"Libellous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... law, and social forms were developed, but moral idealism reached a height that compares well even with that of modern times. The recovery in our time of the actual remains of Egypt and Babylon has corrected much of the libellous legend, which found its way into Greek and European literature, concerning those ancient civilisations. But, as culture advances, human development becomes so complex that we must refrain from attempting to pursue, ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... to Shelley throughout the Scythrop of Nightmare Abbey, but there Peacock was hardly using the knife at all. When he satirises persons, he goes so far away from their real personalities that the libel ceases to be libellous. It is difficult to say whether Mr. Mystic, Mr. Flosky, or Mr. Skionar is least like Coleridge; and Southey, intensely sensitive as he was to criticism, need not have lost his equanimity over Mr. ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... nostrum speculator, it is not to be wondered at that the infamous name of the Comtesse de Lamotte, and others of the same stamp, should have thus fallen into an association of the Prince-Cardinal or that her libellous stories of the Queen of France should have found eager promulgators, where the real diamonds of the famous necklace being taken apart were divided piecemeal among a horde of the most depraved sharpers that ever existed to make human nature blush at ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... allowed her to see none but those persons who I thought, in her delicate health, would be fitting society for her; yet the infernal Tiptoffs got wind of my scheme, protested instantly against it, not only by letter, but in the shameful libellous public prints, and held me up to public odium as a 'child-forger,' as they called me. Of course I denied the charge—I could do no otherwise, and offered to meet any one of the Tiptoffs on the field of honour, and prove ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... position, and had lied to her, and worn a mask, and deliberately planned to make her his mistress; but he would no more have taken another man's name in order to see her than he would have picked a pocket or sent a libellous post-card. Being ignorant of these fine distinctions, she went down to the little sitting-room on the ground floor greatly fearing. Her visitor was standing at the window on the opposite side of the room, and turned round as she entered; a natty- looking man, middle-aged, with brown moustache, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... actor-managers drew forth Garrick's indignation. The results of this were to be realised later in Goldsmith's career. The judicial severities levelled against the tribe of publishers gathered black clouds. Griffiths took the onslaught on his craft as personal, and thundered out a libellous retort, that, wanting much, was lacking nothing in spite, which failing in taste found its fruition in malice. Griffiths was one of those mean men who can never forgive, and whose deeds in sober truth do test the force ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... and going, or rather ever coming fresh and never going, till the reflection from her countenance would illumine the whole room, and light up the faces of all around her. But now she almost blushed black. She had delighted hitherto in all the little bits of libellous tittle tattle to which her position as a young old maid had given rise, and had affected always to assist their propagation; but there was a poison about this old female snake, a sting in the tongue of this old adder ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... expression on our virgin queen, as falsely as other things have been charged upon her. Some have not sticked to say 'that David hath been as much persecuted by bungling translators as by Saul himself.' Some have made libellous verses in abuse of them, and no wonder if songs were made on the translators of the Psalms, seeing drunkards made them on David the ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... to know that you are the greatest villain unhung, that you are ruining Madame d'Urfe with your impious lies; that you are a sorcerer, a forger, an utter of false moneys, a poisoner—in short, the worst of men. He does not intend to publish a libellous pamphlet upon you, but to accuse you before the courts, alleging that he wants reparation for the wrongs you have done his person, his honour, and his life, for he says you are killing him by a slow poison. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the whole of the libel had been read at length, as appears from p. 655 to p. 666.[10] So that Dr. Sacheverell had substantially the same benefit of anything which could be alleged in the extenuation or exculpation as if his libellous sermons had been entered verbatim upon the recorded impeachment. It was adjudged sufficient to state the crime generally in the impeachment. The libels were given in evidence; and it was not then thought of, that nothing should be given in evidence which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of detraction is unhappily a thoroughly English vice, flourishing under all circumstances, and quite as prevalent, though not, perhaps, equally hurtful, in great cities as in the smallest village. The same people who in London delight in the perusal of newspapers of the most libellous description, and who read with avidity every publication which attacks private character, will, when removed into a congenial sphere, pick their neighbours to pieces; an amusement which cannot be enjoyed in the metropolis, where happily we do not know ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... she was stopped at the doors. "Lef me card at 'ome," was her majestic reply. Before they had recovered she was in the aisle. Having regard to her appearance, I am of opinion that such conduct is libellous. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... know, that no one but Chloe could have known some of the details which were mentioned in the letters. I can't tell you how vile the whole thing was—and it was quite evidently the intention of the anonymous writer to drive Mrs. Ogden out of the parish by those libellous documents." ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... so later demanded an almost entire rewriting of the description. Doubtless it has altered at least as much since then, and very likely the one or two slightly critical remarks of the handbook of 1893 are already grossly libellous. Denver quadrupled its population between 1880 and 1890. The value of its manufactures and of the precious ores smelted here reaches a fabulous amount of millions of dollars. The usual proportion of "million" and "two million dollar buildings" have been erected. Many of the principal streets are ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Mr. Whiston published Cathedral Trusts and their Fulfilment, which ran through several editions, and was immediately followed by his dismissal from his mastership, on the ground that he had published "false, scandalous, and libellous" statements, and had libelled "the Chapter of Rochester and other Chapters, and also the Bishop." Much litigation followed—appeals to the Court of Chancery, the Court of Queen's Bench, and Doctors' Commons, which resulted in his ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... contains an incentive to the assassination of the Emperor, appears to him apocryphal: that, if it should prove genuine, it would be unexampled in the history of the world: that the libellous style, in which it is written, gives room to suppose, it ought to be classed among the papers fabricated by party-spirit, and by those pamphleteers, who of late years have foisted themselves uncommissioned into all state affairs: that it pretends to be signed by the English ministers; but it is ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... shall now attend with such a homily, as shall lay before ye, first the inventors of it to be those whom ye will be loath to own; next what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; and that this Order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed. Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... come forward and declare that at the time of Mr. Halliday's death they had suspected Mr. Sheldon of poisoning him, would be to prove nothing to the minds of a British jury, except that the three people in question were libellous and ill-disposed persons. The greater the issue, the wider the chances of escape given to the accused; and a petty offender will be condemned for picking a pocket upon much lighter grounds than will be ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... itself,—the cellars rented by mechanics, scarcely removed a step from paupers, often by outcasts and fugitives from the law, often by some daring writer, who, after scattering amongst the people doctrines the most subversive of order, or the most libellous on the characters of priest, minister, and king, retired amongst the rats, to escape the persecution that attends the virtuous; the ground-floor occupied by shops; the entresol by artists; the principal stories by nobles; and the garrets by ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Governor. That is he seated at the table, the soldiers showing him the libellous representations of the Croats found in Brown's portfolio. The latter expects to be ordered for instant execution; but Jones assumes an air of great dignity, ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle
... "Libellous as usual, Nora," Dartrey murmured, without turning his head. "Mr. Tallente is providing me with a few minutes of intense enjoyment. He has assured me that his time is ours. Soon I shall finish my tea, light a cigarette and talk. Just now you ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Iquique, Antofagasta and Coquimbo. The coast country is so desolate and arid that at some of these purely nitrate towns school-children's knowledge of trees and other plants is derived solely from painted representations on boardings erected for the purpose. This may seem libellous, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... Hastings did attempt to justify his publication of the said libellous letter to and against the Court of Directors by asserting therein that these resolutions (meaning the resolutions of the Court of Directors relative to the Rajah of Benares) "were either published or intended for publication": evidently proving that he did take this unwarrantable course ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... may be readily imagined, though it might not be pleasant to describe. Suffice it to say, that she sees no shame in addressing them, or in allowing herself to be addressed by a name which a Court of law has held to be libellous when applied to a burlesque actress. She is always at Hurlingham or the Ranelagh, and has seen pigeons killed without a qualm. She never misses a Sandown or a Kempton meeting; she dazzles the eyes of the throng at Ascot every year, and never ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... French continued to increase in the north of Europe. About the end of September there appeared at Kiel, in Denmark, a libellous pamphlet, which was bought and read with inconceivable avidity. This pamphlet, which was very ably written, was the production of some fanatic who openly preached a crusade against France. The author regarded ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a London bookseller, notorious for the issue of libellous and of obscene publications, and for prosecutions he was subjected to in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... guardian of the night, who was carefully perambulating his beat, in innocent unconsciousness of any offence. In spite of all he could say, he was disarmed and carried off to the watch-house, and charged with causing a disturbance by singing libellous songs. The officer of the police shook his head at the unaccountable event, and said: "We have already one watchman in custody, whose verses about some girl caused a very serious affray between the town's people ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... pilloried, to lose their ears, and to be imprisoned, one at Launceston Castle, in Cornwall, and the other in Lancaster Castle. It does not appear that the burning of their books was on this occasion included in the sentence; but as the order for seizing libellous books was sometimes a separate matter from the sentence itself (Laud's Hist., 252), or could be ordered by the Archbishop alone, one may feel fairly ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... Brander. There is no occasion for you to fit the cap on to your own head yet. If you think there is anything in my story of a libellous nature you are at liberty to call your two clerks in to listen to it. Well, sir, the scheme this lawyer I am telling you about worked out did credit to his genius—it was complicated, bold, and novel. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... hint was further thrown out, that "it was the custom of the trade, that, until a work was published, the MS. should not be parted with by the publisher, as it might turn out that some part of it was libellous, and in such case the publisher must produce the MS." In the end the gallant colonel (whom the newspaper reports described as "very much excited,") took nothing by his motion in regard to the recovery of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... certain extent, a newspaper. Addison wrote in the Freeholder, and Steele in the Englishman, both being political journals opposed to the Government. For certain articles in this last, which were declared to be libellous, and for a pamphlet, entitled The Crisis, which he published about the same time, poor 'little Dicky, whose trade it was,' according to his quondam friend Addison, 'to write pamphlets,' was expelled the House of Commons, despite the support ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... man? Prosecutions in regard to anonymous letters, threatening letters, begging letters, passed through his mind. He knew that punishment had been inflicted on the writers of insolent letters to royalty. And letters had been proved to be criminal as being libellous,—only then they must be published; and letters were sometimes held to form a conspiracy;—but he could not quite see his way to that. He knew that he was not royal; and he knew that the Vicar neither threatened him or begged aught from him. What if St. George should tell him again ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Concert, sir! we have musicians, too, among us. True, merry beggars, indeed, that, being within the reach of the lash for singing libellous songs at London, were fain to fly into one cover, and here they sing all our poets' ditties. They can sing anything, most tunably, sir, but psalms. What they may do hereafter, under a triple tree, is much expected; but they live very civilly ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... inform you that she has used those reports as the basis of a libellous story which she is about to print. Now answer me, did you give her any real evidence that would stand the test ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... street, below, the assistant of the Clutching Hand who had waited while Taylor Dodge was electrocuted, was waiting now as his confederate, "Pitts Slim"—which indicated that he was both wiry in stature and libellous in delegating ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... When all the Chiefs Have been disposed of. Some have fled to Chiozza; But there are thousands in pursuit of them, And such precaution ta'en on terra firma, As well as in the islands, that we hope None will escape to utter in strange lands His libellous tale of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the first time of what had happened. He was coming down from the office of the Will-o'-the-Wisp one afternoon, after a talk with the editor concerning a paragraph in his last week's causerie which had been complained of as libellous, and which would probably lead to the 'case' so much desired by everyone connected with the paper, when someone descending from a higher storey of the building overtook him and laid a hand on his shoulder. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... means in motion, in order to win over public opinion and the judges. To this end they visited the members of Parliament, brought presents to those of them who were willing to receive them, made use of mercenary authors to hurl libellous pamphlets at the queen, published brochures which, in dignified language, defended the cardinal in advance, and exhibited him as the victim of his devotion and love to the royal family. Everybody read these pamphlets; and when at last the day ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... they were sure his affections would be shared by some of the best-looking of the females amongst them, and his conduct towards the remainder that of a very demon." These sentiments I very soon ascertained to be in no way libellous. A southern wife, if she is prodigally furnished with dollars to "go shopping," apparently considers it no drawback to her happiness if some brilliant mulatto or quadroon woman ensnares her husband. Of course there are exceptions, but the patriarchal usage is so engrafted in society there, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... Mr. Harley and Prior; but Mr. St. John did not come, though he promised: he chid me for not seeing him oftener. Here is a damned, libellous pamphlet come out against Lord Wharton, giving the character first, and then telling some of his actions: the character is very well, but the facts indifferent.(29) It has been sent by dozens to several gentlemen's lodgings, and I had one or two of them; but ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... branded by every journal in London, as an unprincipled and unparalleled reprobate. The public, without waiting to think or even to inquire after the truth, instantly selected as genuine the most false and the most flagrant of the fifty libellous narratives that were circulated of the transaction. Stories, inconsistent with themselves, were all alike eagerly believed, and what evidence there might be for any one of them, the virtuous people, by whom ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... soutane. But little Du Monstier observed him, and said furiously to the Cardinal, that a holy man should not bring thieves and robbers in his company. With these words, and with others of a violent and libellous character, he recovered the "History of the Council of Trent," and kicked out the future Pope. Amelot de la Houssaie traces to this incident the hatred borne by Innocent X. to the Crown and the people of France. Another Pope, while only a cardinal, stole a book from Menage—so ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... aunt told him, but he mixes it up with O'More, and insists on my complaining to Mr. Goldsmith, and getting the lad dismissed for a libellous caricaturist, as he calls it. Now, little as I should have expected such conduct from O'More, it could not be made a ground of complaint to ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... papers. Do you know there's a man in this town who makes his living by sending such things to New York? Something scandalous, if possible; if not scandalous, then libellous; if not actually libellous, then derogatory ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... acknowledged, possessed a keen sense of humour, and was not so much ashamed of it as he ought to have been, wrote—very occasionally—for Punch, and more often for Fun, was dramatic critic of a lively society paper, and "did" the books—in a sarcastic vein—for a very unmuzzled "weekly," that was libellous by profession and truthful by oversight. Trenchard, on the other hand, wrote a good deal of very condensed fiction, and generally placed it; contributed brilliant fugitive articles to various papers and magazines, and was generally spoken of by the inner circle of the craft ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... attention had been taken of me in my own country, that was not a personal notoriety over some conflict of the hour. Whenever the American newspaper begins to describe your home life with an air of analysis that is not libellous you are among the famous. It took me a little while to understand this. A man's private life is of such indifferent character to himself, unless he be an official representative of the people, that I never quite ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... grievances that the Assembly alone was the proper body to correct the people's wrongs.[784] Yet when the commons did come to the Burgesses with their complaints they were repulsed with harsh reproofs and even severe punishment. Certain grievances from Isle of Wight county were denounced as "libellous, Scandalous and rebellious" and "the chiefe persons in the Subscriptions" were to be punished "to the merits of their Crymes".[785] A petition from Gloucester county was declared to savor so strongly of the "old leaven of rebellion" that it must be expunged from the ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... in keeping them, there were various rumors afloat about town, in the utterance of which, libellous as some of them were, Mrs. —— was perhaps the loudest and most malicious; she having hinted, among other scandalous conjectures, that the soup from alligator-tail being very palatable and delicate, a speculation ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... paper. Editors have grown very much too lax in this respect. The old editor used dimly to regard himself as an unofficial public servant for the transmitting of public news. If he suppressed anything, he was supposed to have some special reason for doing so; as that the material was actually libellous or literally indecent. But the modern editor regards himself far too much as a kind of original artist, who can select and suppress facts with the arbitrary ease of a poet or a caricaturist. He "makes up" the paper as man ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... I am following the instructions of my client, Mr. Beenstock, and the remark you have just let fall, before witnesses, appears to me to bear a libellous reflection on the action of ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... policy of the world, has been seated in the heart of nations of a similar description, and they have almost constantly, been embroiled in wars. If Christian policy has had its influence on Barbarians, it would be libellous to say, that it would not have its influence upon those who profess to be Christians. Let us then again, from the instances which have been now recited, deprecate the necessity of wars. Let us not think so meanly of the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... note of Aaron Vail Brown, while it so effectually demolishes Jackson's fable of Erving's treaty with Spain for the boundary of the Rio del Norte, and his libellous charge against our government for surrendering the territory which they had the option to retain, is, with this exception, as wide and as wilful a departure from the truth as the calumny of Jackson itself, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... freebooter. She draws no nice distinctions between a mouse in the wainscot, and a canary swinging in its gilded cage. Her traducers, indeed, have been wont to intimate that her preference is for the forbidden quarry; but this is one of many libellous accusations. The cat, though she has little sympathy with our vapid sentiment, can be taught that a canary is a privileged nuisance, immune from molestation. The bird's shrill notes jar her sensitive nerves. She abhors noise, and a canary's pipe is the most piercing and persistent of noises, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... a Whig journalist, of whom Pope (Dunciad, i. 208) wrote— "To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist." He edited the Flying Post for some years, and also wrote for the Medley in 1712. In September William Hurt and Ridpath were arrested for libellous and seditious articles, but were released on bail. On October 23 they appeared before the Court of Queen's Bench, and were continued on their recognizances. In February 1713 Ridpath was tried and, in spite of an able defence by leading Whig lawyers, was convicted. Sentence was postponed, and when ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... suffering from hallucinations, but I could swear that just now I saw looking through that door the same improper young woman clothed in a few flowers and nothing else, whose photograph in that abominable and libellous book was indirectly the ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... requesting him to engage lodgings at Lovett's, afterwards the City Hotel. He sent for Cheetham, on the evening of his arrival. The journalist obeyed the summons immediately. This was the first interview between Paine and the man who was to hang, draw, and quarter his memory in a biography. This libellous performance was written shortly after Paine's death. It was intended as a peace-offering to the English government. The ex-hatter had made up his mind to return home, and he wished to prove the sincerity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... enough to be libellous. Just cast your eye over this copy. Your uncle sent this to me as a present, the first work of his nephew. I thought at first he was trying to be friendly again, till I opened the book! Just look at it, sir!' And the old man fumbled through the leaves with his ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... learned and orthodox divines from the pulpits, had, from the commencement of this 'memorable Parliament,' under the notion of reformation and extirpation of popery, infused seditious inclinations into the hearts of men against the present government of the church with many libellous invectives against the state. But now they contained themselves in no bounds, and as freely and without controul inveighed against the person of the King, prophanely and blasphemously applying whatever had been ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... lest the holy oil should have lost its efficacy through the interdict; and she entreated Renard to procure her a fresh supply from Flanders, blessed by the excellent hands of the Bishop of Arras. But the oil was not the gravest difficulty. As the rumour spread of the intended Spanish marriage, libellous handbills were scattered about London; the people said it should not be till they had fought for it. A disturbance at Greenwich, on the 25th of September, extended to Southwark, {p.060} where Gardiner's house was attacked,[135] and a plot was discovered to murder him: in ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude |
