"Vile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the midst of a vast deal of false and fanciful narrative concerning subordinate and secondary gods, evidence of a supreme God presiding over all things; and the secondary gods performing many things which belonged to the province of the "Almighty One," with many degrading, vile ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... some days. Gensonne and Brissot defended themselves with great ability and presence of mind against the vile Hebert and Chaumette, who appeared as accusers. The eloquent voice of Vergniaud was heard for the last time. He pleaded his own cause and that of his friends, with such force of reason and elevation of sentiment that a murmur of pity and admiration rose from the audience. Nay, the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight —how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming? Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer. — I shan't sleep with him. I'll try the bench here. just as you please; i'm sorry i cant spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here —feeling of the knots and notches. But wait a bit, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... which He draws for us here, the world's ideal of a king, is the portrait familiar enough to all who know anything about that ancient order of society, of tyrants and despots, in Assyria, Babylonia. Pharaohs and all the little kings round about Judaea; the vile old Herod and his equally vile brood, were recent or living examples of what the Master said when He sketched 'the kings of the Gentiles,' They 'lord it over them.' Arrogant superiority, imperious masterfulness, irresponsible wills, caprices ungoverned, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... paid for across the counter and got the receipt stamped and signed by the Almighty. No, it's not the fires of Hell; it's the power of the old sun working on my vile body through the ages that'll renew me with beauty and youth in time. Life's eternal, sure enough; but not on the ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... cannot be discovered before marriage—The detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day. It is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the dissolute women of pagan RomeS—This wholesale, fashionable murder, how are we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities subsist by this ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... all the listening crowd Applaud his reasonings. O'er the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hills, O'er beaten tracks, with men and beast distain'd, Unerring he pursues; till, at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey: So exquisitely delicate ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... have already saved you sixty thousand francs which I expected to give to that vile creature Mme. Cibot. But I still require the tobacconist's license for the woman Sauvage, and an appointment to the vacant place of head-physician at the Quinze-Vingts for my ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the limits of the continent which was the scene of his exploits to the distant nations of the north and west. In reality, his rule was a distinct advance on the anarchy which had preceded it, and certainly he was no worse than others of his vile trade. His scale of business was, however, more extended. What William Whiteley was in respect of goods and chattels, that was Zubehr in respect of slaves—a universal provider. Magnitude lends a certain grandeur to crime; and Zubehr in the height of ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... often; which Octavio besought him to do, and told him he would take some care, that for the good of Sylvia's better part, she should not be reduced by want of necessaries for her life, and little equipage, to prostitute herself to vile inconstant man; he yet had so much respect for her—and besought Brilliard to come and take care of it with him, and to entreat Sylvia to accept of it from him; and if it contributed to her future happiness, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... went up one night by means of a ladder, and with a hammer and chisel, knocked off the heads and limbs of the figures. Next morning he made no scruple to publish the transaction, observing, with a great deal of exultation, to every person whom he met, that he had 'fairly stumpet thae vile paipist dirt nou!' The people sometimes catch up a remarkable word when uttered on a remarkable occasion by one of their number, and turn the utterer into ridicule, by attaching it to him as a nickname; and it is some consolation to think that this monster was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... "And this vile creature nursed the same passions as myself; and but yesterday we were partners in the same purpose, and influenced by the same thought!" muttered Harley to himself. "Yes," he said aloud, "I dare not, Baron Levy, constitute myself your judge. Pursue your own path,—all roads ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ungrateful for her wonderful goodness; and whatever sins my evil heart may lead me into, I hope I may never fall so low as to forget the undeserved mercy of this hour. If ever I shrink from duty or murmur at trials, while so sweet a friend is mine, I shall be vile indeed." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... chafe an' lame an' fight—'e smells most awful vile; 'E'll lose 'isself for ever if you let 'im stray a mile; 'E's game to graze the 'ole day long an' 'owl the 'ole night through, An' when 'e comes to greasy ground 'e splits 'isself in two. O the oont, O the oont, O the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... compromise. No way of getting round them or over them. You must be either one thing or the other. Once we took a step towards wrong, there it is for ever, and all its horrible things with it—deceit, concealment, falsehood, subterfuge, pretence: vile and beastly things like that. I couldn't endure them; and I much less could endure thinking I had caused you to suffer them. And then on through that mire to dishonour.—It's easy, it sounds rather fine, to say the world well lost for love; but honour, honour's not well lost for ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... grandfather died. At Roche-Mauprat his death caused no sorrow, but infinite consternation. He was the soul of every vice that reigned therein, and it is certain that he was more cruel, though less vile, than his sons. On his death the sort of glory which his audacity had won for us grew dim. His sons, hitherto held under firm control, became more and more drunken and debauched. Moreover, each day added some new ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... cannot be with them: oh, how happy were those messengers of the Spirit, who cried aloud to youth or manhood the words of the Spirit, that they must leave their former ways, and thenceforth change to other beings! Pardon me, O God! that I would fain be like them; I am weak and vile, and yet, methinks, there must be words as yet unheard, unknown—oh! where are they, those words which at once lay ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... line. Money, but money no value! Oh, well; Bainbridge is young and full of theories. The next thing he'll be saying that they've found a way in Hili-li to make life as valuable and agreeable for the lazy and the vile as for the industrious and moral classes. He's just philosophizing to suit himself. Why, a people would have money if they had to make it out of their own hides, and the money would have value, too—yes, and labor-purchasing value. No people will ever have all they want, for they will invent ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... they would reflect that nature by making man the bond slave of his passions has put the lever into the hands of woman by which she can control him, and if they would learn to use these powers, not as bad women do for vile and selfish ends, but as the mothers of the race ought, for pure, holy, and redemptive purposes, then would the sphere of women be enlarged to some purpose; the atmosphere of the home would be purified and vitalized, and the work of redeeming ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... pouring out a string of the most elaborate abuse that even Kim had ever heard, in a high uninterested voice, that for a moment lifted the short hairs of his neck. When the vile thing drew breath, Kim was reassured by the soft, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... these inestimable blessings—for what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a separate independence—a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors, and a vile dependence on a foreign ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... softly, "lest the years that have gone by should have made you forget his gentleness and nobleness of soul—lest for one moment you should think him capable of a mean or vile action. I came to tell you, dearest mother, how impossible it was for us—who know him—to credit for one moment an accusation of this kind. If all the world said that he was guilty, you and I, mamma, would ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... all steeped in crime, Whose fabric is one constant stain; Who fill up their appointed time, With conduct vile, and lips profane. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... awake, and that one of them was telling to his fellow soldier a dream of his own, and that so plainly that Gideon could hear him. The dream was this:—He thought he saw a barley-cake, such a one as could hardly be eaten by men, it was so vile, rolling through the camp, and overthrowing the royal tent, and the tents of all the soldiers. Now the other soldier explained this vision to mean the destruction of the army; and told them what his reason was which made him so conjecture, viz. That the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... betrays them imperceptibly into an alliance with whatever is flagitious and detestable." All strong reaction of mind tends towards excess in the opposite direction. Southey's detestation of the excesses of vile men that brought shame upon a revolutionary movement to which some of the purest hopes of earnest youth had given impulse, drove him, as it drove Wordsworth, into dread of everything that sought with passionate ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... disgusting detail; but they enticed our unhappy wounded men into their houses, stripped them, and afterwards, on seeing the Russians, threw the naked bodies of these dying victims from the doors and windows of their houses into the streets, and there unmercifully left them to perish of cold; these vile barbarians even made a merit in the eyes of the Russians of torturing them there; such horrible crimes as these must be denounced to the present and to future ages. Now that our hands are become impotent, it is probable that our indignation against these monsters ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... What was it, then? He was certainly not a genius; that must be an exaggeration. Could one imagine a genius without a victor's confidence, or had his peculiar life destroyed that confidence? This anxiety which constantly intruded itself; this bad conscience; this dreadful, vile conscience; this ineradicable dread; was it a foreboding? Did it ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... tissue of falsehoods: and on the following argument, that these are exposures which, even if true, none but the basest of men would have made. Being, therefore, on the hypothesis most favorable to his veracity, the basest of men, the author is self-denounced as vile enough to have forged the stories, and cannot complain if he should be roundly accused of doing that which he has taken pains to prove himself capable of doing. This way of arguing might be applied with fatal effect to the Duc de Lauzun's "Memoirs," supposing them written with a view to publication. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... guileless, so innocent, should be paraded through the streets like a wild beast which it was unsafe to have at large, that he should be exposed to the prying looks of coarse and unfeeling men, and compelled to hear their vile ribaldry, and, finally, compelled to an ignominious punishment, among the vicious, in a workhouse! The disgrace was more than she could bear. It seemed her heart would break. Overcome by her ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... President telling him, that whatever the place might have been, there he should have staid to the end of his time, and must be punished for returning to Paris. "But," continued the delinquent, "the vile little hole to which I was exiled contained no society whatever, the inhabitants were merely a set of illiterate beings, and how could any enlightened person vegetate amongst such a mic-mac of semi-barbarians; but tell me, M. le President, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... cheap to day" was a business quotation, just as though they had been stocks and shares. The prettiest women were generally shipped to Constantinople for the Sultan's choice; the rest were heavily chained and cast into vile dungeons in private houses till their work was allotted them, or into the large prisons or bagnios, of which there were then six in Algiers, each containing a number of cells in which fifteen or sixteen slaves were confined. Every rank and quality of both sexes might be seen ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... the country abounds in this sort of stuff. Cadamosto describes in great detail the native manufacture of garments, and the habits of the women; barefoot and bare-headed they go always, dressed in linen, elegant enough in apparel, vile in life and diet, always chattering, great liars, treacherous and deceitful to the last degree. Bloody and remorseless are the wars the princes of these barbarians carry on against one another. They have no horsemen or body armour, but use darts and spears, barbed ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... have enough of the artificial. Even the poor who cannot have electricity or gas hardly need economize here with kerosene at its present rates. A kerosene lamp, to be sure, is not often a beautiful or poetical object, but with the right kind of care the vile odor may be suppressed, and though this involves an additional burden for the housekeeper, light is too essential for the work to be grudged. A sufficient number of clean kerosene lamps will make a house cheerful from one end to the other. Now I have often noticed that women ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... Coigney snatched it hastily, imagining she knew the hand; nor was she deceived in her conjecture: she had no sooner read it slightly over;—see here, mademoiselle Charlotta, said she, a new proof of madam de Olonne's folly, and my brother's continued attachment to that vile woman. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... conversation with soldiers. Tommy may hold his own opinions on that point, but he resents hearing them expressed for him through a pro-Boer mouthpiece, and this man may consider himself lucky to escape summary chastisement as a preliminary to the durance vile which is intended to be a wholesome warning for others ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... cruel Words— How can you entertain a Thought so Vile Of him whom so long you have call'd your Friend? May all the Blesings Heaven can bestow On us poor Mortals in this World below, Crown all your Days, and may you nothing see But flowing Tides of sweet Felicity; But ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... learn, and from the absence of any dead body by the side of that of Cnut, I imagined that you must have been carried off. It was clear that your chance of life, if you fell into the hands of that evil page, or his equally vile master, was small indeed. The very day that Cnut was brought in, I visited the French camp, and accused him of having been the cause of your disappearance and Cnut's wounds. He affected the greatest astonishment at the charge. He had not, as he said, been out of the camp ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... He, of a proud hidalgo family, a vile assassin, in thought at least?" moaned the girl, wringing her hands as soon as she had stolen to the privacy ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... divine Helen, daughter of great Zeus, came and spoke gently to Hector, and said, "O brother! brother of vile me, who am a dog—would that, when my mother bare me, the storm-wind had snatched me away to a mountain, or a billow of the loud-roaring sea had swept me away, before all these evil things had befallen me! ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... flashing in his red right hand? "'Tis he!'tis he! I know him now; 610 I know him by his pallid brow; I know him by the evil eye[98] That aids his envious treachery; I know him by his jet-black barb; Though now arrayed in Arnaut garb, Apostate from his own vile faith, It shall not save him from the death: 'Tis he! well met in any hour, Lost ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... they find interment; Old England is not what it once has been, Dogs have their days, and we've had ours, I ween. The country's gone! cut up by cruel railroads, They'll prove to many nothing short of jail-roads. The spirit vile of restless innovation At Fulham e'en has taken up his station. I landed here, on Father Thames's banks, To seek repose, and rest my wearied shanks; Here, on the grass, where once I could recline, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... but a square two-story dwelling stands apart from them, and the whole of it may be had for thrice that sum. There are seven Frank prisoners, and we take it for ourselves. But the rooms are bare, the kitchen empty, and we learn the important fact, that Quarantine is durance vile, without even the bread and water. The guardiano says the agents of the hotel are at the gate, and we can order from them whatever we want. Certainly; but at their own price, for we are wholly at their mercy. However, we go down stairs, and the chief officer, who accompanies ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... that passion with half the force with which it appeared in his countenance. When he was roused from this state by some of the English, he burst into tears; continued to weep and scold by turns; told the New Zealanders that they were vile men; and assured them, that he would not be any longer their friend. He would not so much as permit them to come near him; and he refused to accept or even to touch, the knife by which some human flesh had been cut off. Such was Oedidee's indignation against ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... men, and separate the precious from the vile. In the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, the Lord promiseth His people, after this manner, "I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." The phrase of causing ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... a most instant tetter barks about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All his ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... four months' time he will see "la patrie," which he has not seen since childhood. What joy! And yet—how men have fallen away from nature: how cringing are his compatriots to their conquerors: they are no longer the enemies of tyrants, of luxury, of vile courtiers: the French have corrupted their morals, and when "la patrie" no longer survives, a good patriot ought to die. Life among the French is odious: their modes of life differ from his as much as the light of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... call love, what dost thou make of us? Out of free-men thou dost make us slaves; thou dost breathe into us all the vices. It is thou who dost supply the altars of disloyalty and fear! It is thou who dost extract from thought the rhetorician's art, and from enthusiasm a vile profession. How many young people have you blighted! all the fairest. Ah, siren, thy voice is sweet. Thou speakest to us the language of the gods, but thou are only ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... World of Pure and boundless Love What hast thou found? alas! a narrow room! Put out that Light, Restore thy Soul its Sight, For better 'tis to dwell in outward Gloom, Than thus, by the vile Body's eye, To rob the Soul ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... drunken truck-man would have attempted to refrain from in the presence of a woman. She made a discovery afterward, that there were many girls in the chorus who never talked like that; and among those who did, the further distinction between those who used vile language casually, or even jocularly, and those who were driven to it only by anger. But for these first few minutes in the dressing-room, she felt as if she had blundered into some foul pit abysmally below the lowest level ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Melchi, a yoke of oxen for an imaginary offence, the Governor's messenger jeeringly told the old man, who was lamenting that if he lost his cattle he could no longer earn his bread, that if he wanted to use a plough he had better draw it himself, being only a vile peasant. To this insult Henry's son Arnold responded by attacking the messenger and breaking his fingers, and then, fearing lest his act should bring down some serious punishment, fled to the mountains, and left his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... without discourtesy. She inquired, however, if anything had happened—if I had bad news from her father, and looked at me in a puzzled manner when I answered "No." I could not look at her; I could hardly speak to her; somehow I felt about as guilty concealing the truth as if I had been in the vile plot that ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... though the details of the episode were very fresh in his mind yet. He had escaped a similar fate only because he was so big that the fussy little aunt could no longer force him to take her vile doses. ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... enough to walk about, Warburton felt the evil influence of his desire for revenge so strong, as to cause him to seek out the individual who, he conceived, had wronged him, by winning from him, or cheating him out of his money. They met in one of the vile places in Cincinnati, where vice loves to do her dark work in secret. Truly are they called hells, for there the love of evil and hatred of the neighbour prompt to action. Every malignant passion in the heart of Warburton was roused into full vigour, when his eyes fell upon the ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... witness that such is my most ardent desire. To a life of ease and quiet I have preferred one of restless labour. Man is not born for pleasure, which is unworthy of the truly generous mind, but for honourable labour. Let us leave to the vile herd the existence of the brutes. Cato has compared the life of man to the tool of iron: use it well, it shines, cease to use it and it rusts." It was not until 1502 that Aldus adopted a Mark, the well-known anchor, and this appears for the first time in "Le Terze Rime di Dante" (1502), which, ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... of a pot of milk from their next neighbour! and always be very loth to ask for their very right, for fear of making any disturbance in the parish, or seeming to understand or have any respect for this vile and outward world! ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... Boehm, a wandering piper, had visions and went forth as a preacher of righteousness, railing against priests and civil potentates. True religion, he declared, consisted in worshiping the Blessed Virgin, but the priests were thieves and robbers, the Emperor was a miscreant, "who supported the whole vile crew of princes, overlords, tax gatherers, and other oppressors of the poor." He predicted the coming of a day when the Emperor himself would be forced, like all poor folks, to work for days' wages. The people ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... fashion, and he almost forgot the cumulative hazards of their companionship in experiencing his first plunge into city life. Brevoort, who knew the town, made for a Mexican lodging-house, where they took a room above the noisy saloon, washed, and after downing a drink of vile whiskey, crossed the street to a dingy restaurant. Later they purchased some inconspicuous "town-clothes" which they ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Ames, who had lost himself completely, "I will crush him like a dirty spider! And you, I'll drag you through the gutters and make your name a synonym of all that is vile in womanhood!" ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... then. Well, I am very sorry that Senor Licurgo's precipitation has deprived me of the pleasure and honor of defending you, but what is to be done? Licurgo was determined that I should take him out of his troubles. I will study the matter with the greatest care. This vile slavery is the great drawback ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... cow stable and a hennery. From living upon a badly selected type of food we fear the flu and other diseases. No disease will ever come out of a nut tree. But we are a lot of fools and blame the absolutely innocent cucumber for what a vile mixture of salt and vinegar does to us and thus these same asses will say, "that nuts are unhealthy" and we pay a billion dollars out every three months to have the dentists fix our teeth that never receive any ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... of Louis's coat when I began to mend it this evening. And there was worse. He or some other boy had written this vile thing." Esther handed it to Paul what she had found. Paul read it and his face grew white and stern. Esther sat down and put her head on her ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... the miserable and imprudent Rugge, "I paid L100 for that fiendish child,—a three years' engagement,—and I have been robbed. Restore me the L100, and I will tell you where she is, and her vile grandfather also." ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... do not address Chamis whose head is like an empty gourd, nor Gebhr who is a vile jackal, but you. I already know that you want to carry us to the Mahdi and deliver us to Smain. But if you are doing this for money, then know that the father of this little 'bint' (girl) is richer than ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... myself to your guests!" exclaimed she, with choking accents, as she stepped back a pace from him. "Oh, Francois Bigot, spare me that shame and humiliation! I am, I know, contemptible beyond human respect, but still—God help me!—I am not so vile as to be made a spectacle of infamy to those drunken men whom I hear clamoring for ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... vile creeping reptile now, and so it will be to the end of the chapter—of our proceedings; and when we've done everything—really, Mr. Quirk! if one were apt to lose one's temper, it would be to see such a thing as that put into ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... practical Labarthe, who had joined the procession with the idea of getting into the front rank, and of obtaining as soon as possible an income of thirty thousand francs a year. What would it matter to this second individual if that vile Pascal should boast of having stolen a march on the most delicate, the most powerful of the heirs of Balzac, since I, the new Labarthe, was capable of looking forward to an operation which required about as much delicacy as some of the performances ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... All that was most vile and most bestial in this miserable, misguided people struggling for Utopia and Liberty, seemed to come to the surface, whilst listening to the reading of this ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... parading the street the other night carrying in his hand a monkey wrench. It was dark, and Mr. Daniel Boggs, a leading citizen of Wolfville, who met him, mistaking the wrench for a pistol which the Mexican was carrying for some vile purpose, very properly shot him. Mexicans are far ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... I sanction every word, Browning I cut to something like one-third: Though, mind you this, immoral he is not, Still quite two-thirds I hope will be forgot. He was to poetry a Tom Carlyle— And that reminds me, Thomas too was vile. He wrote a life or two, but parts, I'm sure, Compared with other parts ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... Joseph Snowdon's transparently artful hints was a sting to his sensitiveness; the sum excited him to loathing. It was as though the corner of a curtain had been raised, giving him a glimpse of all the vile greed, the base machination, hovering about this fortune that Jane was to inherit. Of Scawthorne he knew nothing, but his recollection of the Peckovers was vivid enough to suggest what part Mrs. Joseph Snowdon ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... hair will be all loose, and her cap half off; and then Dr. Johnson, who sees something is wrong, and does not know where the fault is, concludes it is in the cap, and says, "My dear, what do you wear such a vile cap for?" "I'll change it, Sir!" cries the poor girl, "if you don't like it." Ay, do,'he says; and away runs poor Miss Brown; but when she gets on another, it's the same thing, for the cap has nothing to do with the fault. And then she wonders Dr. Johnson ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Doctor Johnson to a talkative politician, at a dinner-party, "I perceive you are a vile Whig," and then he proceeded to demolish him. Yet Johnson himself was a Whig, although he never knew it; just as he was a liberal in religion, and yet was boastful ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Lycon, with the venal Fair, Who courts yet hates his vile embrace, Our lively strains shall muttering hear, While Envy pales ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... "It is the vile selfishness in me, sir. I had hoped the boy's gifts would have been what I could have trained at my own hearth. It is only one more wilful ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... so far as I can see, slides by indistinguishable gradations into what is plainly dishonest. And what is more, the savings are commonly made at the cost of the defenceless. It is better far to live in constant difficulties than to keep out of them by such vile means as must, besides, poison the whole nature, and make one's judgments, both of God and her neighbors, mean as her own conduct. It is nothing to say that you must be just before you are generous, for that is the very point I am insisting on; namely, that one must ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... was farther from your mind! You give me money, you shower your vile kisses on me, but nothing was farther from your mind than the obvious interpretation of such behaviour!' Before coming to Mr Meggs, Miss Pillenger had been secretary to an Indiana novelist. She had learned style from the master. 'Now that you have gone ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... gay: But true expression, like th' unchanging Sun, 315 Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon, It gilds all objects, but it alters none. Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent, as more suitable; A vile conceit in pompous words express'd, 320 Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd: For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort, As several garbs with country, town, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... and roughcast, doth present Wall, that vile Wall, which did these lovers sunder; And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content To whisper. At the which let no man wonder. This man, with lanthorn, dog and bush of thorn, Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... very devil with his internal arrangements. Besides, it is filthy stuff, at best, being made of the most repulsive materials and in the dirtiest manner. Always drink good liquor, which will not hurt you, while the vile stuff which is sold in the different bar-rooms will soon send you to your grave. If you pass a day or two in drinking freely, do not miss eating a single meal, and if you do not feel inclined to eat, force yourself to do it; for, if you neglect ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... hidden plans, such momentary, chance, and, at bottom, vile ones—of those to which people later do not confess to themselves—were suddenly fulfilled. It was the turn of Soloviev's lesson. To his great happiness, Liubka had at last read through almost without faltering: "A good plough has Mikhey, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... a short, slight Confederate prisoner, newly brought in, and hobbling about the place where he was confined, with a vile bullet-hole in his foot, came up ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... Strange destiny of these men of brass! The most simple of heart allied to the most crafty; strength of body guided by subtlety of mind; and in the decisive moment, when vigor alone could save mind and body, a stone, a rock, a vile and material weight, triumphed over vigor, and falling upon the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... to Lovelace.— Particulars of the vile arrest. Insolent visits of the wicked women to her. Her unexampled meekness and patience. Her fortitude. He admires it, and prefers it to the false courage ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... the conflict and presently found himself in durance vile. Captain Scraggs, luckily, forgot the motto and escaped, but inasmuch as he was on hand next morning to pay a fine of thirty pesos levied against each of the culprits, he was instantly forgiven. Mr. Gibney vowed that if a United States cruiser didn't happen to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... A VILE scraper making a discordant sound with his violin, a friend observed, "If your instrument could speak, it would address you in the words of Hamlet: "Though you can fret me, you cannot ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... cried out, hiccoughing. Assaulted by the horrible kiss and by the vile clasp that bruised the hand I had offered to the woman's beauty—a hand still outheld—sunk in whirling smoke and ashes and the dreadful noise now majestically ebbing, I found my way out of the place, between walls that reeled as I did. Bodily, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... absence and silence first taught the lady of the feathers the slow necessity of wisdom, otherwise, perhaps, her vehement ignorance could never have absorbed the precious thing. Women of her training and vile experience, nerve-ridden, and clothed in hysteria as in a garment, often think to gain what they want by the mere shrillness of outcry, the mere grabbing of ostentatious, eager hands and frenzy of body. Their lives lead them through a wonder of ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the States-General wore away in the old vile fashion. Conde revolted again, and this time he managed to scare the Protestants into revolt with him. The daring of the nobles was greater than ever. They even attacked the young King's train as he journeyed to Bordeaux, and another compromise had to be wearily built in the Treaty of Loudun. By ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... sluggishly in his study, while the frost pinches him in winter time, oppressed with cold, his watery nose drops, nor does he take the trouble to wipe it with his handkerchief till it has moistened the book beneath it with its vile dew. For such a one I would substitute a cobbler's apron in the place of his book. He has a nail like a giant's, perfumed with stinking filth, with which he points out the place of any pleasant subject. He distributes innumerable straws in various ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... styled [619][Greek: Gegenon trophos], the nurse of the earth-born, or giant brood. Under this character both the sons of Chus, and the Anakim of Canaan are included. Lycophron takes off from Proteus the imputation of being accessary to the vile practices, for which the place was notorious; and makes only his sons guilty of murdering strangers. He says, that their father left them ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... in cold blood. Reports had first been spread among them that he was untrue to the gods, and then they were maddened by fanaticism and horror at the death of that sacred cat. But in cold blood, as I said, no Egyptian, however vile and criminal, would lift his hand against a priest. You may as well come with me, Amuba; it would be strange if one of us only ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... and to go. But on the impulse of the moment, carried away by his excitement, he spoke, and told the story, and Crillon, after leading him aside, so that a building sheltered them from the rain, listened. He listened, who knew all the dark plans, all the scandals, all the jealousies, all the vile or frantic schemings of a court, that, half French, half Italian, mingled so grimly force and fraud. Nay, when all was told, when Bazan, passing lightly over the resolution he had formed to warn the victim instead ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... themselves!" For if they ever show themselves, they bring you the gift of prophecy. The Chippewas left tobacco and gunpowder about for them. My offering was to cover with moss the picnic papers, tins, and broken bottles, with which man who is vile defiles every prospect. Discovering such a queer islander as the blue man was almost equal ...
— The Blue Man - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and was, as pure as the angels! Yes, you say truly, I was devoted to her. I would have given my life—yea, my soul's salvation, for her love! But she never cared for me. I never enticed her to do evil—I would not, if I could, and I could not, if I would! Who repeated this vile slander? Show him to me, and by Heaven, his blood ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... they to ebb in heart and spirit. If dashed back, they return with all the force Of six dark sea's momentum on its course For vengeance on the vile, who disinherit The human-being—shut off every source Of happiness, or let but Serf's ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... canaille sapped thy noble blood and impregnated in thy veins vile clots to turn thee purple with choler?" and he pushed Cedric from him. "What doeth this couchant dog here?" He turned and stirred the prostrate form of Christopher. "'Tis ill to so fall upon the seething caldron of thy passion, the ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... unhappy child, but who knows how soon it may be too late!—You can still repair some of the wrong you have done, but you can only do so by the most absolute obedience to me.... Believe me, I know the truth about this vile ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... woods with guile They've led her bound in fetters vile To death, a deadlier sorceress Than any born for earth's distress Since first the winner of the fleece Bore home the Colchian witch to Greece— Seven months with snare and gin They've sought the maid o'erwise within The forest's labyrinthine shade. The lonely woodman half afraid Far ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... remembered as for the popular superstition which asserts that the weather for forty days after his feast-day on July 15 is dry or rainy according to its state on that day. The legend is said to be based on the fact that the removal of his body from "a vile and unworthy place where his grave might be trampled upon by every passenger and received the droppings from the eaves" to the golden shrine in the cathedral was delayed by a long continuance of wet weather. Similar legends to explain a wet summer are found elsewhere in Europe. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant
... Dutch ship, the Nieuwstadt, of Amsterdam. The cargo was found to consist of gold dust and seventeen slaves. In the latter Captain Misson recognized a good text for one of his little sermons to his crew, so, calling all hands on deck, he made the following observations on the vile trade of ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... pardoned, and gave a sense of pardon, to so heinous an offender, without a moment intervening sense of guilt, and evidence of pardon and peace, it must have been a very singular divine treatment of so vile a sinner! ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... of] Heth advanced with men and horses well armed [or full of provender?]: there were three men to each chariot.(686) There were gathered together all the swiftest men of the land of the vile Hittites, all furnished with arms ... and waited stealthily to the northwest of the fortress of Katesh. Then they fell upon the bowmen of Pharaoh, into the middle of them, as they marched along and did not expect a battle. The bowmen ...
— Egyptian Literature
... the Indian topic. However phlegmatically he may reel off his yarns, glowing though they be with exciting adventure, it is the red-skins that cause his eyes to flash and his rhetoric to become fervid and impressive. To him the Indian is the embodiment of all that is supremely vile, and hence merits his unmitigated hatred. Killing Indians is his most delightful occupation, and the next in order is talking about it. His contempt for government methods is unbounded, and the popular Eastern sentiment he holds in almost equal esteem. The Smith brothers have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... to the astonishment of all Europe, admiral John Byng; who, whatever his errors and indiscretions might have been, seems to have been rashly condemned, meanly given up, and cruelly sacrificed to vile considerations. The sentiments of his own fate he avowed on the verge of eternity, when there was no longer any cause of dissimulation, in the following declaration, which, immediately before his death, he delivered to the marshal of the admiralty: ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... it particularly difficult to restrain these Sons of Calumny and Defamation is, that all Sides are equally guilty of it, and that every dirty Scribler is countenanced by great Names, whose Interests he propagates by such vile and infamous Methods. I have never yet heard of a Ministry, who have inflicted an exemplary Punishment on an Author that has supported their Cause with Falsehood and Scandal, and treated, in a most cruel manner, the names of those ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... these wanton Swains are wode. Can there be a hand or heart Dare commit so vile a part As this Murther? By the Moon That hid her self when this was done, Never was a sweeter face: I will bear her to the place Where my Goddess keeps; and crave Her to give her ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the frank, unembarrassed question. "Crust is about as vile as they make them, Miss Clinton. Most of these ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon |
