations. He had had but one case, the wife of a Swedish janitor in a flat-building, and he had reason to believe that his services had not pleased. Every morning, as Alves hurried to reach the Everglade School, his self-reproach increased. He hated to think that she was in the same treadmill in which he had found her. His failure was a matter of pride, also; he began to suspect that the people in the house talked about it. When ...

— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Charles was at little pains to conceal his rage; and when Louis was told that the gates of town and castle were guarded to prevent the escape of a thief who had stolen a casket of jewels, he knew that he was a prisoner. Yet, however bitter his self-reproach, however gloomy his forebodings, he did not lose his presence of mind. His attendants were allowed free access to the castle; he had brought with him fifteen thousand gold crowns, and these he anxiously employed to secure the good offices of Charles' advisers. For three ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... the idea of the two hundred thousand roubles begin to dance before his imagination that he felt a twinge of self-reproach because, during the hubbub, he had not inquired of the postillion or the coachman who the travellers might be. But soon the sight of Sobakevitch's country house dissipated his thoughts, and forced him to return to his stock ...

— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... morning walks instead, following the shore-paths lazily to shaded coverts dedicated to those happy silences which it takes two to make. Or, they climbed the bluffs and gazed at the impenetrable vast horizon, and thought perhaps of their errand with that pang of self-reproach which, when shared, becomes ...

— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... still ringing in my heart,—these were proud thoughts, and my bosom heaved short and quickly as I revolved them; but as I turned my gaze for the last time towards the gallant army I was leaving, a pang of sorrow, of self-reproach, shot through me, and I could not help feeling how far less worthily was I acting in yielding to the impulse of my wishes, than had I remained to share the fortunes ...

— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... cried, putting her hand on his shoulder, her voice full of self-reproach, 'I ought not to have told you. I am so sorry! Do forgive me, dear, kind Jack. I wish I could do something for you, Jack—I do wish I could. But for Goody's nursing and care and all your kindness, I ...

— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... his lethargy. He suddenly realized that his son's few remaining hours on earth were slipping by, and the boy had not been comforted. When this came to him, his self-reproach cut him sharply, and he resolved to make amends at once. He obtained permission from the officer of the day, and that evening, after retreat, ...

— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... relations between them must cease. She certainly would maintain a severe attitude toward the person who had so grossly insulted her, but would she be altogether pitiless in her anger? All through his dismal feelings of self-reproach, a faint hope of reconciliation kept him from utter despair. As he reviewed the details of the shameful occurrence, he remembered that the expression of her countenance had been one more of sorrow than of anger. ...

— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... tortured with self-reproach at having told a lie, soup, in gilt cups, was set before Windebank and Mavis, the latter of whom was more than ever resolved to accept no hospitality from the man who appeared sincerely anxious ...

— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... lips moved not, his mind was still active with pleasant thoughts of the one whose name he had mentioned, and whom he so fondly loved. At last a more sober look came to his countenance,—a look of regret, of self-reproach, the look of a man who remembers something he should not have ...

— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... are. For, as matters at present stand, it is wholly impossible for any man in the ordinary circumstances of English life to possess himself of a piece of great art. A modern drawing of average merit, or a first-class engraving, may, perhaps, not without some self-reproach, be purchased out of his savings by a man of narrow income; but a satisfactory example of first-rate art—masterhands' work—is wholly out of his reach. And we are so accustomed to look upon this as the natural course and necessity of things, that ...

— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... train, and he thanked him, but remained musing in his chair. At times he thought he would light another cigar, but the hand that he carried to his breast pocket dropped nervelessly to his knee again, and he did not smoke. Through his memories of disappointment pierced a self-reproach which did not permit him the perfect self-complacency of regret; and yet he could not have been sure, if he had asked himself, that this pang did not heighten the luxury ...

— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... personified, actually stole from us, took twenty franc pieces out of rolls of a hundred francs, so that the lovers she paid might not leave her. Now, after these involuntarily dishonest acts, these petty crimes extorted from her upright nature, she plunged into such depths of self-reproach, remorse, melancholy, such black despair, that in that hell in which she rolled on from sin to sin, desperate and unsatisfied, she had taken to drinking to escape herself, to save herself from the present, to ...

— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... seigneur of Grange-Flandre, Valperfond, etc., had married Marie-Francoise Perier in 1760. Their fortune resembled many others of that period: it was more nominal than actual, more showy than solid. Not that the husband and wife had any cause for self-reproach, or that their estates had suffered from dissipation; unstained by the corrupt manners of the period, their union had been a model of sincere affection, of domestic virtue and mutual confidence. Marie-Francoise was quite beautiful enough to have made a sensation in society, but ...

— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... make alive by his own will and law; and behold, he had become a devil by that very act. Who can—and who dare, even if he could—withdraw the sacred veil from those bitter agonies of inward shame and self-reproach, made all the more intense by his clear and undoubting knowledge that he was forgiven? What dread of punishment, what blank despair, could have pierced that great heart so deeply as did the thought ...

— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... interested in watching the progress of the struggle than in guarding Brunow, and Brunow was watching the struggle too, but not in the least with any look of amazement, but only with one which I could not for the life of me help construing into fear and shame and self-reproach. It was like a scene beheld by lightning, divided and apart from everything else, ...

— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... waste no tears on a brute like him—he ain't w-worth it!" Arline was on her bony knees beside the bed, crying with sympathy and self-reproach. ...

— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... been subjected to had made Bathsheba much more considerate than she had formerly been of the feelings of others, and he trusted that, should she be willing at any time in the future to marry any man at all, that man would be himself. There was a substratum of good feeling in her: her self-reproach for the injury she had thoughtlessly done him might be depended upon now to a much greater extent than before her infatuation and disappointment. It would be possible to approach her by the channel of her good nature, and to suggest a friendly businesslike compact between them for fulfilment ...

— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... and sympathy, he went on to tell of three little ones, orphaned by the plague, and left alone and utterly helpless, in a cabin on the Wilderness Road. As he spoke, he remembered with a pang of self-reproach, that Father Orin was with them now and waiting for him. He rose suddenly, saying that he must go, but a slight noise at the door caused him to pause and turn. It was William Pressley coming in, and Ruth went forward to meet him, and introduced him to the doctor, who sat down again for a few ...

— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... infrequent coming of these thoughts, as if they were suggestions of the evil one; but, in spite of all effort, all self-reproach, they would return. Sometimes as little a thing as an elegant pose—so perfect, indeed, as to suggest that it had been studied and learned by heart years ago—would occasion them, and the happy girl began to sigh over a ...

— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... from her chair in an agony of self-contempt and self-reproach. It is always a hard thing for a proud woman to learn the lesson of human weakness. Never before had Elsie suspected herself of anything so mean as jealousy. "Oh, Meta," she said, half-aloud, "your hand ...

— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney

... told the king and his ministers how he had rescued the queen and brought up Ameer Ali; and he fetched the old queen herself, whom he had left outside. At the sight of her the king was filled with shame and self-reproach, and wished he could have lived his life over again, and not have married the mother of the proud princess, who caused him endless trouble ...

— The Olive Fairy Book • Various

... there was something selfish in that feeling, as in most others of our young man), that he had been enabled to resist temptation at the time when the danger was greatest, and had no particular cause of self-reproach as he remembered his conduct towards the young girl. As from a precipice down which he might have fallen, so from the fever from which he had recovered, he reviewed the Fanny Bolton snare, now that he had escaped ...

— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of a bright-faced, cheery-voiced soldier, feeling his way around a darkened room in the Amory home, leaped to Sidney's mind and overwhelmed him with pity and self-reproach. ...

— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... missed a sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good, and I fired from the hip, but it's no use saying I oughtn't at least to have winged him, because I ought." She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall be chaffed about this if it ...

— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... said, beseechingly,—"Cunnel, Sah, you hab no objection to we playin', Sah?"—which objection I disclaimed; but soon they all subsided, rather to my regret, and scattered merrily. Afterward I found that some other officer had told them that I considered the affair too noisy, so that I felt a mild self-reproach when one said, "Cunnel, wish you had let we play a little longer, Sah." Still I was not sorry, on the whole; for these sham-fights between companies would in some regiments lead to real ones, and there is a latent jealousy here between the Florida and South-Carolina men, ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... Malcome; but what were those petty griefs, compared with the agony of having known the sweet possession of his heart, and lost it,—lost it, too, through my own selfish folly and weakness? Truly, there's naught so bitter as self-reproach. Heaven only knows what I have suffered since that dreadful night, when I fled from his angry, reproachful looks, and locked myself in the solitude of my chamber. And that freezing, distant recognition on the following morning! O, what a shuddering horror will ever creep over me with the memory ...

— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... read a ruffled mood. He would dig thus in frozen snow on the coldest winter day, when urged inwardly by painful emotion, whether of nervous excitation, or, sad thoughts of self-reproach. He would dig by the hour, with knit brow and set teeth, nor once lift his head, or open ...

— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... misery. They reminded her of the contrite, tortured eyes of a dog which, maddened by pain, has bitten the hand of a beloved master. Her anger died away in the face of that overwhelming remorse. She herself had learned to know the illimitable bitterness of self-reproach. ...

— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... not from fear, but from self-reproach to think he might have made a mistake. "Who is ...

— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon

... tasks so unprofitable to himself, while his days were often passed in trouble and in prison, he breathes a self-reproach in one of these profound reflections of melancholy which so often startle the man of study, who truly discovers that life is too limited to acquire real knowledge, with the ambition of dispensing ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... occasions on which I had carelessly given her pain. Suddenly I remembered that more than once she had besought me with tears in her eyes to fling away my old tobacco-pouch. She had always said that it was not respectable. In the bitterness of self-reproach I pulled the pouch from my pocket, asking myself whether, after all, the love of a good woman was not a far more precious possession. Without giving myself time to hesitate, I stood up and firmly cast my old pouch out at the window. I saw it fall at the foot of a fence. ...

— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... see you dawning from some heaven, Who would not suffer self-reproach to live In one to whom your friendship once was given. I catch a vision, faint and fugitive, Of a dark face with eyes contemplative, Deep eyes that smile in silence, And parted lips that whisper, 'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven, There ...

— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... doubts and questionings and complaints. I have been ill, seriously ill, and there is nothing to account for my illness save the misery of this apparently hopeless state of things existing between us. You have made me weep bitter tears of alternate self-reproach and indignation, and finally of complete miserable bewilderment as to this unhappy condition of affairs. Believe me, tears like these are not good to mingle with love, they are too bitter, too scorching, they blister love's wings and fall too heavily on love's heart. I feel worn ...

— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... brought confusion into her picture of a happy future; but when she awoke, the glad confidence of the previous night had given place to self-reproach and fear. During the breakfast she scarcely spoke or lifted her eyes. Her silent preoccupation was misunderstood by Bancroft; he took it to mean that she didn't care what happened to him; she was selfish, he decided. All the morning she went ...

— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... mint the small change of every-day society in the exclusive cultivation of such as fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful blindness which alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of nerveless self-reproach, his parents were equally unaware of their share in the harm done him when they ascribed to a delicate organization the fact that, at an age when love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could not see a Balmoral without his cheeks rivaling the most vivid stripe ...

— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... ushered into the darkened room at the surgical home, Elaine smiled greeting to him, and the smile stabbed him with self-reproach. He had come to wound her. There must be no further delay. He ...

— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... was left alone, he did not resume the reading of his review. His heart became the prey of bitter-sweet reflections, made up of gratified self-love and of severe self-reproach. ...

— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... you ask that question, Miss Effingham! You have every right to put it, and the answer, at least, shall add no further cause of self-reproach. Give me, I entreat you, but a minute to collect my thoughts, and I will endeavour to acquit myself of an imperious duty, in a manner more manly and coherent, than I fear has been observed for the last ...

— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... might be drawn of the woes of hundreds of impoverished and ruined families? of the wealthy of yesterday become the beggars of to-day? of the powerful and influential changed into exiles and outcasts, and the voice of self-reproach and imprecation resounding from every corner of the land? Is it a dull or uninstructive picture to see a whole people shaking suddenly off the trammels of reason, and running wild after a golden vision, refusing obstinately to believe ...

— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... may be that the moods of self-reproach are morbid. That too torments me. Even to-day I was thinking of how Christ would have dealt with that miserable man, Peter Lamb, and how uncharitable I was, how ...

— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... herself in all matters of ordinary life. Only in the region of religious experience did Janet know herself the superior. But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach—moral suffering—are two of the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart ...

— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... intention of going to England, induced me to ponder on some mode of improving my condition. This Mass seemed well adapted to my purpose. I was advised to offer it to different courts. Painful as this was to me, I felt that I should have cause for self-reproach if I neglected doing so. I therefore applied to various courts to subscribe to the Mass, fixing the price at fifty ducats; the general opinion being that this was not too much, and if there were ...

— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... of his self-reproach, he digs his hands into the masses of thick chestnut curls that ...

— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... to make use, also, of such assistance as may be rendered by personal inward reflection. Now this reflection may be on the one hand, dissuasion, on the other hand persuasion, self- persuasion; the first subduing self-reproach, the latter, fear of discovery. Hence, a woman will try to persuade not only herself, but others also that she was justified in her course and will assign as reason, bad treatment. Now there might have been some bad ...

— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... down to breakfast dreading the meeting with him; but Dr. Hunter said good-morning as usual, just as if nothing had happened. Marjory noticed, with a pang of self-reproach, that he looked tired, and that his eyes had a weary expression that was not usually there. He ate his breakfast in silence, but that was nothing out of the common, for they often sat through a meal with little or no conversation. ...

— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... the battlefield of a dozen unhappy emotions of which the most coherent were seething self-reproach and frantic irritation with Trego (why must it have been he, of all men?) Sally inconsiderately left the two to conclude their quarrel without an audience—took to her heels incontinently and sped like a hunted shadow across the open lawn. She flung through the side door and left it wide, ...

— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... that the door was not shut, and he closed it tight, preventing my hearing any more. I now turned to Marble, whose countenance betrayed the self-reproach he endured, at ascertaining the injury he had done, by his ill-judged artifice. I made no reproaches, however, but squeezed his hand in token of my forgiveness. The poor fellow, I plainly saw, had great difficulty in forgiving himself; though he ...

— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... bloodless contest, stood them in good stead there, when all their manhood was needed, if ever it was; and over those that nobly died there, methinks that I can see the Genius of England weep bitter tears, and thus speak with deep self-reproach:—"Ah! sons of mine! loved and early lost! ye whom I could not teach, whom no one in all my broad lands could teach, how to unite the virtuous, wise and holy soul, together with the soul joyous and ...

— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop

... stood at one end of the room now and gazed at them, he realized with a little pang of self-reproach that his latest exploit had been prompted by as much of a desire to set himself right with the company as to square ...

— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day

... approval, and the governor's wife began to speak of Rostov in Mary's presence, praising him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's name was mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful feeling—her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts, self-reproach, and ...

— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... A torrent of self-reproach and returning love overwhelmed him. "I swear to you," he said brokenly, through fast-flowing tears, "you are immortally dear ...

— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... take notice that I have said nothing of the sort," Briscoe stiffly rejoined. "But I think and I do say that it is a preposterous instance of coxcombry to subject such a woman as Mrs. Royston—because of a generous moment of self-reproach for a cruel and selfish deed—to the imputation of inviting advances from a man who coyly plans evasion and flight—and she scarcely two ...

— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... way, then got into a taxi and drove to see Edith. When he was in this peculiar condition of mind—the odd mixture of self-reproach, satisfaction, amusement and boredom that he felt now —he always went to see Edith, throwing himself into the little affairs of her life as if he had nothing else on his mind. He was a little anxious about Edith. It ...

— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... save our neighbor from the self-reproach which might be his if he knew we were in such plight through desire to aid his son or himself, replied that we had been sent into the vicinity by General Herkimer, and then explained how we came across Jacob, as well was the manner in which ...

— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... anger passed out of the face of William Douglas as he listened to his sister's prattle, like the vapours from the surface of a hill tarn when the sun rises in his strength. He even thought with some self-reproach of his treatment of Malise and of his uncle the Abbot. But a glance at the ring on his finger, and the thought of what might have been his good fortune at that moment but for their interference, again hardened his resolution to adamant ...

— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Full of the bitterest self-reproach, and with a feeling of disappointment bordering on despair, Burl looked bewilderingly about him. The newly risen sun, as if taunting him with the sorry miscarriage of his well-laid plans, was winking at him with its great impertinent eye, from over the hairy shoulder of a giant hill, upon whose ...

— Burl • Morrison Heady

... meanness of the wish come over her with a qualm of self-reproach one day when she came into the kitchen and found an unaccustomed state of things in that usually busy quarter. Old Martha was not working. A basket of corn was on the floor by her side, and out in the yard the poultry were beginning to clamour ...

— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... father alone on the hilltop did indeed trouble Waitstill. Self-reproach, in the true sense of the word, she did not, could not, feel. Never since the day she was born had she been fathered, and daughterly love was absent; but she suffered when she thought of the fierce, self-willed old man, cutting himself off from all possible ...

— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... which followed the death of Cowper, the revolution in English poetry was fully consummated. None of the writers of this period, not even Sir Walter Scott, contributed so much to the consummation as Lord Byron. Yet Lord Byron contributed to it unwillingly, and with constant self-reproach and shame. All his tastes and inclinations led him to take part with the school of poetry which was going out against the school which was coming in. Of Pope himself he spoke with extravagant admiration. He did not venture directly to say that the little man of Twickenham ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... he turned his face a little away, conscious at the same moment of a flush of self-reproach and of a lurking smile. "Don't!" he said. "I'm not ill. I'm all right now—never better. Isn't it time for me to be off? I say, my dear girl, if you don't look sharp you'll be late at ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... home full of self-reproach because sometimes her patience had failed her. Liz looked up with traces of tears in her eyes, when Joan came in. Joan did not hesitate. She only thought of giving her comfort. She went and sat down in a chair near by—she drew the curly ...

— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... felt that she had none of the qualities of a nurse; and admired Hilda's genius for that office with all her heart. Added to this conviction of her own inability, there was the consciousness that she had brought all this upon the Earl—a consciousness which brought on self-reproach and perpetual remorse. The very affection which she felt for Lord Chetwynde of itself incapacitated her. A good nurse should be cool. Like a good doctor or a good surgeon, his affections should not be too largely interested. It is a mistake to ...

— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... of self-reproach. I had been taking things too easily. I looked at my watch. It was ...

— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... feeling, as he returned home, was chiefly one of self-reproach; so that, though he persisted in not believing the story which had been told to him, he did, in truth, believe it. He believed, at any rate, in Mr. Scarborough. Mr. Scarborough had determined that the property should go hither and thither ...

— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... * * * * * These and other similar arguments were pressed upon me; and after a week's deliberation, I yielded to their force. It is quite possible that I may have erred * * * * * * I shall, at least, have no cause of self-reproach." ...

— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... acquired vigour from reflection. She considered, that, whatever might be her sufferings, she had withheld from involving him in misfortune, and that, whatever her future sorrows could be, she was, at least, free from self-reproach. ...

— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... sermons in which our message has been set forth always been the best attempt we could make to reach the ear, subdue the mind and win the hearts of those who waited upon our utterance? Is there any need for self-reproach on our part, or can we answer all these questions with a gladness increasing with each successive reply? The reader will have a rejoinder ready. We do not ask to hear it. It will be enough that he whisper it to his own soul and into the ear of ...

— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... thus paying him with the equivalent best suited to his capacity. It suffices that, in being stuffed with the preposterous delusion about Olivia, Sir Andrew is rendered supremely happy at the time; while he manifestly has not force enough to remember it with any twinges of shame or self-reproach. And we feel that, while clawing his fatuous crotchets and playing out his absurdities, Sir Toby is really doing Sir Andrew no wrong, since the latter is then most himself, is in his happiest mood, and in the most natural freedom of his indigenous gifts and graces. ...

— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... herself to approach Marjorie and humbly sue for pardon. The weight of her own troubled conscience prevented her from yielding, and thus she kept her sorrow locked in her aching heart and waited dejectedly for the day when she must leave the Deans' pleasant home, taking with her nothing but bitter self-reproach for her own folly. ...

— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... loved, and who loved him. He looked quickly at her; but the light of momentary excitement had died out of the face, and the expression was now perfectly serene. Several reflections passed rapidly through Mat's mind. He saw clearly that the girl had not a particle of self-reproach; not a doubt of the rectitude or even the nobility of her conduct; she had immolated herself with the same inflexible resolve and unquestioning faith as the sublime murderer of Marat. Then passing rapidly in mental review the history ...

— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... free rations, necessarily provided for guests. It was evidently hoped, however, that Gerrard might change his mind after a night's rest for in the morning the fakir appeared again with fresh entreaties that he would depart, and not add to the Prince's self-reproach the burden of feeling that he was detaining him here. Gerrard replied by another demand for a personal interview, which was refused in horror, the fakir declaring that three days and nights of mental agony had reduced Sher Singh to such a wreck that ...

— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... pleased if he had never spoken to any of their gaolers; but, upon the whole, they managed to persuade themselves and each other that he was a martyr suffering in piety and patience. We should have thought better of him if he had shown himself capable of self-reproach for having done nothing in defence of his crown, his family, and friends, but much towards the destruction of all. If he had been brave and sincere, however ignorant and mistaken, his family would now have been in a condition of honour and safety, ...

— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau

... aside at each other and then at their master, shamed through their peasant blood by the outrage they were obliged to put upon a courageous garrison. But Edelwald said nothing. His eyes were upon Marie. He would not increase her anguish of self-reproach by the change of a muscle in his face. The garrison was trapped and at the mercy of a merciless enemy. His most passionate desire was to have her taken away that she might not witness the execution. ...

— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... said Gray, the colour coming back to his face; but the girl in her excitement of self-reproach and contrition begged to be allowed to dress the mutilated hand which her own careless movement had ...

— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... of the extent of my irreparable loss, but I am not at all overpowered and very little indisposed, nothing but what a short time, with rest and change of air, will remove. I thank God that I was enabled to attend her to the last, and amongst my many causes of self-reproach I have not to add any wilful ...

— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... since you've grown so, and I've proposed a number of times that you go with me on the trip. But you've always refused to be separated from your precious Cynthia, and I couldn't think of inflicting two youngsters on her." Joyce remembered now, with a good deal of self-reproach, how many times she had begged off from accompanying her father. It had not seemed very interesting then, and, as he had said, she did not want to leave Cynthia, even for two or three days. She realized now that she had not ...

— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... Thrown away, lost! The best on earth!" He laid his hands on the tree-stem and pressed his head against it till it hurt him. He did not know how to contain himself for misery and self-reproach. He felt like a man who has been drunk and has reduced his own house to ashes in his intoxication. How all this could have come to pass he now no longer knew. After his nocturnal ride he had caused Nilus the treasurer to be ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with her, or the reaction from the excitement of anxiety into hopeless grief might have been even more prostrating than it was. All the comfort and tenderness Helen could give her in her helpless self-reproach were hers, though she as well as Gifford never sought to make the sorrow less by evading the truth. But Helen was troubled about her, and said to Dr. Howe, "Lois must come to see me for a while; she does need a change very much. I'm afraid she won't be able to go with me next ...

— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... then, as Soeur Lucie turned to leave the room, she felt a sudden pang of self-reproach. She was deceiving the good-humoured, simple little sister, who had been kind to her after her own fashion; and she was going away, and would never see her any more. She thought she would like to have one more kind word from her, as she could ...

— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... officer could not repress a smile. He recognized his own exhortation of a few moments before. It was the old man who had suddenly become intrepid. "To work, then!" he sighed, like a man who, while foreseeing defeat, wishes, at least, to have no cause for self-reproach. ...

— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... not through easy and graceful triumph is the soul made strong? Why does one ask oneself about the dead hero, when his life rounds itself to the view, not whether he had enough of prosperity and honour to content him, but whether he had enough of pain and self-reproach to perfect his humanity? Suffering is no part of the soul; the soul has need to suffer, but it is made to rejoice; and when it has earned its joy, ...

— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... moment's sleep from grey morning to midnight, and, when this did happen, he jumped up by-and-by in shame, to revile himself for an idler and ask his mother wrathfully why she had not tumbled him out of his chair? Tonight Margaret was divided between a desire to let him sleep and a fear of his self-reproach when he awoke; and so, perhaps, the tear fell ...

— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... turn. Her crushing self-reproach at the degradation of David Rossi, fallen, lost, and in prison, gave way to an intense bitterness against the Baron, successful, radiant, and triumphant. She turned a bright light upon the incidents of the past months ...

— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... afraid of Max Wyndham. She felt as if he were watching to catch her off her guard, ready at a moment's notice to turn to his own purposes any rash confidence into which she might be betrayed. And she told herself with passionate self-reproach that she had already been guilty of disloyalty to ...

— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... not know," she answered, with a sob. "I have not dared go near them. They frighten me. Mother of Heaven, what a night of horror it has been! Oh, that I had taken your advice, Messer Boccacloro!" she exclaimed in a passion of self-reproach. ...

— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... demoniacal nature), the follies and sins and sorrows of humanity, understands them all and sympathizes with none of them; and describes, with equal indifference, the drunken, brutish delight in his music expressed by the coarse Neapolitan buffoons and the savage gorilla, Caliban, and the abject self-reproach and bitter, poignant remorse exhibited by Antonio and his fellow conspirators; telling Prospero that if he saw them he would pity them, and adding, in his passionless perception of their anguish, "I should, ...

— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... time, removed, but the thoughts of the dying mother were still upon them; and with these thoughts were self-reproach, that made her ...

— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... Plumfield; and as he listened, all the happy past came back so clearly that Emil forgot the bitter present, and was at home again. His talk on the housetop with Aunt Jo seemed but yesterday, and, with a pang of self-reproach, ...

— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... Plougastel is in very different case. Neither Aline nor any of hers have been concerned in counter-revolutionary work, which is the true source of the calamity that now threatens to overtake us. I can procure her removal from Paris without self-reproach, convinced that I am doing nothing that any one could censure, or that might become the subject of enquiries. But Mme. de Plougastel is the wife of M. le Comte de Plougastel, whom all the world knows to be an agent between ...

— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... The meeting came to a sudden pause. The first expression on every face was that of amazed horror, but my laugh was contagious, and presently someone else joined in, and before order was restored the room rang with the laughter of a dozen men. All this time I was in an agony of self-reproach in spite of my laughter. I virtually broke up the meeting, and it was not until the clergyman, who presided, had dismissed us, that I could command myself sufficiently to try to explain to him the purely involuntary nature of my laughter. He was kind enough and ...

— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... with them and went back to Brussels as a pupil teacher, alone. She went in an agony of self-reproach, desiring more and more knowledge, a perfect, inalienable, indestructible possession of the German language, and wondering whether it were right to satisfy that indomitable craving. By giving utterance ...

— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... which the Superior directed us. It was an apartment to which we were often sent to prepare for the communion, and to which we voluntarily went, whenever we felt the compunctions which our ignorance of duty, and the misinstructions we received, inclined us to seek relief from self-reproach. Indeed, I had seen her there a little before. What terrified me was, first, the Superior's angry manner, second, the expression she used, being a French term, whose [illegible] we had learnt in the Convent, and whose meaning is rather softened when translated into drag; third, the ...

— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... into the house prior to the visit of the couple who entered there at midnight. Knowing what an effect this must produce upon Mr. Gryce, utterly unprepared for it as he was, I looked for some burst of anger on his part, or at least some expression of self-reproach. But he only broke a second piece off my little filigree basket, and, totally unconscious of the demolition he was causing, cried ...

— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... of a hasty word of mine,' said Bella with a little sting of self-reproach, 'to make me seem—I don't know what. I spoke without consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but you repeat it after consideration, and that seems to me to be at least no better. For the rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr Rokesmith, that there is an end ...

— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... you in your hours of loneliness and they will not seem so long and dark," said Cecil, whose soul was one tumultuous self-reproach that he had let the time go by without telling ...

— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... Sardinia.—So much for my chronicle; but I write it with a certain feeling of repugnance and self-reproach. It was very well on the occasion of my first voyage, when I wished to share with you whatever charm the novelty of the scenes through which I was passing might supply to mitigate the pain of our separation. But ...

— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... you have let grow too strong; it will ever be your master. You must obey. Flee from it and it will follow you; you cannot escape it. Insult it and it will chastise you with burning shame, with stinging self-reproach from day to day." The sternness faded from the beautiful face, the tenderness crept back. He laid his hand upon the young girl's shoulder. "You will marry your lover," he smiled. "With him you will walk the way ...

— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome

... strange ever-growing flights of combined self-reproach and self-exaltation he so vividly imagined himself as a rescuer, as an able-bodied defender against all the ills and evils that beset her, that the fancy took the shape of positive determination. He made up his mind to take her off the stage, back to Blakeville, ...

— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... her bringing. Men thought her only colder, only prouder; but they erred. She was one of those women who, beneath the courtly negligence of a chill manner, are capable of infinite tenderness, infinite nobility, and infinite self-reproach. ...

— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... argued a great deal about the governess scheme. She was quite angry with Phillis, and seemed to suffer a great deal of self-reproach, when the girl spoke of their defective education and lack of accomplishments. Nan had to come to her sister's rescue; but the mother was slow to ...

— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... dressing would let him a number of the charming and considered phrases in which Lady Tranmore, full of relief, pleasure, and a secret self-reproach, had expressed to him the effect produced upon herself and a select public by Kitty's performance at the Parhams'. Kitty had indeed behaved like an angel—an angel en toilette de bal, reciting a scene from Alfred de Musset. Such politeness to Lady Parham, such ...

— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... according to the old theologies. But how to let one's self down from the high level of such a character to one's own poor standard? I trust that the influence of this long intellectual and spiritual companionship never absolutely leaves one who has lived in it. It may come to him in the form of self-reproach that he falls so far short of the superior being who has been so long the object of his contemplation. But it also carries him at times into the other's personality, so that he finds himself thinking thoughts that are not his own, using phrases ...

— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... stretch out a hand to gather for himself the happiness ready to bloom for him, he would be dead! She thought she saw that the man, lonely, sensitive, to a fault, was passing his days in brooding melancholy, in unmerited self-reproach. He had had more than enough of sadness in his life. For an idea, a stupid convention of other folks' manufacture, and not worth respecting, he should have no more. He should not be allowed to take his own path, to push ...

— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... moment is over; and then it is the positive feeling of something lacking that tells us of the happiness which has vanished; it is then that we observe that we have failed to hold it fast, and we suffer the pangs of self-reproach ...

— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... whistle off the recollection of her; for there was always Something of self-reproach with it. I drove gayly along the road, enjoying the stare of hostlers and stable-boys as I managed my horses knowingly down the steep street of Hempstead; when, just at the skirts of the village, ...

— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... we had him back again; if only we had one more opportunity to show him how dear he was; if only we had another chance of proving ourselves worthy. We can hardly forgive ourselves that we were so cold and selfish. Self-reproach, the regret of the unaccepted opportunity, is one of the commonest feelings after bereavement, and it is one of the ...

— Friendship • Hugh Black

... self-degradation. It matters not whether the act be successful or not, discovered or concealed; the culprit is no longer the same, but another person; and he is pursued by a secret uneasiness, by self-reproach, or the workings of what we call conscience, which is the inevitable ...

— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... sleepless night, a prey of many emotions; of self-reproach, seeing now that she had been wrong in not telling Brooks Insall of the girl's secret; of sorrow and sympathy for him; of tenderness toward the girl, despite the suffering she had brought; of unwonted rebellion against a world that cheated her ...

— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... front of the cage, Kane saw that the great wolf's eyes were noting nothing of what was about him, but dim with some far-off vision. As he marked the look in them, and thought of what they must be remembering and aching for, his heart began to smite him. He felt his first pang of self-reproach, for having doomed to ignominious exile and imprisonment this splendid creature who had deserved, at least, to die free. As he mused over this point, half angrily, the Gray Master suddenly paused, and his thin nostrils wrinkled. Perhaps there still clung about Kane's clothes some ...

— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... no more, good child, about the past. Who is there then whose youthful memories Are altogether free from self-reproach; You know, the ...

— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... acquiring instruction are multiplied and strengthened. Are you an honest man? You will spare neither labor nor sacrifice to gain a competent knowledge of your duty. Are you a man of honor? You will be careful to avoid self-reproach. Does your bosom glow with the holy fervor of patriotism? You will so accomplish yourself as to avoid bringing down upon your country either ...

— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... The dreary, undefined self-reproach and vague alarms, intensified by the sullen, reserved temper, and culminating in such a shock, alienating the only persons she cared for, and filling her with terror for the future, could not but have a physical effect, and Dolores was found on the morrow ...

— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to allay his self-reproach was the thought that Marthy and Randy would have to pass the night alone. In spite of their bickerings, when night came Marthy was wont to dismiss her fears of the country, and rest her head upon Sam's strong arm with a sigh of peaceful content ...

— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... suddenly from her chair in an agony of self-contempt and self-reproach. It is always a hard thing for a proud woman to learn the lesson of human weakness. Never before had Elsie suspected herself of anything so mean as jealousy. "Oh, Meta," she said, half-aloud, "your hand has pointed to a hard, lonely road, stretching ...

— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney

... could give meaning to her existence, and an object to her intellect and affections. And Agellius on the other hand, what surprise, remorse, and humiliation came upon him! It was a strange contrast, the complaint of nature unregenerate on the one hand, the self-reproach of nature regenerate and lapsing on the other. At last he spoke, and they ...

— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... much for my chronicle; but I write it with a certain feeling of repugnance and self-reproach. It was very well on the occasion of my first voyage, when I wished to share with you whatever charm the novelty of the scenes through which I was passing might supply to mitigate the pain of our separation. But this time ...

— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... the door was not shut, and he closed it tight, preventing my hearing any more. I now turned to Marble, whose countenance betrayed the self-reproach he endured, at ascertaining the injury he had done, by his ill-judged artifice. I made no reproaches, however, but squeezed his hand in token of my forgiveness. The poor fellow, I plainly saw, had great difficulty in forgiving himself; ...

— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... he replied. Indeed he was so relieved so pleased, so thankful to be freed from the load of self-reproach that he ...

— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... sighed, drearily, "and if I could, nothing would be altered. Though I am mad with self-reproach, I feel that—it was all so inevitable. If he were alive and well before me this instant, my feeling toward him wouldn't have changed. If he spoke to me he would say 'my dear'—and I should loathe him. Oh, I know! It is that that makes ...

— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... the fields, or a child returning from school. I think if we had not had little Cecile, my wife would have died with her daughter. Her life from that hour was one long silence, full of regrets and self-reproach. ...

— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... I am!" said he to himself, as he again turned round; "where is all my reason, and rectitude of principle, that I would rather endure the misery of dependence and self-reproach than dare the attempt to seek support from the fruits of ...

— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... more, good child, about the past. Who is there then whose youthful memories Are altogether free from self-reproach; You know, the Norsemen are ...

— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... the gesture, and for a moment it crossed his mind in self-reproach that the part he chose to play was that of a bully. A second he hesitated. Should he surrender the letter unread, and fight on without the aid of the information it might bring him? Then the thought of Ashburn and of his own deep wrongs that cried ...

— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... England for so long that I thought it would be only kind to ask you to bring him. But if I had known that papa had any objection, I should naturally never have done it. I am very sorry. Perhaps I am not careful enough.' She ended her speech in a tone of self-reproach, which had its effect; for her father was roused by it ...

— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... saner self-reproach. "I simply yielded to the common man's common temptation. I am poor, and it was wealth that dazzled and lured me. Pride would explain more subtly; that is but a new ground of shame. I felt a prey to the vulgarest and basest passion; better to burn that truth ...

— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... vexation, and wish I could knock my foolish head against the wall, that bodily pain might make me feel less anguish from self-reproach! To say the truth, I was never more displeased with myself, and I will tell you the cause. You may recollect that I did not mention to you the circumstance of —— having a fortune left to him; nor did a hint of it drop from me when I conversed with ...

— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... in the Barry sitting-room, and noticed with a feeling that was almost like self-reproach how thin and frail and white the poor young creature looked. Why, she seemed little more than a child! Her great dark eyes were far too big for her wasted face, and her ...

— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... to the table, and sat down languidly. She was really sick, but her air and attitude was that of a person suffering an extremity of physical anguish. The squire looked at her and then at Charlotte with dismay and self-reproach. ...

— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Poems," 1876) might serve equally as a study for jealousy, self-reproach, contempt, and revenge; the love which is made to underlie these feelings, and the forgiveness with ...

— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... effeminacy, on recollecting the audible throbbings of my heart, and the nervous palpitations which had besieged me; but these symptoms, whether effeminate or not, began to come back tumultuously under the gloomy doubts that succeeded almost before I had uttered this self-reproach. Still I found myself mocked and deluded with false hopes; yet still I renewed my quick walk, and the intensity of my watch for that radiant form that was fated never more to be seen ...

— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... not a happy one. She longed, even though she might not advise him, to comfort him. She was beginning to realise something of her own power over him and to see, too, the strange mixture of superstition and self-reproach and self-distrust that overwhelmed him when she was not with him. She had indeed her own need of struggle against superstition. Her aunts continued to treat her with a quiet distant severity. Aunt Elizabeth, she fancied, would like to ...

— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... not, the tiller is absolved from all blame. He sayeth unto himself, "What others do, I have done. If, notwithstanding this, I meet with failure, no blame can attach to me." Thinking so, he containeth himself and never indulgeth in self-reproach. O Bharata, no one should despair saying, "Oh, I am acting, yet success is not mine!" For there are two other causes, besides exertion, towards success. Whether there be success or failure, there should ...

— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... later, and to be met by Newmark; with the outstanding obligations; with the new enterprise of the vessels ordered from Duncan McLeod, Newmark and Orde would be unable to raise anything like the necessary amount. To his personal anxieties Orde added a deep and bitter self-reproach at having involved his partner in what amounted ...

— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... tapestried antechamber of the salle-a-manger, they found Henry looking from the window a little wistfully, and a pang of self-reproach struck ...

— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... complaints of women, but from the lips of his own daughter they had come with a deeper pathos and power. At last, turning abruptly, he said: "Surely you have had a happy, comfortable life, with all your wants and needs supplied; and yet that speech fills me with self-reproach; for one might naturally ask, how can a young woman, tenderly brought up, who has had no bitter personal experience, feel so keenly the wrongs of her sex? Where did you learn this lesson?" "I learned it here," I ...

— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... made her afraid of Max Wyndham. She felt as if he were watching to catch her off her guard, ready at a moment's notice to turn to his own purposes any rash confidence into which she might be betrayed. And she told herself with passionate self-reproach that she had already been guilty ...

— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... no further. Her husband had taken her in his arms, and had interrupted her words with blustering exclamations of self-reproach and self-condemnation. He was a brute, he cried, a senseless, selfish ass, who had no right to such a wife, who was not worth a single one of the tears that by now were ...

— The Pit • Frank Norris

... instant her eyes were softened with a tender look of self-reproach. His heart warmed at the sight, but before he could convince himself that it was not a creation of his own fancy, it had passed, and once more she was holding him at bay with ...

— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... succumbed to, every act of meanness or dishonesty, however slight, causes self-degradation. It matters not whether the act be successful or not, discovered or concealed; the culprit is no longer the same, but another person; and he is pursued by a secret uneasiness, by self-reproach, or the workings of what we call conscience, which is the inevitable ...

— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... horror, when I was conscious of a feeling of ennui, even in the presence of Ernest. It was not possible I should be weary of the joys of heaven, if I were capable of sighing in my own Eden bower. I tried to banish the impression; it WOULD return, and with it self-reproach and shame. ...

— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... where holiday people strolled on Sundays? Had I really left, little more than an hour since, the quiet, decent, conventionally domestic atmosphere of my mother's cottage? I was too bewildered—too conscious also of a vague sense of something like self-reproach—to speak to my strange companion for some minutes. It was her voice again that first broke the silence ...

— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... resigned; if it is granted, he is grateful, and enjoys the blessings with moderation. A wicked man, in his iniquitous plans, either fails or succeeds: if he fails, disappointment is embittered by self-reproach; if he succeeds, success is without pleasure, for, when he looks around, he sees ...

— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... longer capable of a rational effort, and his reluctant delays postponed not the evils themselves, but the remedies of those evils (remedia malorum potius quam mala differebat). The pangs of shame, tenderness, and self-reproach, incessantly preyed on his vitals; his constitution was broken; he lost his strength and his sight; the rapid progress of a dropsy admonished him of his end, and he sunk into the grave on Nov. 10, 1770, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. A family tradition insinuates that Mr. William Law ...

— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... in from the palace to tell how Deianeira had killed herself—while Hyllus was kissing her dead mother's lips in vain self-reproach, bereft of both his parents. Heracles himself is borne in on a litter, tormented with the slow consuming poison. In agony, he prays for death; when he learns of the decease of his wife and her beguilement by Nessus into an unintentional crime, his resentment softens. In a flash of inspiration ...

— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... that she could shield that child from the disappointments and mistakes and self-reproach from which the mother was then suffering; that the little one might take up life where she could give it to her—all mended by her own experience. It would have been a comfort to have felt, that in fighting the battle, she had fought for both; yet she knew that so it could not be—that for ourselves ...

— The Angel Over the Right Shoulder - The Beginning of a New Year • Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps

... horse to the ground; so did the young chieftain at the sight and voice of St. John. With reverence he kneeled before him, and in shame bowed his head to the ground. Like Peter who had denied the same Lord, the young man wept bitterly. His cries of self-reproach and his despair echoed strangely in that rocky defile. As St. John had wept for him, he wept for himself. Those were truly penitential tears. John still spoke encouragingly. The young man lifted his head and embraced the knees of the Apostle, sobbing ...

— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... as he returned home, was chiefly one of self-reproach; so that, though he persisted in not believing the story which had been told to him, he did, in truth, believe it. He believed, at any rate, in Mr. Scarborough. Mr. Scarborough had determined that the property should go hither and thither according to his will, without reference to ...

— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... lecture Tory had suffered an occasional moment of self-reproach. However, only within the past twenty-four hours had she talked over the situation frankly and openly with Martha and ...

— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... right," said Gray, the colour coming back to his face; but the girl in her excitement of self-reproach and contrition begged to be allowed to dress the mutilated hand which her own ...

— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... immediately he began to speak of our old interests; not with an effort, as at our former meeting, but simply and naturally, in the tone of a man whose life has flowed back into its normal channels. I remembered, with a touch of self-reproach, how I had distrusted his reconstructive powers; but my admiration for his reserved force was now tinged by the sense that, after all, such happiness as his ought to have been paid with his last coin. The ...

— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... through easy and graceful triumph is the soul made strong? Why does one ask oneself about the dead hero, when his life rounds itself to the view, not whether he had enough of prosperity and honour to content him, but whether he had enough of pain and self-reproach to perfect his humanity? Suffering is no part of the soul; the soul has need to suffer, but it is made to rejoice; and when it has earned its joy, it ...

— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Then came self-reproach. He remembered with hot cheeks that he had actually joked with Ellery about her in early days, and let himself be bantered in return—cad that he was, incapable of appreciating at first sight the woman he was to love. He had ...

— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... though his lips moved not, his mind was still active with pleasant thoughts of the one whose name he had mentioned, and whom he so fondly loved. At last a more sober look came to his countenance,—a look of regret, of self-reproach, the look of a man who remembers something he should ...

— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... connection with that life. Yes surely, more or less, according to one's state, and dying gradually into perfect peace. Growth of holiness does not come to sinful man here or there but through pain, the tender blessed pain of God's purification, the pain of self-reproach, the pain that ...

— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... and even when the doctor administers it himself, the parents must fully recognise the fact that, inasmuch as the child may die during a fit quite independently of breathing chloroform, so the occurrence of that catastrophe during its employment is not to be made a subject of self-reproach to them, or of ...

— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... She was confounded by the new phase of feeling, imperfectly revealed to her, and filled with wonder, and self-reproach, and sympathy. Had she been to blame to leave her child exposed to an influence which had proved too much for her peace of mind?—that was the well-worn conventional phrase, and it was the only one that seemed to answer the occasion, ...

— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... best skill to gain A pittance from the dead unfeeling lake 65 That knew not of his wants. I will not say What thoughts immediately were ours, nor how The happy idleness of that sweet morn, With all its lovely images, was changed To serious musing and to self-reproach. 70 Nor did we fail to see within ourselves What need there is to be reserved in speech, And temper all our thoughts with charity. —Therefore, unwilling to forget that day, My Friend, Myself, and She who then received 75 The same ...

— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... replied to his, and the only living creature he saw was a large monkey, which peered inquisitively down at him from among the branches of a neighbouring bush. This reminded him that he had left his pet Marmoset in the Indian village, and a feeling of deep self-reproach filled his heart. In the baste and anxiety of his flight he had totally forgotten his little friend. But regret was now unavailing. Marmoset was lost to ...

— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... It was just like him. He would rather be considered hard and heartless than soft and weak, and nothing was more repugnant to him than the idea that he had aroused suspicion of striving to enact a touching scene. I have no doubt that at that moment he was suffering the torture of self-reproach, and probably suffered the more through being so reserved and unable to give free play ...

— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... but merely an exhibition of servility and fawning hypocrisy. And so the Northern complaisance toward slavery has in no degree tended to avert the disaster which has overtaken us, but only to breed self-reproach on the one side, and hauteur with ineffable ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... these wretched doubts and questionings and complaints. I have been ill, seriously ill, and there is nothing to account for my illness save the misery of this apparently hopeless state of things existing between us. You have made me weep bitter tears of alternate self-reproach and indignation, and finally of complete miserable bewilderment as to this unhappy condition of affairs. Believe me, tears like these are not good to mingle with love, they are too bitter, too scorching, they blister love's wings and ...

— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... "there's the road—there's the road." A passion of self-reproach shook him. Not for nothing had Linforth been his friend. "I feel a traitor," he cried. "For ten years we have talked of that road, planned it, and made it in thought, poring over the maps. Yes, for even at the beginning, in our first term at Eton, we began. Over the ...

— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... drawn from his aloofness occasionally by her whim to indulge herself in what she regarded as proofs of his love. Her pouting, her whimpering, her abject but meaningless self-depreciation, her tears, were potent, not for the flattering reason she assigned, but because he, out of pity for her and self-reproach, and dread of her developing her mother's weakness, would lash himself into the small show of tenderness sufficient to ...

— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... dreadfully stricken down at first, and her anguish of lamentation and self-reproach was terrible to witness; but she would not hear of Fulk's fetching either of us—indeed, I fancy that was the fault of my dry, cold looks—nor would she allow him ...

— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... knew that perfectly well. Now and again a feeling of self-reproach came, but he strangled it by reflecting upon the trick that had been played upon him. After all, he had bought her at her own price, and he ...

— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... her own present loyalty. Had she ever truly loved David while he was still her hero "sans peur et sans reproche," could that love have been killed at all? So much anxiety to be sure of having forgiven, so much self-reproach for the failure of her marriage, such an acute, overwhelming sense of shame, and such shrinking from all that was ugly and low, were intermixed and confused in poor Rose's mind that it was no wonder even Edmund, with all his tact and his tenderness, ...

— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... waited, watching, with eyes that saw more than Larry's kneeling figure beside the dead man, listening, with senses that were perceptive of a fellow-listener, in whom were newly-learnt impulses of self-reproach and penitence. ...

— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... was already reached in sleep, and the second was more quickly obtained. During the act it was only occasionally that any thoughts of men or of coitus were present, the attention being fixed on the coming climax. The psychic state afterwards was usually one of self-reproach. (O. Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, 1904, pp. 26-29.) The phenomena in this case may be regarded as fairly typical, but there are many individual variations; mucus emissions and vaginal contractions frequently occur before ...

— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... hab no objection to we playin', Sah?"—which objection I disclaimed; but soon they all subsided, rather to my regret, and scattered merrily. Afterward I found that some other officer had told them that I considered the affair too noisy, so that I felt a mild self-reproach when one said, "Cunnel, wish you had let we play a little longer, Sah." Still I was not sorry, on the whole; for these sham-fights between companies would in some regiments lead to real ones, and there is a latent jealousy here ...

— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... the lately bright and safe-looking situation, now suddenly rent asunder and committed to the dubious unknown; anxiety about their own household and the fate of her Son; the Father's just anger, and perhaps some tacit self-reproach that she had favoured a dangerous game by keeping it concealed from her honest-hearted Husband,—lay like crushing burdens on her heart. And if many a thing did smooth itself, and many a thing, which at first was to be feared, did not take place, one thing remained fixed continually,—painful ...

— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... irresolute, full of bitter self-reproach. She took an impulsive step toward the door to call Roger back, but, checking herself, said despairingly, "I can deceive neither him nor myself. Oh, mamma, it is of no use." And indeed she felt that it would be impossible to carry out the scheme ...

— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... you," said my friend, in whose heart the worst of it rankled; and he walked home embittered by his guilty consciousness that Billy ought never to have been left untied. But it was not this self-reproach; it was not the mutilated phaeton; it was not the loss of Billy, who must now be sold; it was the wreck of settled hopes, the renewed suspense of faith, the repetition of the tragical farce of buying another horse, that ...

— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells

... happy if we do not lead pure and useful lives. To be good company for ourselves we must store our minds well; fill them with pure and peaceful thoughts; with pleasant memories of the past, and reasonable hopes for the future. We must, as far as may be, protect ourselves from self-reproach, from care, and from anxiety. We shall make our lives pure and peaceful, by resisting evil, by placing restraint upon our appetites, and perhaps even more by strengthening and developing our tendencies to good. We must be careful, then, on what we allow ...

— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... must be corrected by corporal punishment, or by the deprivation of something which he values, or by his own self-reproach. The whole aim of Mr. Macadam, in the education of his pupils, was to raise them to that dignity of character which renders the last mode of punishment efficient for right conduct. To raise youth, ...

— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... perplexing needs of those to whom we have ministered? Have the sermons in which our message has been set forth always been the best attempt we could make to reach the ear, subdue the mind and win the hearts of those who waited upon our utterance? Is there any need for self-reproach on our part, or can we answer all these questions with a gladness increasing with each successive reply? The reader will have a rejoinder ready. We do not ask to hear it. It will be enough that he whisper it to his own soul and into the ear of God. It might be of infinite service to ...

— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... slumber after such a miserable time as he passed arguing against himself in his drawing-room. He had vowed that he would broach the tender subject to Honor the very next day, and thus free himself from any more hours of self-reproach. ...

— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... almost convulsively. "Madge," he cried, "you have not only brought me happiness—you have saved me from a bitter, lifelong self-reproach far worse than poverty. How can I ever show sufficient devotion in return for ...

— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... sunny roads and broad fields of vision. In a moment of enlightenment she saw deeper and farther than she had ever dreamed of seeing before. "It teaches one not to judge," she thought, with a stab of self-reproach, "it teaches one not to judge others until one really knows." Twice before to-night, on the day when she resolved for the sake of Jane's children to go to work, and again on the June evening when George ...

— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... self-reproach, as she recalled how plentifully they grew there, and how useful they would be at home. "And I might get some mushrooms, too," she thought, "instead of coming ...

— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... little one new life. Dave Patton cringed within at the thought of the awakening, the disillusionment, the desolation of sorrow that would come to the baby heart with the dawn of Christmas. He was overwhelmed with self-reproach, because he had not realized all this in time to make provision, before the deep snow had blocked the trail to the Settlement. Now, ...

— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... little way, then got into a taxi and drove to see Edith. When he was in this peculiar condition of mind—the odd mixture of self-reproach, satisfaction, amusement and boredom that he felt now —he always went to see Edith, throwing himself into the little affairs of her life as if he had nothing else on his mind. He was a little anxious about Edith. It seemed to him that since Aylmer had ...

— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... scrapes; because, instead of contenting myself with plain, obvious evidence, I have allowed myself to frame hypothetical interpretations, which, to acts simple in themselves, and explicable on ordinary motives, render the simple-seeming acts portentous. With bitter pangs of self-reproach I have at times discovered that a long and plausible history constructed by me, relating to personal friends, has crumpled into a ruin of absurdity, by the disclosure of the primary misconception on which the whole history was based. ...

— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... not these alone which led On sacred manners to encroach; And made me feel what most I dread, JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach. ...

— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... her between them, laid her upon her bed. It was Jenny who washed her, wrapped her in clean linen—no one else should touch her; Ben who sat by her, with hardly a break, until the day that she was buried, wiped out with self-reproach, grief; desolate as any child, sodden ...

— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... Robert's head had sunk upon his hand, and his whole frame shook beneath some strong emotion; evidently striving to subdue it, some moments elapsed ere he could reply, and then only in accents of bitter self-reproach. "Why, why did not such thoughts come to me, instead of thee?" he said. "My youth had not wasted then in idle folly—worse, oh, worse—in slavish homage, coward indecision, flitting like the moth around ...

— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... took twenty franc pieces out of rolls of a hundred francs, so that the lovers she paid might not leave her. Now, after these involuntarily dishonest acts, these petty crimes extorted from her upright nature, she plunged into such depths of self-reproach, remorse, melancholy, such black despair, that in that hell in which she rolled on from sin to sin, desperate and unsatisfied, she had taken to drinking to escape herself, to save herself from the present, to drown herself and founder for a few moments in the heavy slumber, the lethargic torpor in ...

— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... May Rockett. She felt for the first time what she had done. Her heart fluttered in an anguish of self-reproach, and her eyes strayed as if seeking help. A minute's hesitation, then, with all the speed she could make, she set off up the avenue towards ...

— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... There he stopped, but his eyes, fixed on Osra's face, ended the sentence for him. And she blushed, and looked away. Then, thinking the moment had come, he burst suddenly into a flood of protestations and self-reproach, cursing himself for a fool and a presumptuous madman, pitifully craving her pardon, and declaring that he did not deserve her kindness, and yet that he could not live without it, and that anyhow he would be dead soon and thus cease to trouble her. But she, being thus passionately ...

— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... had an errand to do immediately. Then, with a heart now full of anger at Damie, now full of sorrow for him and his awkwardness, again full of vexation on account of his coming back, and then again full of self-reproach that she should be going to meet her only brother in such a way, Barefoot wended her way out into the fields and down ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... Missouri. As the boat advanced, hour after hour, finally approaching the prairie country beyond the Missouri forests, I found little in the surroundings to occupy my mind; and so far as my communings with myself were concerned, they offered little satisfaction. A sort of shuddering self-reproach overcame me. I wondered whether or not I was less coarse, less a thing polygamous than these crowding Mormons hurrying out to their sodden temples in the West, because now (since I have volunteered ...

— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... for a man almost to forget a lady who has shown him favor. If he can quite forget her—and will be so unromantic—why, let him, and perhaps small harm done. But almost—That leaves him at the mercy of every generous self-reproach. He is ready to do anything to prove that she was every second ...

— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... that I won't go out of my way to do anything that endangers our happiness, but that I'll try to satisfy my conscience, and yours. Up till now I am without cause for self-reproach, and so ...

— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... was standing by the bedside of his dying father, watching eagerly for some indication, however slight, of returning life or reason. The hours of horror and self-reproach had entirely changed his feelings and ideas; for it was only at the instant when he saw his father raise the poisoned wine to his lips that he saw his crime in all its hideous enormity. His soul rose up in rebellion against his crime, and the words, ...

— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... warmest sentiments of honour and humanity. "His graceful person, polite address, gentle manners, and unaffected cheerfulness recommended him to the favour of every company." And Gibbon recalls with emotion "the pangs of shame, tenderness, and self-reproach" which preyed on his father's mind at the prospect, no doubt, of leaving an embarrassed estate and precarious fortune to his son and widow. He had no taste for study in the fatal summer of 1770, and declares that he ...

— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... hear the reply, for he stole softly away, annoyed, as he thought, at having been a listener to what was not intended for his ears. But there was a little sting of self-reproach at his selfish desertion of home, and, more than all, that Catherine should have been blamed for offences that any one who had known her would never have ...

— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... not look upon the dying struggles of this enormous fish without feelings of regret and self-reproach for helping to destroy it. I felt almost as if I were a murderer, and that the Creator would call me to account for taking part in the destruction of one of His grandest living creatures. But the thought passed quickly ...

— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... thought weakly charitable by all the rest of the family. Mr. Adderley had been forwarded by Sir Francis Walsingham like a bale of goods, and arriving in a mood of such self-reproach as would be deemed abject, by persons used to the modern relations between noblemen and their chaplains, was exhilarated by the unlooked-for comfort of finding his young charge at least living, and in his grandfather's house. From his narrative, ...

— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a long experience as a Christian minister," says a clergyman whom she encountered at this period, "I do not think I ever saw deeper penitence and humility, more real contrition of soul, and more bitter self-reproach than ...

— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... innocent cause, of all. The Doctor had done his best to show that her going out had no connection with any of the youths, and he thought Sir Philip would believe it on quieter reflection. He had remembered too, signs of self-reproach mixed with his son's grief for his wife, and his extreme relief at the plan for going abroad, recollecting likewise that Charles had strongly disliked poor Peregrine, and had much resented the liking which young Madam had shown for one whose attentions ...

— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... entered into his wife's feelings of torture and self-reproach, but he pointed to the dead boy, whose face above the white shirt looked peculiarly refined, almost perfect, young and smooth and quite peaceful, and then drew her more closely towards him with the other hand. "Don't cry. You were the one to make a ...

— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... King's trusted friend, touched in his grateful sympathies that the King, weary and burdened by many anxieties, should find time and thought for so kind an interest in one so insignificant as himself, though that, too, was for Commines' sake; touched above all with a generous self-reproach when he remembered his bitter satire on the King's justice. He now saw that the severities which had horrified and repelled him were exigencies of State, repugnant to the gentle, kindly nature of the man in whose name the ...

— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... impatient:—if only we had him back again; if only we had one more opportunity to show him how dear he was; if only we had another chance of proving ourselves worthy. We can hardly forgive ourselves that we were so cold and selfish. Self-reproach, the regret of the unaccepted opportunity, is one of the commonest feelings after bereavement, and it is ...

— Friendship • Hugh Black

... a pang of self-reproach even to the cold heart of Walpole; a faint blush may have visited his cheek at his recent levity. "The persons of honor and veracity who were present," said he in after years, when he found it necessary to exculpate himself from the charge of heartless neglect of genius, ...

— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... and occupied herself resolutely, while Philip watched her, really in doubt whether she had anything more than this general allusion in her mind. It was quite in Maggie's character to be agitated by vague self-reproach. But soon there came a violent well-known ring at the door-bell ...

— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... Ferriss, in this patient whom she had been summoned to nurse, and whose hold upon life was so pitifully weak, Lloyd's heart gave a great leap and then sank ominously in her breast. Her first emotion was one of boundless self-reproach. Why had she not known of this? Why had she not questioned Bennett more closely as to his friend's sickness? Might she not have expected something like this? Was not typhoid the one evil to be feared and foreseen after experiences such as ...

— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... Janet know herself the superior. But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach—moral suffering—are two of the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart went out ...

— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... It may be that the moods of self-reproach are morbid. That too torments me. Even to-day I was thinking of how Christ would have dealt with that miserable man, Peter Lamb, and how uncharitable I was, how crude, how void ...

— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... doctrine at least which the people who most offend these principles are the most zealous in propagating. Belmont had no refuge against self-reproach, but in ...

— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... tacticians knew what they were about," Stryker said minutes later. Deliberately he adopted the smug tone best calculated to sting Farrell out of his first self-reproach, and grinned when the navigator bristled defensively. "Some of their enjoinders seem a little stuffy and obvious at times, but they're ...

— Control Group • Roger Dee

... us some sense of wonder, and perhaps of self-reproach, to reflect with what a stillness and indifference of the mind we can hear and repeat sentences asserting facts which are awful calamities. And this indifference is more than the accidental and transient state, which might prevail at seasons of peculiar heaviness or languor. The self-inspector ...

— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... the human feelings rose in her heart with terrible violence, and life appeared to her as one dreary blank, now that her home was shorn of its light, now that the beloved child of her heart had ceased to gladden her eyes. Self-reproach for their vain repinings heightened her misery, and misery at last grew into despair. In an instant of wild recklessness she seized a knife, and was about to destroy herself, when, like an angel at the ...

— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... barbarian immediately took to flight, and throwing the sword down, rushed through the door, calling out, "I cannot kill Caius Marius." This caused a general consternation, which was succeeded by compassion and change of opinion, and self-reproach for having come to so illegal and ungrateful a resolution concerning a man who had saved Italy, and whom it would be a disgrace not to assist. "Let him go, then," it was said, "where he pleases, as an exile, and suffer in some other place whatever fate has reserved for him. And let us pray ...

— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... thoughts of Graul and Niotte were with their daughter continually. That she should have been lost and they saved, who cared so little for life and nothing for life without her—that was their abiding sorrow and wonder and self-reproach. Why had Graul not turned Rubh's head perforce and ridden back to die with her, since help her he could not? Many times a day he asked himself this; and though Niotte's lips had never spoken it, her eyes asked it too. At night he would hear her breath pause at his side, ...

— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... State allowed him but one half-bottle of claret. That but for the interference of strangers he might have shot a man, did not interest him. In the outcome of what he regarded merely as an incident, he saw cause neither for congratulation or self-reproach. For his conduct he laid the blame upon the sun, and doubled his ...

— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... interruption, leaving Magdalen conscious of the want of preparation for guiding the thought of these young things, and of self-reproach too, for having let herself be so absorbed in the thought of "her broken reed of earth beneath," as not to have dwelt on what might be the deep impressions of the ...

— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... differences in his look and manner seemed all at once to be summed up in the boyish act. "After all, I'm engaged to him," she reflected, and then smiled at the absurdity of the word. The next instant, with a pang of self-reproach, she remembered Sophy Viner's cry: "I knew all the while he didn't care..." "Poor thing, oh poor ...

— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... before us that grand mountain, so surely is there a heaven," said the deep-toned voice of Mr Vernon. "And, my friends, ere it be too late, seek the only path by which that glorious heaven can be gained, and eternal misery and self-reproach avoided." ...

— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... is no excuse for ignorance in a place where there are books. There are lots of people who have set to work and taught themselves when they have been too poor to go to school, and have done—oh, marvels!" responded Mrs. Carroll, relieving herself of any feeling of self-reproach. Because a few rare geniuses had done so, by facing difficulties and self-sacrifices such as she could not even imagine, she felt there was nothing to prevent every ordinary child from ...

— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... soon over, and of its ugly details only a few remained in her mind. She had a glimpse of Amy's face down in the handsome coffin, and at the sight she turned away with a swift pang of self-reproach. "I shouldn't have let Fanny do that!" Fanny had dressed ...

— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... think of her? What were his feelings now? And what would they be when the exact truth-the whole plot—was known to him? Every faculty hitherto engrossed in the part she was playing, until this moment she had never looked on this side of the picture? Now, bitter self-reproach, womanly shame, and tears—vain, useless tears—filled up the remaining hours of the night. Jenny Aiken's feeble attempts at consolation were worse than futile, and she was sent off abruptly to her room for misconstruing the cause of her mistress' grief. Lady Mabel ...

— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... cousin was with her, or the reaction from the excitement of anxiety into hopeless grief might have been even more prostrating than it was. All the comfort and tenderness Helen could give her in her helpless self-reproach were hers, though she as well as Gifford never sought to make the sorrow less by evading the truth. But Helen was troubled about her, and said to Dr. Howe, "Lois must come to see me for a while; she does need a change very much. I'm afraid she won't be able to go ...

— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... Philip, turning pale, not from fear, but from self-reproach to think he might have made a mistake. "Who is ...

— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon

... this church! it's all this church!" she exclaimed, with a vehemence instinct with regret and self-reproach as she thought of the month of devout delight which ...

— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... In the absorbing interest of her own renascence, the shock, more than the injury which her father had undergone, was ignored, if not neglected. Lanfear had not, indeed, neglected it; but he could not help ignoring it in his happiness, as he remembered afterwards in the self-reproach which he would not let the girl share with him. Nothing, he realized, could have availed if everything had been done which he did not do; but it remained a pang with him that he had so dimly felt his duty to the gentle old man, even while he did it. Gerald lived to witness ...

— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... her interest and sympathy, he went on to tell of three little ones, orphaned by the plague, and left alone and utterly helpless, in a cabin on the Wilderness Road. As he spoke, he remembered with a pang of self-reproach, that Father Orin was with them now and waiting for him. He rose suddenly, saying that he must go, but a slight noise at the door caused him to pause and turn. It was William Pressley coming in, ...

— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... between them before any words were spoken at all, a good deal that the boy never forgot, and that the man liked to turn back to in his moments of self-reproach, for somehow that boy's eyes called forth the best that was in him, and made him ...

— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... out of Mr. Quinn. The thought that he had been preaching a sermon, delivering a speech, filled him with self-reproach. ...

— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... philosophy has misinterpreted emotions which ought to lead to God. Fear implies the transgression of a law, and a law implies a lawgiver and judge; but the tendency of intellectual culture is to swallow up the fear in the self-reproach, and self-reproach is directed and limited to our mere sense of what is fitting and becoming. Fear carries us out of ourselves, whereas shame may act upon us only within the round of our own thoughts. Such, I say, is the danger which awaits ...

— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... into the darkened room at the surgical home, Elaine smiled greeting to him, and the smile stabbed him with self-reproach. He had come to wound her. There must be no further delay. He must act the ...

— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... Philip again to escape me," said Arthur, in self-reproach: for while Gawtrey had addressed Lord Lilburne, Morton had plunged back amidst the labyrinth of alleys. "How have I kept ...

— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... fruit the feeling left by Philip in bud and flower. She was ready now for love. She had felt the variable temper of society, and there was a presentiment in the heart, of receding flatteries and the winter of life. It was with mournful self-reproach that she thought of the years wasted in separation, of her own choosing, from the man she loved; and, with the power to recall time, she would have thanked God with tears of joy for the privilege of retracing the chain of ...

— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... the value of the opportunity he had neglected when it was beyond his reach, but of what avail was the bitterness of his self-reproach when his last moments came? How many lives were sacrificed to his unintelligent hopefulness and indecision! Like him the feeble, the sluggish, and the purposeless too often see no meaning in the happiest occasions, until too late they learn the old lesson ...

— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of duty; hers was no high-principled love of duty from the noblest motives, but a morbid dread of self-reproach. She had not character enough to do anything out of her own notions of the beaten track. She had promised her father she would marry Sir Hugh Horsingham—not that he had the slightest right to exact such a promise—and ...

— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... I am altogether to blame," says Desmond, hastily. "She has had nothing to do with it. Do not, I beseech you, say anything to her when I am gone that may augment her self-reproach." He looks with appealing eyes at Miss Blake, his hand on Monica's shoulder, who has her face hidden in a fold ...

— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... brother's path in life soon ceased to coincide with my own, else I should infallibly have broken my neck in confronting perils which brought me neither honor nor profit, and in accepting defiances which, issue how they might, won self-reproach from myself, and sometimes a gayety of derision from him. One only of these defiances I declined. There was a horse of this same guardian B.'s, who always, after listening to Cherubini's music, grew irritable to excess; and, if any ...

— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey