"Point of honor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were off into the country. For all that, we certainly did not look like duns, creditors, sheriff's officers, or the like. But no matter! Rastignac had seen you the evening before at the Bouffons; we took courage again, and made it a point of honor to find out whether you were roosting in a tree in the Champs-Elysees, or in one of those philanthropic abodes where the beggars sleep on a twopenny rope, or if, more luckily, you were bivouacking in some boudoir or other. We could not find you anywhere. Your name was not ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... next in importance to the general who commanded the troops and who, with his ships, his forts, his guns, and his men, had been for two years fighting off the tremendous assaults that were hurled upon the city from the Union ironclads and ships far out to sea. It was a point of honor to take, or to hold, Charleston, and the Confederates held ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the fact that the great mass of men act and believe as Peter Shirley acts and believes. If they acted and believed as Undershaft acts and believes, the immediate result would be a revolution of incalculable beneficence. To be wealthy, says Undershaft, is with me a point of honor for which I am prepared to kill at the risk of my own life. This preparedness is, as he says, the final test of sincerity. Like Froissart's medieval hero, who saw that "to rob and pill was a good life," he is not the dupe of that public sentiment against killing which is propagated and endowed ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... in the noble generosity with which Leonidas dismissed the other Greeks, and in the undaunted resolution with which he determined himself to maintain his ground, which has always strongly excited the admiration of mankind. It was undoubtedly carrying the point of honor to a wholly unjustifiable extreme, and yet all the world, for the twenty centuries which have intervened since these transactions occurred, while they have unanimously disapproved, in theory, of the course which Leonidas pursued, have none the less ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... he said, "has carried with it more grave and far-reaching implications to the interests of the country." After expressing his belief that the law as it stood violated the treaty and should be repealed as a point of honor, he continued: "I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the Administration. I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... cruel resolution [lit. point of honor]! Alas! whatever I may do, can I by no means obtain this concession [or, favor]? In the name of a slain [lit. dead] father, or of our friendship, punish me through revenge, or at least through compassion. Thy unhappy lover will have ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... their lives as a point of honor and became Athletes. Some became marvels of skill. Milo of Croton in Italy, it was said, would carry a bull on his shoulders; he stopped a chariot in its course by seizing it from behind. These athletes served sometimes in combats as ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... Innocencia (by no means devoid of poetry) is romantic, melodramatic, rushing along turbulently to the outcome in a death as violent as Maria's is peaceful. There is in each book a similar importance of the background. In Innocencia the "point of honor" is quite as strong and vindictive as in any play of the Spanish Golden Age. Maria shares with Innocencia relieving touches of humor and ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... his life, Jenks became pecuniarily moody. For the first time, in the course of his mercantile career, of some six years, the force of reflection convinced him, that he had not acted his part judiciously, however "well done" it might be, in point of honor and manliness. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... enjoy the feeling of ease and comfort; they would not be ever on the wretched stretch on which they are now, nor keeping up the hollow appearance of what is not the fact. But there are folk who make it a point of honor never to admit, that, in doing or not doing anything, they are actuated for an instant by so despicable a consideration as the question whether or not they can afford it. And who shall reckon up the brains which this social calamity has driven into disease, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... recrimination on the part of the Indians. Should we hear of any atrocities committed by the Arickaras upon captive white men, let this signal and recent provocation be borne in mind. Individual cases of the kind dwell in the recollections of whole tribes; and it is a point of honor ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... all the islands of this archipelago, in order to subdue her; and that the sea ran to and fro without being able to rise again. They say that from this event arose the custom of mavaris—that is, taking vengeance for an insult received, a very common practice in this land; and they consider it a point of honor to take revenge. Then they relate also the story of the reed; but they say that the kite pecked the reed, and the aforesaid man and woman came out. They add that the first time when Cavahi gave birth to children, she brought forth a great number ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... there appears to have been but little difference of opinion among the prominent Loyalists as to the necessity of an extraordinary exercise of authority in some way, both as a point of honor and as a measure of precaution for the future. On this point Hutchinson was as decided as Bernard, though he was reticent as to the precise shape it ought to take. It would not do, he said, to leave the Colonies to the loose principle, espoused by so many, that they were subject to laws ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... favorites of heaven. But these monks, who follow these austere rules, are fanatics, who sacrifice themselves to the pride of the clergy who live in luxury and in wealth, although their duped, imbecile brethren have been known to make it a point of honor to die ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... humiliating that no adorer has yet turned up for me. I am a marriageable girl, but I have brothers, a family, relations, who are sensitive on the point of honor. Ah! if that is what keeps men back, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... the expression is as good as it could be in the most delicate engraving upon steel. The artist's style, too, was then completely formed; and, for our parts, we should say that we preferred his manner of 1825 to any other which he has adopted since. The first picture, which is called "The Point of Honor," illustrates the old story of the officer who, on being accused of cowardice for refusing to fight a duel, came among his brother officers and flung a lighted grenade down upon the floor, before which his comrades fled ignominiously. This design is capital, and the outward ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Kalmucks, who had strong motives for returning to their countrymen on the west bank of the Wolga, guessing the intentions of Weseloff, had offered to join him in his escape. These men the Khan would probably find himself obliged to countenance in their project; so that it became a point of honor with Weseloff to conceal their intentions, and therefore to accomplish the evasion from the camp, (of which the first steps only would be hazardous,) without risking the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... shrill recrimination—shrill as the geese themselves. Indeed, had that been all, you might have done this often; but tho fishing be a fine pastime, the podley is scarce to be regarded as a dainty for the table; and it was a point of honor that a boy should eat all that he had taken. Or again, you might climb the Law, where the whale's jawbone stood landmark in the buzzing wind, and behold the face of many counties, and the smoke and spires of many ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... fellow-passengers. An air as of better days clings about her; she seems a person who has known sickness and sorrow; but so far from pitying her, you view her with inexpressible rancor, for it is plain that she ought to sit down, and that she will not. But for a point of honor the conductor would show her the vacant place; this forbidding, however, how can he? There she stands and sniffs drearily when you glance at her, as you must from time to time, and no wild turkey caught in a trap was ever more incapable of looking ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... business the gigantic method of sailors battling with a tempest. "The Secret Agent" and "Under Western Eyes" fill the dull back streets of London and Geneva with pursuits, homicides and dynamitings. "Nostromo" is a long record of treacheries, butcheries and carnalities. "A Point of Honor" is coloured by the senseless, insatiable ferocity of Gobineau's "Renaissance." "Victory" ends with a massacre of all the chief personages, a veritable catastrophe of blood. Whenever he turns from the starker lusts to the pale passions of man under civilization, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... The young man, I had remarked, was proud, firm, jealous of the point of honor, and, from my observation of him, quite likely to resent to the bitter end what he deemed a slight or an injustice. The girl, I knew, was quite as high-spirited as young Murchison. I feared she was not so just, and hoped she would prove ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... coach-house which had been transformed into a chamber, slept the orderlies beneath the apartment of their chief. This apartment, composed of four rooms, was of the utmost simplicity, harmonizing with the poverty of its occupant, who made it a point of honor not to attempt ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... all about it, Dolly," said Eleanor. "I don't mind saying that I think you had a good deal of excuse—but do try to let things work out by themselves after this. The chances are you've only made them hate us more than ever, and they will feel that it's a point of honor now to get even with us for this. All the girls will have to suffer for what ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... community frowns with indignation upon the profaneness of the duel, having its rise in this irrational point of honor. Are you aware that you indulge the same sentiment on a gigantic scale, when you recognize this very point of honor as a proper apology for war? We have already seen that justice is in no respect promoted by war. Is true honor promoted where justice ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... assembly, M. de Lanzon was named administrator of the Society, M. Dauversiere being appointed its principal agent, which duty was especially suited to him because of his devotion to the Mother of God. When the plans were finally agreed upon, each member made it a point of honor to contribute as generously as possible to the success of the colony, and before the meeting broke up they received more than two hundred thousand livres. With this substantial aid, M. Dauversiere set to work in good earnest to prepare for the voyage across the Atlantic, the remainder ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... refractory on a point of honor. "For," said he, "no one will know I am 'Co.' and if you are such a great firm, I want the public honor of belonging ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... at eight in the morning the word to advance was given. The line was about five miles long at first, and there was a man or a boy every thirty or forty yards. The buggies and riders kept perforce almost entirely to the roads; but the beaters were supposed, as a point of honor, to face everything, and keep the front unbroken. The advance was roughly in three sides of a square. Each man made as much noise as he could, and threshed every bush in his path. A number of Rabbits ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Sir Ashley Cooper, have done the king much more service than you ever have or can do. They have been most important agents in his restoration, and the king's obligations to them are much greater than they are to you. Besides, merely for what may be called a point of honor, for it is no more, in what an unpleasant situation will you put his majesty! At all events, Edward, recollect you do not know what are the intentions of Mr. Heatherstone; wait and see ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... considered all these things, and they move me not. I admit the possibilities of the painting, but no more. The conduct of the Taranteens proves how high stands with them the point of honor and the sacred estimate wherein they hold an embassy; else never would they have ventured upon one like the second, after the unhappy termination of the first. I partake not ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the public might be put on their guard as to the difference between it and the others,—inexperienced critics are so apt to make mistakes! The example seems to us worth following, and, were this dangerous frankness made a point of honor in title-pages, we should be able at a glance to distinguish the books that must be bought from those that may be read. We should then see advertised "The Ten-Inch Bore, or Sermons by Rev. Canon So-and-so,"—"Essays to do Good, by a Victim of Original Sin,"—"Poems by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... other hand, great importance was attached to some duties which soon became mere drudgery. Sometimes the whole detail for guard—first, second, and third relief—would make it a point of honor to sit up the entire night, and watch and listen as though the enemy might pounce upon them at any moment, and hurry them off to prison. Of course they soon learned how sweet it was, after two hours' walking of the beat, to turn in for four hours! which seemed ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... procession of verbiage stalked on through four and five acts, no one venturing to predict what would come of it, when, towards the winding-up of the latter, Antonio, with an irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira herself,—for she had been coolly arguing the point of honor with him,—suddenly whips out a poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. The effect was as if a murder had been committed in cold blood. The whole house rose up in clamorous indignation, demanding justice. The feeling rose far above ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... neither the simplicity of the peasantry, nor the grandeur of the boyars; and no public opinion yet exists to keep in check this third class, whose existence is so recent, and which has lost the naivete of popular faith without having acquired the point of honor. A display of jealous feeling was also remarked between the military commanders. It is in the very nature of a despotic government to create, even in spite of itself, jealousy in those who surround it: the will of one man being able to change ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... a point of honor with me not to republish a story by an English author or by any foreign author. I have also made it a rule not to include more than one story by an individual author in the volume. The general and particular results of my study will be found explained and carefully detailed in the supplementary ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... exclusive personal sentimentalities and the rest of it as the price, is neither virtuous, dignified, nor decent. No husband ever secured his domestic happiness and honor, nor has any wife ever secured hers, by relying on it. No private claims of any sort should be founded on it: the real point of honor is to take no corrupt advantage of it. When we hear of young women being led astray and the like, we find that what has led them astray is a sedulously inculcated false notion that the relation they are tempted to contract is so intensely personal, and the vows made ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... in respect to the murder of Darnley. They proposed, moreover, that Mary should consent to have that question examined before some sort of court which Elizabeth might constitute for this purpose. Now it is a special point of honor among all sovereign kings and queens, throughout the civilized world, that they can, technically, do no wrong; that they can not in any way be brought to trial; and especially that they can not be, by any means or in any way, amenable to each other. Mary refused to acknowledge ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... I think; for so long it is since your tertia [Footnote: An old Walloon designation for a battalion.] first entered Klosterheim. But in that as you will, and if it be a point of honor with you gentlemen Walloons to look on whilst women and children are butchered. For such a purpose no man is my sovereign; and as to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... point of honor is recognized throughout the slave region, and that disputes of certain classes are frequently referred for adjustment, to the "trial by combat." It would not be appropriate for me to enter, in this letter, into a defense of the practice of duelling, nor to maintain at length, that ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... wait here," he said gravely. It had come to him that Mrs. Endicott would be there. He must not intrude, not even to see Starr once more. Besides, she had made it a point of honor for him to keep away from her daughter. He had no choice ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... up to a position which they could not hope to gain. The companion of nobles—the associate of beaux esprits—the friend of the wealthy, the great, and the proud; what in the world was the cause of this sudden, this unparalleled leap forward to the very highest point of honor? Who, in the name of goodness, was that dashing woman with whom he was always driving about? Who were those fair ladies with whom he was forever promenading? Plainly the chief people of the land; but how the mischief ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... colonial products rose under Napoleon. If the use of sugar and coffee was a luxury to our parents, with us it was the sign of self-conscious superiority. Doisy gave credit, for he reckoned on the sisters and aunts of the pupils, who made it a point of honor to pay their debts. I resisted the blandishments of his place for a long time. If my judges knew the strength of its seduction, the heroic efforts I made after stoicism, the repressed desires of my long resistance, they would pardon my final overthrow. But, child as I was, could ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... the genuine principle of the laws, in which we can, as a body, have no other than an enlarged and a public interest. We have no common cause of a professional attachment or professional emulations to bias our minds; we have no foregone opinions which from obstinacy and false point of honor we think ourselves at all events obliged to support. So that, with our own minds perfectly disengaged from the exercise, we may superintend the execution of the national justice, which from this circumstance is better ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Neither had George the character, strength of mind, or memory of Harris; yet there was about him the remains of a pretty good education, which enabled him to talk quite up to his brains, and a high spirit and amenability to the point of honor which years of a dog's life had not broken. After he had been a little while on board, we learned from him his adventures of the last two years, which we afterwards heard confirmed in such a manner as put the truth of them ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... days, in the good old times Of feudal virtues and feudal crimes, A point of honor they'd make in it, Though sure in the end their flag must fall, To show stout fight and never to call A truce till they saw a hole in the wall Or a larder without any steak ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... behind the counter served him, too, in regular turn; and Dick felt it a point of honor to empty the half-shell before him as quickly as any of the rest. There was no delay about that, anywhere along that ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... had been too late to go with the Milrays, but she felt bound to own her decision when she reached it; and Mrs. Milray, whatever her real wish was, made it a point of honor to help get Mrs. Lander berths on her steamer. It did not require much effort; there are plenty of berths for the latest-comers on a winter passage, and Clementina found herself the fellow ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... It is, therefore, a point of honor with me, dear L., to utilise my title of Haji by entering the city, visiting the ruler, and returning in safety, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... Comte de), only son of Mme. de Dey. Made lieutenant of the dragoons when only eighteen, and followed the princes in emigration as a point of honor. He was idolized by his mother, who had remained in France in order to preserve his fortune for him. He participated in the Granville expedition. Imprisoned as a result of this affair, he wrote Mme. de Dey ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... consented to accompany a young man to Seattle, both because she wanted to travel and because she was discouraged in her attempts to "be good." A few weeks later, when in Chicago, she had left the young man, acting from what she considered a point of honor, as his invitation had been limited to the journey which was now completed. Feeling too disgraced to go home and under the glamour of the life of idleness she had been leading, she had gone voluntarily into a disreputable ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... being likewise decked out in their finest array. The nun kept laughing every now and then in the most unnatural and hysterical manner, as I thought, apparently to impress us with the conviction of her perfect happiness; for it is a great point of honor among girls similarly situated to look as cheerful and gay as possible—the same feeling, though in a different degree, which induces the gallant highwayman to jest in the presence of the multitude when the hangman's cord is within an inch of his neck; ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... assumed the grave expression of a man who is arguing a point of honor in his own mind. Then, at the end of a few seconds, he said: "General, I ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... occasion, and at once threw away his dagger when his enemy challenged it as an undue advantage. But at this time hardly anything can be conceived more horridly brutal and savage than the mode in which private quarrels were conducted in France. Those who were most jealous of the point of honor, and acquired the title of Ruffines, did not scruple to take advantage of strength, numbers, surprise, and arms, to accomplish ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring the scum of the people, made it a court entertainment, of which I have heard many particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious; although it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point of honor in the other extreme, when the smallest word misplaced among gentlemen ended ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... very seldom. In "The Merchant of Venice" I found that Henry Irving's Shylock necessitated an entire revision of my conception of Portia, especially in the trial scene, but here there was no point of honor involved. I had considered, and still am of the same mind, that Portia in the trial scene ought to be very quiet. I saw an extraordinary effect in this quietness. But as Henry's Shylock was quiet, I had ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... right in endeavoring to weaken such testimony; but I do not know if he flatters himself that he has succeeded, in saying that he who gave this opinion is an esprit fort, or freethinker who makes it a point of honor to be of the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... an angel of comfort to both of us. I don't know what I should have done in that unhappy time if it had not been for you. But Hawthorne's regard made it a point of honor with me. Could you have loved him, Doris? He is ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... meddle in court-house affairs," returned the Duchess. "Nowhere but in France, my dear M. Chesnel, do you see women so much wedded to their husbands that they are wedded to their husband's professions, work, or business as well. In Italy, England, and Germany, women make it a point of honor to leave men to fight their own battles; they shut their eyes to their husbands' work as perseveringly as our French citizens' wives do all that in them lies to understand the position of their joint-stock partnership; is not that what you call it in your legal ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... wearily; and weary as applied descriptively to a village street is almost nonsense. These defects are not important, but they arrest attention as being at the very opening of the story. And it must be confessed that for a chapter or two "A Point of Honor" is rather slight in texture and commonplace. It is, however, interesting enough to lead us on, and the reader who holds his way into the third or fourth chapter is repaid. The authoress then warms up to her work, and begins to show her quality, which ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... his arms and folding them again, beginning to stand truculently, as if his patience were wearing thin. "Ye will let the Turks rob the weak ones, in order that ye may rob the Turks! That is a fine point of honor! Ye poor lost fools! Have ye no better wisdom than that? Can ye draw no finer hairs? And yet ye dare offer to dictate to me, and to tell me whether I am true or not! The raj is well served if ye are its ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... of violence. Murder was common everywhere. On the slightest provocation a man of spirit was expected to whip out a rapier or dagger and plunge it into his insulter. The murder of unfaithful wives was an especial point of honor. Benvenuto Cellini boasts of several assassinations and numerous assaults, and he himself got off without a scratch from the law, Pope Paul III graciously protesting that "men unique in their profession, like Benvenuto, were not subject to the laws." The number of unique men must have been large ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... disinfecting agent. The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger from encountering ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... got to be a point of honor, as you might say, for Sam to convince that guy. He told me he never wanted anything so much in his life as for Mark Dennen to give in. It was a hot afternoon, and he'd come aboard that boat for a rest, but he peeled off his collar and started in. He gave Mark Dennen ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... at last," he said, "deputed as I am to do so by Miss Lamarque. It is a point of honor with her to care for you personally in this crisis. You know Major Favraud placed you under her care; besides that, her regard for you impels this request. She ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... the ascent of the summit which separates the basin of Lake Superior from the valley of the upper Mississippi. The exertion was incredible. I expected every day some of the men to give out, but their pride to conquer hardships was, with them, the point of honor. They gloried in feats under which ordinary men would have fainted. To carry a horse load over a portage path which a horse could not walk, is an exploit which none but a Canadian voyageur would sigh ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Christian clergy. He says: "O, if the spirit of our profession, of our order, of our body, were the spirit, or anything like the spirit, of the ancient Prophets! If with us truth, charity, justice, fairness to opponents, were a passion, a doctrine, a point of honor, to be upheld with the same energy as that with which we uphold our own ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... to consent to the experiment. He said the boy had suffered enough already for concealing the truth, even if he was guilty, seeing that he could have no motive but a mistaken point of honor for so doing. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... rights of freedom conferred by the national forces, and would prevent the white race of the South from admitting the negro race, however deserving it might be, to equal political privileges. And, moreover, it was deemed by the North a point of honor that, having conferred freedom on the negro, he should be provided ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... constraint is bad. Of the manifold Parisian miseries, the most difficult to discover, and the bitterest, is that of worthy persons of the middle classes who have fallen into poverty; for they make concealment a point of honor. Those sorrows, my dear Godefroid, are to us the object of special solicitude. Such persons usually have intelligence and good hearts. They return to us, sometimes with usury, the sums that we lend them. Such restitutions recoup us in the long run for the losses we occasionally ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... no public landing wharf at Zanzibar. Passengers have to submit their persons into the arms of loud-lunged Swahili longshoremen, who recognize one sole and only point of honor: neither passenger nor luggage shall ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... greatly distressed at this declaration of her wild friend, for it was now evident the young creature understood that her communication was to go no further. She was ignorant how far these people consider the point of honor interested in her keeping the secret; and most of all was she unable to say how far any indiscretion of her own might actually commit June and endanger her life. All these considerations flashed on her mind, and reflection only rendered their influence more painful. June, too, manifestly viewed ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... salient angles were all varnished over with a cold, repellent cynicism,—his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed in him no moral susceptibility, and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called "ambition," but no apparent wish for fame or esteem or the love of his species; only the hard wish to succeed, not shine, not serve,—succeed, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you! What's the use of acting the chivalrous fool, now? Don't you see? Don't you understand? Don't you get it that if you leave she can explain it some way or other—that all you're doing by staying is ruining yourself and Elinor for a point of honor that hasn't any ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... harm's was. Repassing the Black river he left his clothes behind him, which were seized by the enemy. He sent word to Colonel Watson if he did not immediately send back his clothes, he would kill eight of his men to compensate for them. He felt it was a point of honor that he should recover his clothes. Colonel Watson greatly irritated by a late defeat, was furious at the audacious message. He contemptuously ordered the messenger to return; but some of his officers, aware of the character of the sergeant, urged that the clothes might be returned to ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Enquire at London, 'mongst the Tauernes there: For there (they say) he dayly doth frequent, With vnrestrained loose Companions, Euen such (they say) as stand in narrow Lanes, And rob our Watch, and beate our passengers, Which he, yong wanton, and effeminate Boy Takes on the point of Honor, to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... she was defended until destroyed, converted the disasters of this part of the day into a species of triumph." "The Americans," says a contemporary British writer, "chiefly gloried in the dangerous attention paid by Arnold to a nice point of honor, in keeping his flag flying, and not quitting his galley till she was in flames, lest the enemy should have ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... prowess. Then she brought in young rabbits, chipmunks and thirteen-lined spermophiles, and once she came in, quite exhausted, half dragging and half carrying a big, fat pocket gopher. With her it seemed to be a point of honor that she should bring in her game and display it. Little did we realize then that in course of time the wild birds would become so scarce that their slaughter by house cats would demand legislative action ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... alarm is never a good plan to rid oneself of a spirited young man. My obstinacy was but increased by what she said, and I made it a point of honor to remain. And her solicitude for my safety still more confirmed me in ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... that her driver was a St. Moritz man, and therefore at constant feud with the men from the Kursaal, who brought empty carriages to St. Moritz, and went back laden with the spoil that would otherwise have fallen to the share of the local livery stables. Hence, he made it a point of honor to pass every Maloja owned vehicle on the road. Six times he succeeded, but, on the seventh, reversing the moral of Bruce's spider, he smashed the near hind wheel by attempting to slip between a landau and a stone post. Helen was almost thrown into the lake, and, for the life of her, she ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... a higher stand-point in history, though, perhaps, we are newer dwellers in our domain and not as yet as comfortable in it as they in theirs, can, however, afford to laugh at their opinions and threats. A nation, whose utmost effort could not raise above thirty thousand men for a war in which the point of honor between themselves and the French was at stake, is not the one to lay down laws to the American North, which could—probably without drafting—bring its million into the field. It is worth remembering that, had they sent us their Warrior, as they threatened after ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... glee, with which a young blood gave me the account of a mere boy, perhaps ten or twelve years old, who cut his bowels in such a way that the deed was not quite complete, and then tying his "obi" or girdle over it, walked into the presence of his mother, explained the circumstances which made it a point of honor that he should commit "seppuku," and forthwith untied his "obi" and died in ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... presence of any person. That there was, or had at least been, one there, needed no further confirmation. The trapper was in no mood to put up with the loss of his dinner, and he considered it rather a point of honor that he should bring the offending savage to justice. That it was an Indian he did not doubt, but he never once suspected, what was true, that it was the identical one he had been following, and who ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... argue this point of honor, and show its absurdity by pointing out that it is not an unusual practice with nations at war. It is a sufficient commentary upon this assumption of punctiliousness that the paper went on to say that some ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... one was loyalty, to the other was treason—what to the Spy was a point of honor, to her old friends was her open and lasting disgrace, and never can the two viewpoints be welded into one, despite the symbol of Union which floats over North and South, making the United States of America one and "indivisible, now ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... old man wanted to return my 'hospitality' and square the account! He wasn't going to lie under any obligation to a stranger, and, by Jove! he made it a special point of honor! A Spanish grandee couldn't have been more punctilious. And with an accent, Jerusalem! like a northeaster off the Banks! But the feed was in good taste, and he only a mathematical instrument maker, on about twelve hundred dollars ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... it excited me to watch, and I made it a point of honor never to extinguish my lamp as long as the rival lamp was burning; at last it became the friend of my solitude, the companion of my destiny. I ended by giving it a soul to understand and answer me. I talked to it; I questioned. I sometimes said, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... conduct became general the next day, and work on the ketch was somewhat impeded in consequence. It became a point of honor with Mr. Heard's fellow-townsmen to allude to the affair as an accident, but the romantic nature of the transaction was well understood, and full credit given to Mr. Dix for his self-denial in the matter of the medal. Small boys followed him in the street, ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... and Nemesis became as gentle as a Quakeress. But these instances of "ratting" were not many. Some few poets were bought over; but, among men following the profession of the press, a change of politics is an infringement of the point of honor, and a man must FIGHT as well as apostatize. A very curious table might be made, signalizing the difference of the moral standard between us and the French. Why is the grossness and indelicacy, publicly permitted ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... happier days, as I said just now, I had a kind of pride in showing my enemies how inexhaustible my resources were; I felt it a point of honor to strike them with amazement, by creating millions under circumstances where they imagined nothing but bankruptcies and failures would follow. But, at present, I am arranging my accounts with the state, with the king, with myself; and I must now ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... explain it," replied Purcel; "the sum I can command is one of four hundred, which is at this moment virtually lent upon excellent security, at an interest of eight per cent. The loan is certainly not legally completed, but morally and in point of honor it is. Now, if I lend this money to you, sir, I must break my word and verbal agreement to the ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Rivermouth, who clearly perceived its underlying motive—the extension of slave territory. The abolition element in the town had instantly been blown to a white heat. Moreover, war in itself, excepting as a defensive measure or on a point of honor, seemed rather poor business to the thrifty Rivermouthians. They were wholly of the opinion ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... provinces which are under your sole government. It would be very disgraceful for the kingdom to be doing nothing while the republic is working so hard; and a queen who understands her office will make it a point of honor to banish idleness from her household; in the houses of her neighbors this word ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... returned. That was a point of honor which Fernando insisted upon, as he would neither agree to steal or wear stolen goods. For a day or two he was indisposed, and good, honest Sukey was afraid his friend was "going to be real sick." On the evening of the second day after ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... conceit," said Petit-Claud; "we made it a point of honor to get up a subscription, and we will have a tremendous affair for you. The masters and the headmaster will be there, and, at the present rate, we shall, no doubt, ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... but the reason which he assigned for declining to purchase the honor at the rate proposed is worthy of being mentioned. "What can induce you to hesitate?" said Boileau, charged by the Academicians with the negotiation. "A point of honor," replied Moliere. "Now," answered his friend, "what honor can lie in blacking your face with mustachios and assuming the burlesque disguise of a buffoon, in order to be cudgelled on a public stage?" "The point of honor," answered Moliere, "consists ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... for a soldier of Earth to kill a helpless prisoner," he said briefly. "We cannot understand it, but we must not attempt to sway him in any point of honor." ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby |
