"Abominably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... morning seemed to have gone out of his blood; he felt lonely and apprehensive and puzzled. He wished he had Dickson beside him, for that little man's cheerful voice and complacent triviality would be a comfort.... Also, he was abominably cold. He put on his waterproof, and turned his attention to the fire. It needed re-kindling, and he hunted in his pockets for paper, finding only the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... here believe it an affair of importance who may chance to be the King of England, say, this time next year; you take sides between Henry and me. I tell you frankly that neither of us, that no man in the world, by reason of innate limitations, can ever rule otherwise than abominably, or, ruling, can create anything save discord. Nor can I see how this matters either, since the discomfort of an ant-village is not, after all, a planet-wrecking disaster. No, Owain, if the planets do indeed sing together, it is, depend ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... an impetuous hug. "You dear Evadne! I believe you take us all as that! But I don't think the rest of us can be quite as trying as Isabelle. She does seem to delight in saying such horrid things. She was abominably rude to you this morning at breakfast and yet you were just as polite as ever. I couldn't have done it. I should have sulked for a week. I know you feel it, for I see your lips quiver—you are as susceptible to a rude touch as ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... long tale from the "Earthly Paradise," as the "Earthly Paradise" is an immense treasure of shorter tales in the manner of "Jason." Mr. Morris reverted for an hour to his fourteenth century, a period when London was "clean." This is a poetic license; many a plague found mediaeval London abominably dirty! A Celt himself, no doubt, with the Celt's proverbial way of being impossibilium cupitor, Mr. Morris was in full sympathy with his Breton Squire, who, in the reign of Edward III., sets forth to seek the Earthly Paradise, and the land where Death never comes. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... and vice of every description. He was the worst kind of blackguard. But his wife was the exact opposite to him, a gentle, delicate girl. She was not beautiful, but her nature more than compensated for lack of beauty. He had married her for her money, and treated her abominably. I became friendly with her, partly because of the pity I felt for her on account of his treatment, and partly because I sincerely admired the beauty of her character. In consequence of that friendship, I undertook to watch over ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... what you are. It's his little claim to immortality. Just think, George, when Nicky dies and goes to heaven he'll turn up at the gates of the poets' paradise, and they'll let him in on the strength of that. The angel of the singing stars will come up to him and say, 'Nicky, you sing abominably, but you can see. You saw George Tanqueray when nobody else could. Your sonnets and your ballads are forgiven you; and we've got a nice place for you, Nicky, near Keats and Shelley.' Because it wouldn't be heaven for Nicky if ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... of a smile actually on the face of the rotund guard who had been so odiously browbeaten by the Sergeant. It was his turn, he felt, his turn to be jubilant, and at the expense of the man who had bullied him so abominably. He was, in fact, helping to turn the tables on the Sergeant, and hastened ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... him with little languishing eyes, and licked his fingers; she ended by screaming abominably when he went away. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... other side remains untouched by the fire, only to wither and crackle and twist into uncouth shapes, until the smoker flings the cigar away, with an accompaniment of expletives which attach rather to his own stupidity than to the piece of tobacco he has so abominably abused. You will see another with a good pipe, laden with good tobacco, well lit, blowing incessantly down the mouth-piece and the stem until the moisture introduced with his breath into the bowl of his pipe effectually prevents the tobacco from burning, and puts ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Number Two Co. in the country; and she'd left 'em in a hole, to get married to a stupid lord—— [To FARNCOMBE, finding him standing near her.] Sorry. I was to have only one rehearsal; [clenching her fist] and, oh, didn't they treat me abominably! Miss Ensor was late and we were all hanging about on the stage, waiting for her. I've never felt so cold in my life, or so lonely. Not a word of welcome, not a nod, from a single soul; simply a blank stare occasionally from a haughty beauty with a ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... that my attention had been diverted, it had increased considerably, and seemed now, to my bewildered sight, about a quarter of the size of the full moon. The light it threw, was extraordinarily powerful; yet its color was so abominably unfamiliar, that such of the world as I could see, showed unreal; more as though I looked out upon a landscape of shadow, than ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... is here! Lyba, go and call him! He wants to see you. [Exit Lyba]. I had another reason for coming. I want to speak to you about Vnya. He behaves abominably, and does his lesson so badly that he can't possibly pass; and when I speak to him he ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... working for them when he met Nur-el-Din. They were married out there and, realizing the possibilities of using her as a decoy in the secret service, he sent her to Brussels where the Huns were very busy getting ready for war. He treated her abominably; but the girl was fond of him in her way and even when she was in fear of her life from this man she never revealed to me the fact that he was Hans von Schornbeek ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... striking features in her plain, and rather expressionless face were her eyes, which were of a soft and extraordinarily beautiful grey. She had large hands and feet, no figure to speak of, and she dressed abominably. She possessed in fact, all the virtues and none of the graces, and was, in this respect at any rate, the diametrical opposite of her son. Her appearance suggested that life had given her a tremendous ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... all that I have noticed is that they are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... pal, slapping him on the back, "don't interfere with honeymoon couples, they're abominably slow. Stick to widows, old man, ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... you say that there's no connection between his heart and manners? This very thing proves that they come from his heart. Don't be illogical, Kitty," said Mrs. Ellison, and her nerves added, sotto voce, "if you are so abominably provoking!" ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... "'Tis abominably provoking," said Mrs Harrel, "that he should be out of the way just now when he is wanted. However, I dare say ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... Leipsic and throughout the campaign; been engaged in every action from the Borodino to the capture of Paris; wounded two or three times; fought a French Officer in the Bois de Boulogne, and got his finger cut abominably; visited London and Portsmouth with his Emperor, dined with the Regent, &c. He told me many interesting anecdotes and particulars, although, from a certain random way of speaking and the loose, unconnected manner in which ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... till you saw me again, banged the door to between us, and left you alone in the hall. I know your sensitive nature, my dear, and I am afraid you have made up your mind by this time that never yet was a guest treated so abominably by her hostess as I ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... comes my imaginary jailer to let me out o' this here abominably real-lookin' imaginary lockup. Hang ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... post factum, everybody claims that "he (or more often she) predicted it long ago, but they would not listen." It is a lie; we all knew that the war has been conducted abominably, that Rasputin and Stuermer were plotting, that the administration was greatly inclined to graft,—all gossip of the town. But no one whom I had seen since the execution of the monk was aware of the real ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... you take me for?' she exclaimed angrily. 'Do you really believe that it was just for the pleasure of talking that I gave you the advice you have neglected so abominably?' ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... expectations! Although the Square Tower was so ancient that in some places it was actually crumbling away—not the sign of a leaf, not the vestige of a bird's nest could I see anywhere; the walls were abominably, brutally bare. However, it was not long before my disappointment gave way to delight; for the air that blew in through the open window was so sweet, so richly scented with heather and honeysuckle, and the view ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... for his kind attention,' says she, and bowed and went off. Why didn't I die there on the spot? The worst of it all was, though, that the beast Zaleshoff got all the credit of it! I was short and abominably dressed, and stood and stared in her face and never said a word, because I was shy, like an ass! And there was he all in the fashion, pomaded and dressed out, with a smart tie on, bowing and scraping; and I bet anything she took him for me ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... granite.... May I put something into the story which will politely indicate how much the unfortunate lady appreciates this heavenly snow-place in contrast to the beastly city, even though she is so abominably treated?" ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... lamented husband of the widow Higgs, our landlady, was the owner of the coat. He also bequeathed to her several pairs of breeches, which I have vainly endeavored to get into. The late lamented Higgs was an abominably small man. He must have been very much her worse half. So, in default of other clothing, the widow has kindly obliged me by the loan of one of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... of the Directory is so charmingly fancied, that it is impossible not to fall in love with so well-dressed a Constitution;—the costume of the sans-culotte Constitution of 1793 was absolutely insufferable. The Committee for Foreign Affairs were such slovens, and stunk so abominably, that no muscadin ambassador of the smallest degree of delicacy of nerves could come within ten yards of them; but now they are so powdered, and perfumed, and ribanded, and sashed, and plumed, that, though they are grown infinitely more insolent in their fine clothes even than they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... alone and most upset. She considered that she was being treated abominably. She longed to telegraph to her parents, but she knew ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... somebody else operate your very soul—and that's a worse sin than suicide.... You're letting your father and this business, this Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, wipe you out as if you were a mark on a slate—and make another mark in your place to suit its own plans. ... You are being treated abominably." ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... very wrong thing in me to contribute to the support of such an evil spirit of unthankfulness as she indulged in. When she came to see her conduct in its true light, and confessed that she had behaved very abominably, I would see what I ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... abominably when I first opened my eyes that I was compelled to close them again, merely realizing dimly that I looked up at something white above me, which appeared to sway as though blown gently by the wind. My groping hand, the only ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... Passing the little village of Debers, they had to stop; a big hay wagon barred the way. The peasant who was driving was abominably drunk. He swore and struck his horses and jerked them violently towards the ditch. Maurice ordered him to make way. He laughed foolishly and swore at them insultingly. Maurice and the Count started forward, and the peasant menaced them with the scythe resting ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... on the back and called him a fine young fellow. Christine counted out her money at the desk. It made Robert dizzy with joy and pride to see her pay her bill, and tears came into his throat and nearly choked him. On the way home he behaved abominably, chased cats or threw stones with a reckless disregard for their neighbours' windows, and Christine, looking into his flushed, excited face, had a movement that was like the shadow of his own ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... most of that going to cover,' replied Sponge; 'country's awfully deep, roads abominably dirty!' adding, 'I wish I'd taken your advice, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the "Devastation," "Lave," and "Tonnant," came into action against the shore batteries at Kinburn on 17 October, 1855 (the anniversary of the attack on the Sebastopol sea-forts). There was some difficulty in getting into position, as they could just crawl along, and steered abominably. But when they opened fire at 800 yards at 9 a.m. they silenced and wrecked the Russian batteries in eighty-five minutes, themselves suffering only trifling damage, and not losing a ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... girl, if affected in the same way, would bluntly acknowledge that she was "as cross as a bear." Let us quietly take hold of ourselves and ask ourselves the plain question, "Are we nervous, or cross?" If the latter, we know how to remedy it. A well person has no right to be so abominably bad-tempered or moody that he cannot keep people from finding it out. If you are nervous, there is some reason for it. Perhaps you did not sleep well last night; perhaps you are suffering from dyspepsia; but in any case will-power will do much towards lessening ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... passed through me, and I was aware that the Swede had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way he ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... woman! She's a Regimental Institution. I can't think what the men see in her to make such a fuss about! A plain, badly-made Irishwoman, who dresses abominably. And she's much too casual with all of them—especially with Theo, even if she did save his life ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... centuries ago, because it is only with the very greatest difficulty that one can picture them to oneself even as they were only ten or fifteen years ago. In his opinion, the historical poem, the historical novel, the historical painting, are all, according to their kind, abominably false as branches ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... dramatised in France and in America. While it is assuredly a great work, and one that nobody except a genius could have written, I do not think it is Dostoevski's most characteristic novel, nor his best. It is characteristic in its faults; it is abominably diffuse, filled with extraneous and superfluous matter, and totally lacking in the principles of good construction. There are scenes of positively breathless excitement, preceded and followed by dreary drivel; but the success of the book does not depend on its action, but rather on the characters ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... widely to himself when he thought of the abject fear which Oleson had displayed because of the murder he thought he had done, while Happy Jack obediently "played dead"). And of Dunk, whom Slim had hated most abominably of old; Dunk, a criminal found out; Dunk, a prisoner right there on the very ranch he had thought to despoil; Dunk, at that very moment locked in the blacksmith shop. Perhaps it was not curiosity alone which sent him down there; perhaps it was partly a desire to look upon ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... watching the still, white little face under the flickering shadows of the birches. "It makes me feel frightened, girls. Do you suppose it's really right to act like this? Mrs. Lynde says that all play-acting is abominably wicked." ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... awoke to meet Coralie's eyes. She had watched by him as he slept; he knew it, poet that he was. It was almost noon, but she still wore the delicate dress, abominably stained, which she meant to lay up as a relic. Lucien understood all the self-sacrifice and delicacy of love, fain of its reward. He looked into Coralie's eyes. In a moment she had flung off her clothing and slipped like a serpent ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... great abundance, provided they send their boats round to his landing, so that the crews may bring the vegetables from his garden; informing the two captains, at the same time, that his rascals—slaves and soldiers—had become so abominably lazy and good-for-nothing of late, that he could not make them work by ordinary inducements, and did not have the heart to ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... unpleasantly that our Daimler is not a touring car but a motor ambulance and that these roads will jolt the wounded most abominably. ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... Prince in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions.—If the young DACE be a bait for the old PIKE," (speaking with reference to his own designs upon Shallow) "I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him."—This is shewing himself abominably dissolute: The laborious arts of fraud, which he practises on Shallow to induce the loan of a thousand pound, create disgust; and the more, as we are sensible this money was never likely to be paid back, as we are told that was, of which the travellers had been ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... on one occasion he was in a house where a copy of Titian's "St. Margaret" hung upon the wall, and those present united in saying that it was abominably done. Carreno said: "It has at least one merit; it shows that no one need despair of improving in art, for I painted it myself when I was ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Berlin congress, and is generally credited with having prevented, by his tact and good sense, the British prime minister from making a speech in French, which he knew very imperfectly and pronounced abominably. In 1874 Odo Russell received a patent of precedence raising him to the rank of a duke's son, and after the congress of Berlin he was offered a peerage by the Conservative government. This he naturally ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... lent him at Suez. Ultimately, he flung the money down before me without a word. But I had been right in my persistence; had I not forced him to repay me he would have asked for more. At last, after an abominably bad night's travelling, we climbed up a flight of huge steps cut in black basalt. My companions pressed on eagerly, speaking not a word. We passed through a lane of black scoria, with steep banks ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... ragweed without sneezing And walk undaunted past a stack of hay; If you can find a field of daisies pleasing, And not require ten handkerchiefs a day; If you can stroll in meadowland and orchard And greet the goldenrod with gay surprise, And not be most abominably tortured By swollen nose and bloodshot, flaming eyes; If you can go on sneezing like a geyser And never utter one unmeasured curse; If you can squeeze the useless atomiser Nor look with envy on each passing hearse; ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... of Tortuga gave him a ship and a crew, and set him up in business on his own account. The piratical career of L'Olonnois was very much like that of other buccaneers of the day, except that he was so abominably cruel to the Spanish prisoners whom he captured that he gained a reputation for vile humanity, surpassing that of any other rascal on the western continent. When he captured a prisoner, it seemed to delight his soul as much to torture and mutilate ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... abominably treated—no doubt of that. But have you counted the cost? You know my point of view! It's one episode, for me, in a world-wide struggle. Intellectually I am all with you—strategically, all with them. They can't give way! The ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... method of punishment, though voted abominably unfair by the majority, was certainly efficacious. Such grave suspicion fell on the Mystic Seven that the indignant monitresses took the matter in hand, and insisted on investigating the entire business. Popular opinion raged hotly against ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... thither, and think it much better disposed than ours of Bartholomew. The shops being all set in rows so regularly and well lighted, they made up a very agreeable spectacle. But I was not at all satisfied with the grossierte of their harlequin, no more than with their music at the opera, which was abominably grating, after being used to that of Italy. Their house is a booth, compared to that of the Hay-market, and the play-house not so neat as that of Lincoln's-Inn-fields; but then it must be owned, to their praise, their tragedians ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... portion of the forest very abominably then," returned Fitzooth. "We have no fears and whinings here; but I do not doubt that Warrenton chattered with a view to test our courage, or perchance to make more certain of ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... fellow was a wrong 'un, all along," were the first words that filtered to the girl's consciousness as she stood. "But I didn't think he was responsible for that card trick, I must say. Young Bathurst looked so abominably hangdog." ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... me know it, or come to see me, because—because—" Katy hesitated, and looked at Bell, who said, pertly: "Because Will is so abominably proud, and would have made such a fuss. Don't spoil a story for relations' sake, I beg," and the young lady laughed good humoredly, restoring peace to all save Katy, whose face wore a troubled look, and who soon stole away to her mother, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... slew one or two sheep during the wait; but the meat subsequently proved to be abominably tough, and the fat collected to oil the bolts of the men's rifles only served to ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... wager that you travel thus?" grinned Manuel, abominably comfortable upon a great, sorrel horse that pranced all round Valencia in its anxiety to be upon its way home. "Look you, Valencia! Since you are travelling, you had best go and tell the padres to make ready the sacrament ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... not surprised," said Mrs. Romaine, quickly. "I had been looking for something of the kind. I won't say that you were not justified—in a certain sense. Oliver acted abominably, I know. He told me what he ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... into this ship it would have been much worse than before." And on Nov. 1st he writes, "On Wednesday I again went to the ship and tried small alterations in the correctors: I am confident now that the thing is very near, but we were most abominably baffled by the ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... deposited in a roomy barn, and left there alone, when once again a life of adventures began to assume a darkish complexion. It was cold, it was anxious, it seemed to drag interminably, and it was abominably lonely. If it were to be all like this, even the prospect of an occasional taking off of one's shirt in the brewhouse looked less oppressive than it ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... was satisfied. He was just eighteen. That a man of respectable life and notions like Paul de Musset should take these adventures as a matter of course makes it difficult for an American to find the point of view whence to judge a society so abominably corrupt. Thus at the age of a college-boy in this country he was started on the career which was destined to lead to so much unhappiness, and in the end to his destruction. Dissipation of every sort followed, debts, from which he was never free, and the habit of drinking, which proved fatal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... of whom usually make their headquarters there. The drunkards, the insane and other undesirables are forced into this comparment among negro women who have to listen to oaths and vulgar utterances. In stopping at some points, the trains halt the negro car in muddy and abominably disagreeable places; the rudeness and incivility of the public servants are ever apparent, and at the stations the negroes must wait at a separate window until every white passenger has purchased a ticket before he is waited ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... were impossible he would get the money from Godfrey Hammond. But he felt doubtful whether he should like Godfrey Hammond quite as well when he should have asked and received this service at his hands. "I ought to like him all the better if he helped her when I couldn't manage it. It would be abominably unjust if I didn't. In fact, I must like him all the better for it: it stands to reason I must. I'll be shot if I should, though! and I don't much think I could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... made or sold, we might as well employ her as another, but when we consider it as the fountain from whence the general manners and morality of a country take their rise, that the persons entrusted with the execution thereof are by their serious example an authority to support these principles, how abominably absurd is the idea of being hereafter governed by a set of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury, treachery, theft and every species of villany which the lowest wretches on earth could practise or invent. What greater public curse can befall any country than to be under ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... all my undertakings rankles so in my heart that sometimes I feel capable of every brutality, every meanness, every hateful cruelty. To you I have behaved shamefully. Don't interrupt me, Marian. I have treated you abominably, my child, my dear daughter—and all the time with a full sense of what I was doing. That's the punishment of faults such as mine. I hate myself for every harsh word and angry look I have given you; at the time, ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... of a friend of mine in France. He reached a village through which the Uhlans had passed. Had the inhabitants any complaints of their behaviour? None whatever.[62] Their only indignation was directed against some English soldiers who (if their story be correct) had behaved abominably. It was a curious shock of reality for my friend. He realised that sometimes the enemy might behave well, and sometimes bad stories of English soldiers might be circulated (even amongst Allies). I am quite ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... played abominably," she acquiesced. "I'm sorry, partner"—turning to Peter. "It must be the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... said, "when a letter was received from Richard Horton, saying that you were on board the Thetis. Mr. Wilks tells me it was an abominably spiteful letter, and I am sure the squire thinks so, too, from the tone in which he spoke this afternoon about his nephew; but I can quite forgive him, for, if it had not been for his letter, we should not have known what had become of you, and many months ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a swallow flying (teste sua manu). Below the middle stature; cast of face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion; stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble than in set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... his fine manners, and with a certain right, since it once fell to me—a blundering innocent in the hands of fate—to put them to severest proof. A candidate for a scholarship at Clifton—awkward, and abominably conscious of it, and sensitive—I had been billeted on Brown's hospitality without his knowledge. The mistake (I cannot tell who was responsible) could not be covered out of sight; it was past all aid of kindly dissimulation by the time Brown ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stewed in the milk of the ripe fruit; and as dessert we had placed before us, for the first time, the far-famed durian, so universal a favorite among Orientals as to command a higher price than any other fruit in market, yet so abominably disgusting in smell that the olfactories of few strangers can tolerate its approach. To me the odor seemed precisely that supposed to be produced by the admixture of garlic and assafoetida; and as a plate piled with the rich golden ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... side of him must have been uppermost, I suppose, when he got my letter, for he wrote back, refusing me in such abominably insolent language, that I lost all command over myself, and abused him, in my daughter's presence, as "a low impostor whom I could ruin for life if I chose to open my lips and let out his Secret." I said no more ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... about us the monumental traditions of the pyramids. It ought to be possible to build sound, portable, and habitable houses of felted wire-netting and weather-proofed paper upon a light framework. This sort of thing is, no doubt, abominably ugly at present, but that is because architects and designers, being for the most part inordinately cultured and quite uneducated, are unable to cope with its fundamentally novel problems. A few energetic men might at any time set out to alter all this. ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... say." I glance back at the Peruvian. He is sitting by the table just as I left him, his chin in one hand, while with the other he strokes the wavy moustache and regards me with lowering looks. "He's a handsome creature," I think, as I go upstairs; "but he's been told it too often, and he has abominably mediaeval ideas ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... that," the Commandant answered gravely, "I am happy to tell you there has been no wreck. True, a vessel in distress—a large liner—had found herself among the Hell-deeps, of all abominably awkward places. But by the mercy of Heaven she managed to extricate herself, and has dropped anchor, not half an hour ago, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... weather was fine, it was luxuriously fine; when it was bad—it was often abominably bad, but it had its fit of temper and was done with it—it didn't sulk for three months without letting you see the sun,—nor send you one cyclone inside out, every Saturday afternoon, and another outside ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... Almost all the greatest singers of the century have been able not only to sing but to speak in several languages. Above all things, students of song should learn to speak their own language. Mr. H.C. Deacon remarks that "no nation in the civilized world speaks its language so abominably as the English.... Familiar conversation is carried on in inarticulate smudges of sound which are allowed to pass current for something, as worn-out shillings are accepted as representatives of twelvepence.... When English people begin to study ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... he taken to Siberia with a gang of other prisoners, while I accepted congratulations and made calls with my young wife; or while I count the votes at the meetings, for and against the motion brought forward by the rural inspection, etc., together with the Marechal de Noblesse, whom I abominably deceive, and afterwards make appointments with his wife (how abominable!) or while I continue to work at my picture, which will certainly never get finished? Besides, I have no business to waste time on such things. I can do nothing of the kind now," he continued ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... greengrocer's shop!" he commanded peremptorily. "It is abominably stuffy down here. We can't have the port-holes filled up like that, ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... that all the cooks employed by the Europeans should be men, yet all the cooking among the natives themselves is done by women, and done abominably badly in all the Bantu tribes I have ever come across; and the Bantu are in this particular, and indeed in most particulars, far inferior to the true Negro; though I must say this is not the orthodox view. The ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... But before roundly pronouncing the doom of this—to me unattractive—branch of fiction, would it not be well to inquire a trifle more deeply into cause and effect? In the first place matricide is so utterly unnatural a crime that there must be something abominably peculiar in a form of literature that persuades to it. But a year or two back, on the occasion of a former crusade, I took the pains to study a considerable number of Penny Dreadfuls. My reading embraced all those—I believe I ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... It's a great pity that I write so abominably. [She writes; MITYA tries to look] Only don't you look, or I'll stop writing and ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... be a gleam of hope that Ireland may yet become a free, happy, and contented member of the British empire—and that is, in a suppression of the present insurrection—in a change of the men by whom the affairs of Ireland have been for some years so abominably administered—and in a change of that system which has hitherto been pursued by them. If Englishmen value their own liberty, which the contiguity of despotism must always hazard, or feel sympathy for the sufferings of an unfortunate ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... schoolroom when Lady Pynsent first arrived at Culverley, and the child had been treated with kindness and discretion. Nan repaid the kindness by an extravagant fondness for her little nephews, who treated her abominably, and the discretion by an absolute surrender of her will to Lady Pynsent's as far as her intercourse with the outer world was concerned. With her inner life, she considered that Lady Pynsent had not much to do, and it was in its manifestation that Sir John observed the signs which ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... abominably greedy," she said, "and Wanted our share as well as his own. Quite early this morning he was after one of my Hares; it was a remarkably active little creature, and soon left him in the lurch. He caught a Rabbit or two and a few Birds, and might have ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... rich and saucy. The latter used to assert of him that for the first three years he was as good a servant as ever came into a house; for the next two a kind and considerate friend; and afterward an abominably bad master." And on page 240, that when Rogers was condoled with about the death of an old servant, he exclaimed, "Well, I don't know that I feel his loss so much, after all. For the first seven years he was an obliging servant; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... appeared to me that the gustatory sense, at least in the case of my own infants, and very young children, differed from that of grown-up persons. This was shown by their not disliking rhubarb mixed with a little sugar and milk, which is to us abominably nauseous; and in their strong taste for the sourest and most austere fruits, such as ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... an attendant of Sir Henry Norris at this time, and a friend and school-fellow of Sir W. Brereton. He was a resolute Protestant, and he says that at first he and all other friends of the gospel were unable to believe that the queen had behaved so abominably. "As I may be saved before God," he says, "I could not believe it, afore I heard them speak at their death." ... But on the scaffold, he adds, "In a manner all confessed but Mr. Norris, who said almost nothing ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... Makes me surer than ever that he has an abominably deep purpose in using his wits to hang on here. He suggests resources as hard to understand as anything that has happened in the old room. You'll confess, Bobby, he's had a good deal of influence over you—an influence ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... found in almost any town on the Italian peninsula; on the hill commanding the city there are an old Austrian fort and an ancient church, both chiefly interesting for the views they command of the harbor and the coast of Istria; some of the most abominably rough pavements which I have ever encountered in any city; one hotel which just escapes being excellent and several which do not escape being bad; and a harbor, together with the wharves and moles and machinery ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... place. Now, that little beast made a good enough get away with his studies during the three months before camp. He mastered all the work of the soldier in ranks. At bottoms Mr. Briggs is really a very good little boy soldier. But he's so abominably and incurably fresh that he should have gone to Annapolis, where there's always ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... great deal of attention to Fraulein Marker, was grieved and really angry at the turn his friend's romance had taken. He knew through Fraulein Marker how Herr von Pechlar was trying to supplant Wilhelm, and that he took every opportunity of making abominably false representations about him. There ought to be no more foolish loitering about. It was unpardonable to let the golden bird fly away so easily. Once open the hand, and she might be off. If Fraulein Ellrich was beginning to flirt with Pechlar, it was quite excusable, as Wilhelm's ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... as a very reasonable man, though he swore abominably, and did not speak in the gentlest tones to the men. He concluded, therefore, that he had made a blunder, and he desired to get out of the scrape as fast as he could. The mate explained to him sundry things, in the discipline of a ship, which he had not before understood. He said that when ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... abominably weak, but he did not care. He even felt a certain pleasure in his surrender. Big, muscular men are given to this feebleness with women. Hercules probably wore an idiotic grin of happiness when he ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... disgusting! Not only was I cooped up in an abominably filthy tail-coat pocket, with a motley rabble of disreputable associates, but every time I opened my lips here I was insulted and laughed at for every word ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... nearly incredible; but true. The noise of which is now loud everywhere. Less lovely individual than this Trenck [Pandour Trenck, Cousin of the Prussian one,] there was not, since the days of Attila and Genghis, in any War. Blusters abominably, too; has written [save the mark!] an 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY,'—having happily afterwards, in Prison and even in Bedlam, time for such a Work;—which is stuffed with sanguinary lies and exaggerations: unbeautifulest of human souls. Has a face the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... intimate friendship with Lady Waldegrave and with their habit of writing daily letters to each other, and of the social and political life which my mother shared with her friend as well as her health would permit. For my present purposes, what matters, though it sounds abominably egotistical to say so, is the effect of my mother upon my character and life. Unquestionably the fact of her being an invalid was a great lesson. In the first place, it did a great deal to educate her children to be unselfish. It was a rule of the house that everything ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... Pompadour was the most noted; a woman of talent, but abominably unprincipled. Ambition was her master-passion, and her boudoir was the council chamber of the royal ministers. Most of the great men of France paid court to her, and to neglect her was social ruin. Even ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... not yourself killed—for you know, dear boy, the deuce is that sometimes does happen. What then? Justice is so languid nowadays. Certainly you would have to inhabit for six, eight—perhaps ten months—a drafty, moist jail, without exercise, most indigestible food abominably cooked, limited society. You are brought to trial. A jury—an emotional jury—may give you a couple of years. That's another risk. You see you drink cocktails, you smoke cigarettes. You will be made to appear a person totally ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... skins of water from the river a day, and never begs or complains, always merry and civil. I shall enlarge his backsheesh. There are a lot of camels who sleep in the yard under my verandah; they are pretty and smell nice, but they growl and swear at night abominably. I wish I could draw you an Egyptian farm-yard, men, women and cattle; but what no one can draw is the amber light, so brilliant and so soft, not like the Cape diamond sunshine at all, but equally beautiful, hotter and less ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... left it on my dressing-table," she thought, moving away. "I will have a cup of tea in my room this evening, and let guardy and Madame Blanche dine together. I wish it were time to start. I abominably hate waiting." ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... I expect, on how long we have pampered him. We can at least control him if we try hard enough. But I have for the moment an abominably clear perception that the likes of me never really tries. Forgive me, Joanna—no, Mabel—both of you. (He is a shamed man.) It isn't very pleasant to discover that one is a rotter. I suppose I shall ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... constitution of England were at stake. So I gave myself up to reading newspapers, and listening to the click of the telegraph, like other people, until after a great many months of such pastime, it grew so abominably irksome that I determined to look a little more closely at matters with my ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... for the train that would take him to the next town of performance. There was a night on a station platform in Minnesota, when two dogs of a troupe, on the next truck to his, froze to death. He was himself well frosted, and the cold bit abominably into his shoulder wounded by the leopard; but a better constitution and better general care of him ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... described as 'too odiously and abominably pagan to be palatable to the most vitiated class of English readers.' This no doubt was Miss Rigby's interpolation in the proofs in reply to her editor's suggestion that she should 'glance at the novels by Acton and Ellis Bell.' It is a little difficult to understand the Quarterly ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... meet with difficulty, and the coat was abominably tight; but the corporal gave him a dig in the stomach and said: "Cheer up, fatty! that'll soon go. They'll get rid of your paunch ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... foundling. But that was the affair of the State, not of Aristide Pujol. In the meanwhile he examined the brat curiously. It was dressed in a coarse calico jumper, very unclean. The striped blanket was full of holes and smelled abominably. Some sort of toilet appeared essential. He got down and from his valise took what seemed necessary to the purpose. The jumper and blanket he threw far on the pebbly waste. The baby, stark naked for a few moments, crowed ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... no one will ever hate you for what you haven't done," he said, steadily. "That would be abominably unfair. But, you see, I don't understand—and I don't like—I don't ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all night and till twelve the next day. The Agra showed her weak point: she rolled abominably. A dirty night came on. At eight bells Mr. Grey, touched by Dodd's clemency and brimful of zeal, reported a light in Mrs. Beresford's cabin. It had been put out as usual by the master-at-arms; but the refractory ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... remember, Mrs. Rainham, that she stayed out solely at my wish—I take full responsibility, and I'll be ready to tell my father so." The door closed behind Cecilia, and he strode away down the street, biting his lip. He felt abominably as though he had deserted the little sister—and yet, what else could he do? One could not remain for ever, brawling on a doorstep at midnight—and Tommy had begged him to ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... to hear it. I am interested, and my worries are the same old ones. I do want to learn how to do something to support myself, and stenography is so—abominably dull. I am angry with myself for finding it so." Alex rested her chin in her hand, and looked at Miss ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as narrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy by the contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled abominably. Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excited frame of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that the entire amphitheatre was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up from the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... talk about that any more. I like Mr. Twemlow, I like Captain Stubbard, I like old Tugwell—though I should have liked him better if he had not been so abominably cruel to his son. Now I am sure it is time to go and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... at all. By-and-by we will talk. Now I am going to ask you a selfish question, and you are just to bend your head for 'yes' or 'no.' Will the smell of tobacco distress you, or bring the faintness back? These autumn flies sting abominably here, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the reason why Anne Royall made no greater mark, why she was "unsuccessful," why most of us never heard of her—she attacked great powers, and she fought unwisely. Her abusive writing sounds abominably to-day, but must be judged, of course, by the standard of her time. The worst things she said were not as bad as things Shelley said—as the bitter invective and scurrilous attacks common to pamphleteers of the time. If our newspapers are ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... killed them for making her father suffer. The sight of his drawn face hurt her abominably. She had never seen him like that. She wasn't half so sorry for her mother who was sustained by a secret, ineradicable faith in Nicky. Why couldn't he have faith in Nicky too? Was it because he was a man and ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... had two sons, one a year older, and the other some months younger that I was. The eldest was deformed, and his brother squinted abominably. Curiosity had brought them and the whole family into the parlour, to be spectators of the interview. My grandfather entered; I was dressed as genteelly as every effort of the village taylor could contrive; an appearance ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... to call upon me. But I'll tell you where you can help me, Bob. I want to give these precious troops of mine a little active work in the way of war-manoeuvres, as the Prussians call them. The lazy beggars have got abominably soft since Partab Singh's death, with nothing to do but exhibit their lovely selves in the streets, and mutiny for increased pay to settle their tavern-scores. There's plenty of room here, and good scope, and besides, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... her. She would have liked it to wear the mask of love foregone—to have breathed plaintively of hopes defeated and a broken heart. Instead it shewed the candid face of a real homesickness, and it spoke with convincing and abominably aggravating plainness—of ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... if you don't mind. You have been abominably treated and you seek no revenge. That is very fine. You have been abominably treated and you bear no malice. That is superior. You have been abominably treated and you accept it with a smile. That is alchemy. It is only a noble nature ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... cap'en!" exclaimed Mr Lathrope, who with the others of the rescued party was on deck, not liking the rather fusty odour of the schooner's cabin—which, to do justice to Mrs Major Negus, did smell most abominably of seal-oil, and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson |
