"Viciousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as ready a man as any half-dozen young mates that may be caught by casting a net upon the waters; and though he had been somewhat taken aback by the startling viciousness of the first squall, he had pulled himself together on the instant, had called out the hands and had rushed them along to secure such openings about the deck as had not been already battened down earlier in the evening. Shouting in his fresh, stentorian voice, "Jump, boys, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... and content stole over me. I was not sorry for him. All the viciousness of my nature was uppermost in me. Once, when he missed the ball clean at the fifth tee, his eye met mine, and we stood staring at each other for a full half minute without moving. I believe if I had ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... highest development of the supernaturally perceptive and positive woman, since she usually has superior opportunities to study man in all the stages from marriage to madness; but with her whole sex, particularly after certain sour turns in life, inheres an alertness of observation as to the incredible viciousness of masculine character, which nothing less than a bit of flattery or a happily equivocal reflection upon some rival sister can either divert or mislead for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... some restraint in vice when virtue is present, but with Barbara's departure all restraint seemed to vanish. There were probably degrees in the viciousness of these men and women, but, as a whole, it would have been difficult to bring together a more abandoned company. High play was here, and the ruin of many a man's fortune. Honour, save of the spurious ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... some viciousness of the yard, as if the same be crooked, or any ligaments thereof distorted and broken, whereby the ways and passages, through which the seed should flow, come to ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Preposterous! He cried out that the charge was outrageous. He was so far from pessimism that he saw already the end of all private property coming along logically, unavoidably, by the mere development of its inherent viciousness. The possessors of property had not only to face the awakened proletariat, but they had also to fight amongst themselves. Yes. Struggle, warfare, was the condition of private ownership. It was fatal. Ah! he did not depend upon emotional excitement to keep up his belief, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Paris, as one of the most honest and honourable of men, disinterested, frank, without any reserve, always ready to help, the very peculiar appearance of his eyes, which were small, deep-set, green, and glittering, might have drawn upon him the suspicion of lurking malice and viciousness. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... which she took against the great minister was the fruit of mere inconsiderateness and ignorance of the feelings and necessities of the nation, and that, if she had known the depth of the people's distress, and the degree in which it was caused by the viciousness of the whole existing system of government, she would gladly have promoted every measure which could tend to their relief, we may find abundant proof in a letter which she had written to her mother, a few weeks earlier. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... the dread boasts of confessors, who had wickedly abused their office, trampling to deep degradation high-born ladies, making of countesses and princesses the most tormented slaves under the sun. Stories like that of Conrad and Elizabeth of Hungary, recurred again and again, with all its dreadful viciousness, sickening tyranny and black impiety: tales that were nightmares ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... and slay, the long-imprisoned evils rushed forth upon the fair earth and on the human beings who lived on it—malignant, ruthless, fierce, treacherous, and cruel—poisoning, slaying, devouring. Plague and pestilence and murder, envy and malice and revenge and all viciousness—an ugly wolf-pack indeed was that one let loose by Pandora. Terror, doubt, misery, had all rushed straightway to attack her heart, while the evils of which she had never dreamed stung mind and soul into dismay and horror, when, by hastily shutting ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... mother was what we call an outcast. Can you reasonably look for morality of any sort in the offspring of such an infamous union? You do not answer, because you cannot! I defy any of your Christians to straighten out this matter. The viciousness of most children is their only endowment, unless we add the poverty, the diseases and the hopelessness that go with it. Now to consider her environments and her temptations in that store. She is working for thieves, ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... respect for their riches, with an amiable curiosity concerning their footmen's calves. Nevertheless, to the end he was not kinder to Dives' oppression, less sympathetic towards the troubles of Lazarus, nor more indulgent to the vulgarity of the snob; nor a whit more tolerant of viciousness, affectation, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... when the old man stood forth to console and encourage, but yet to give warning strong and clear that these frightful catastrophes were in great measure the effect of our sins, our fostering of heathenism, our recognition of caste, and were especially a judgment on the viciousness and irreligion that had been the curse of English life in India. It was in open Christianity alone ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... reformed is so obviously unreasonable, so flagrantly absurd and vicious, that we should not believe it could possibly exist among sensible people, had we not become accustomed to its existence among ourselves. In truth, we can hardly bring the whole exorbitance of that viciousness and absurdity home to our own minds unless we contemplate it as reflected in the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... our viciousness grow hard, O, misery on't! the wise gods seal our eyes: In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us Adore our errors, laugh at us while ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... think Dan is worse than his father," returned Dick. "There is a certain viciousness about him that is lacking ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... indicate that this was in a measure understood, but the tenor of the despatches also shows that it was thought the evils arose less from viciousness of the governed than from want of ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... of night this, to come breaking a man's rest!" growled the voice of Archelaus, audibly, and not without viciousness, as though he meant it to ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... him off and would not permit him to enter their circle. When dragged past another of his companions in misfortune, who was lying exhausted on the ground, he flew upon him and attempted to fasten his teeth in his head; this was the only instance of viciousness which occurred during the progress of the corral. When tied up and overpowered, he was at first noisy and violent, but soon lay down peacefully, a sign, according to the hunters, that his death was at hand. Their prognostication was correct; he continued for about twelve ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... praise of white, one does not expect—"I think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues;" but this is said merely in aversion to purple. "I think the first approach to viciousness of colour in any master, is commonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow." "I am equally certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colourists of the present day, by the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and intermediate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... and taking the citadel; of the other's glory, a man's share appertained to all the soldiers who conquered along with him; that in his victory no man living was a sharer. His mind puffed by these notions, and moreover, from a viciousness of disposition being vehement and headstrong, when he perceived that his influence among the patricians did not stand forth as prominent as he thought it should, he, the first of all the patricians, became a plebeian partisan, and formed plans in conjunction with the plebeian magistrates; ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Mark" and "Rappacini's Daughter" are like divergent lines, which originate at an single point; and that point is the radical viciousness of trying experiments on human beings. It is bad enough, although excusable, to vivisect dogs and rabbits; but why should we attempt the same course of procedure with those that are nearest and dearest to us? Such parables were not required in the time of Tiberius Casar and men ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... times he was moved by a strange pity, for Olivier Delagarde was, in truth, far older than his years: a thin, shuffling, pallid invalid, with a face of mingled sanctity and viciousness. If the old man lied, and had not been in prison all these years, he must have had misery far worse, for neither vice nor poverty alone could so shatter a human being. The son's pity seemed to look down from a great height upon the contemptible figure with the beautiful white ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... than the viciousness of his life, was the brazen openness with which he flaunted it in ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... only one son, who was one of the worst men in the whole Empire. Each day there were complaints against him; the Emperor himself frequently admonished him on account of the high esteem he had for his brave father. But there resulted no improvement, and his natural viciousness only manifested itself the more. He was killed in some battle, I forget which; and as little worthy of regret as he was, his death was a deep affliction to his excellent mother, although he even forgot himself so far as to speak disrespectfully of her in his coarse speeches. She ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... as she is, and painted what he saw, delighted in this effect of sunlight and shadow. As a ruling colour, whether in flesh or otherwise, purple is commonly too cold, or verges on ghastliness, a fault which is to be as much avoided as the opposite extreme of viciousness ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... the wretchedness of the weather and the merits of tea, with a digression relative to the viciousness of boys as a rule, and the amiability of Master Peplow as an exception, Mrs. Walker sees her husband coming down the street; and as he must want his tea, poor man, after his dirty walk from the Docks, she instantly runs across, muffins in hand, and Mrs. Macklin does the same, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... missionary does not only tell the heathen that his religion is false, but he instructs him in the new one which is to take its place. The scientist, besides maintaining that old theories are exploded, explains to the student new facts which have superseded them. Mary, after demonstrating the viciousness of existing educational systems, suggests wherein they may be improved, so that women, their understandings trained and developed, may have the chance to show what they ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... obligation, for the interests concerned were not his. But the matter went deeper than a prospective money loss; it struck down to principles and rights—the principles of order and industry as against viciousness and havoc; the rights of law-abiding men who create as against the wantonness of lawless men ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... one of you who fears to examine why it is that even the most specious form of vice is vicious? You fear not infection here, for you know that you are on sure ground, and that there is no form of vice of which the viciousness is not clearly provable; but can you doubt that the foundation of your faith is sure also, and can you not see that your cowardice in not daring to examine the foul and soul-destroying den of infidelity is a stumbling-block to ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... dining-room of the Post, Grant was slowly and reluctantly allowing himself to be convinced that his injuries were not fatal. During this process considerable Scotch whiskey was consumed and there was much conversation about the viciousness of dogs. Grant insisted that Pichou was mad and had a devil. MacIntosh admitted the devil, but firmly denied the madness. The question was, whether the dog should be killed or not; and over this point there was like to be more bloodshed, until Dan Scott made his contribution to the argument: ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... easy to see how a man expecting a polite, formal duel can be completely shattered by the viciousness of such an attack. And the machine amplifies every impulse, ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... schisms. As if he had forgotten that he had already berated them, the Apostle once more reproves those who provoke and envy others. Was not one reference to them sufficient? He repeats his admonition in order to emphasize the viciousness of pride that had caused all the trouble in the churches of Galatia, and has always caused the Church of Christ no end of difficulties. In his Epistle to Titus the Apostle states that a vainglorious man should not be ordained as a minister, for pride, as St. Augustine ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... from distant provinces, with no possible personal grievances against the priests whom they martyrized. Their action was the result, not of an "ebullition of revenge for three centuries of tyranny" as stated by Blount, but of insensate greed of gold and damnable viciousness. I believe the American people will hold that such cruelities brand those who practise them as unfit to govern their ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... includes the people with whom we are directly or indirectly associated. The presence in any community of those who are immoral, inefficient, or defective, places a burden upon those who are mentally and physically capable and renders them liable to results which are the outgrowth of weakness or viciousness. The fact that alcohol causes pauperism, crime, and general inefficiency, thereby rendering the social environment less conducive to what is best in life, is plainly evident. To realize how alcohol harms the individual through its effects upon society ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... there was no stint. As an illustration of this, I remember on one occasion a friend—not rich—known to us both, had given me a picture to dispose of, as she did not care for it: it was small, and out of condition, and of an objectionable subject, though we had not perceived its closely veiled viciousness. I failed in persuading a picture dealer to purchase it, and, having to return home by my husband's chambers, I there found Mr. Hope-Scott. I mentioned my want of success, and your father at once said, 'Let us see it.' It was fetched ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Matty, still half doubtful whether or no to be gracious, and eying me with a gaze which had some lingering viciousness in it, rose half reluctantly to her feet. Standing so, her deformity was even more visible than it was when she was seated; and it took all my nerve and power of will to take the measure of the mis-shapen shoulders without shrinking from the touch. And then ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... and drunkenness enough that day. Wherever there was poverty he had seen viciousness flourishing. Wherever there was despair there was a drowning of sorrow in drink. They had passed scores of public houses, that afternoon, through the doors of which workmen were thronging. Coming along George street, ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... moral progress of the people would be lost. With the schools would go the churches. There could be no assemblages for worship, no services even for the departed, piety would be swallowed up in viciousness. ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... Harding, that you will never regret having spoken them," and to the bottom of his heart the man meant what he said, at the moment; for inherent chivalry is as difficult to suppress or uproot as is inherent viciousness. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with a viciousness. It knew now that it was finally in control. That the full change had been completed. And it ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... to-day be the result not only of the ruthless command from the official higher up but also of the de-souling, materialistic influence of Socialism on the common people of Germany during the past twenty-five years? Is not the viciousness of Prussian militarism plus the demoralizing influence ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... rider checked his mount's startled leap by jerking back on the reins with a viciousness that threw the animal's open mouth straight ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... of the sensational robbery, the prominence of the victim and the viciousness of the attack. Elias Droom read the accounts eagerly as he breakfasted in the dingy little restaurant near his home, bright and early. He grinned appreciably over the share of glory that fell to him; and he actually cackled over the new developments ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... plate-glass windows were wantonly broken by young toughs, every year, for which his and other insurance companies had to recoup the owners. In fact, he alleged heatedly, window breaking was a sign of peculiar viciousness. Incipient criminals usually started their infamous careers that way; you could read that in any book on penology. An example ought to be made. He'd bet this feller who threw the brick ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... much about New York, all quite as pessimistic as the London romancer's talk had been enthusiastic. He suffered from misfortune which he blamed, unhesitatingly, to the vileness of the prosperous and ranted endlessly without attracting much attention till he touched upon the subject of the viciousness of the American rich man with women. This roused Kreutzer fully, for one of the tales the babbler told was of a gilded youth who had befriended poverty in order to obtain the confidence of lowly beauty and then, of ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... noticed before we proceed to review the sects of to-day. Hindu morality, the ethical tone of the modern sects, is older than the special forms of Hindu viciousness which have been received into the cult. A negative altruism (beyond which Brahmanism never got) is characteristic of the Hindu sects. But this is already embodied in the golden rule, as it is thus formulated in the epic 'Compendium ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... explain," he asked hastily, "the drift (of your argument)." To which Yue-ts'un responded: "Of the human beings created by the operation of heaven and earth, if we exclude those who are gifted with extreme benevolence and extreme viciousness, the rest, for the most part, present no striking diversity. If they be extremely benevolent, they fall in, at the time of their birth, with an era of propitious fortune; while those extremely vicious correspond, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... find out of the horse shows any viciousness towards other horses or towards human beings; also, whether he is skittish; (8) such defects are apt to cause ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... are poor, on the other. A great gulf separates these two classes, who have nothing in common, and society rests on a social basis composed of forlorn, dissatisfied, ignorant people, developing day by day still more the accompaniments of ignorance and poverty—brutality, viciousness, drunkenness, and ferocity. This separation has too long continued, has too long left the country a prey to political demagogues, who have plunged it into repeated turmoils, and finally into civil war, by being able to operate upon the fears ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... force of truth did of itself flash into mine eyes, and I turned away my panting soul from incorporeal substance to lineaments, and colours, and bulky magnitudes. And not being able to see these in the mind, I thought I could not see my mind. And whereas in virtue I loved peace, and in viciousness I abhorred discord; in the first I observed a unity, but in the other, a sort of division. And in that unity I conceived the rational soul, and the nature of truth and of the chief good to consist; but in ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... is founded. There are still two vices which are fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to remain undisguised, not even concealing from themselves the fact that they are vices and not virtues. One is drunkenness; the other fornication. The viciousness of these vices is so little disguised, even from those who habitually practise them, that there will be a protest against merely describing one of them by the right Biblical name. Why not say prostitution? For this ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... not long remain alone. Idleness begets vice. Viciousness shows itself in various forms: in lying, Sabbath-breaking, theft, swearing, and intemperance. Charles grew worse and worse,—adding sin to sin. He became greatly addicted to swearing. He frequently ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... creature, nocturnal in his habits, with large ears, and large, fine eyes full of a wild, harmless look. He is daintily marked, with white feet and a white belly. When disturbed by day he is very easily captured, having none of the cunning or viciousness of ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... is open to still graver objections. Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues; the only one shared with us by the beasts of the field; the one most apt, by excess, to run into viciousness. And since Nature generally takes away with one hand to counter-balance her gifts with the other, excessive animal courage, in many cases, only finds room in a character vacated of loftier things. But in a naval officer, animal courage is ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... head of the forest indifferently, turning away as McGinnis and Ben came up, "turn on your viciousness whenever you like." Saying which, he rode away without paying further heed to the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... growing restive, moving, stamping, snorting, and becoming quarrelsome together. Macdonald's little range animal had a viciousness in it, and would not make friends with the chestnut cavalry horse. It squealed and bit, and even tried to use its heels, at ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... hope for the future depended peculiarly on careful and delicate dealing with these criminals. Their offences at first were those of laziness, carelessness, and impulse, rather than of malignity or ungoverned viciousness. Such misdemeanors needed discriminating treatment, firm but reformatory, with no hint of injustice, and full proof of guilt. For such dealing with criminals, white or black, the South had no machinery, no adequate jails or reformatories; its police system was arranged ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... their children the potential influence of kindness to dumb animals and to birds. By it they will conquer what of viciousness, ugliness, or wildness is often the character of their beasts of burden; and they will find, by the almost total eradication of the destructive flies and insects which are the scourge of their crops, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... them against the eleven of us. But there are men, strong in viciousness, among them. They, too, have their serfs and bravos. Guido Bombini and Isaac Chantz are certainly bravos. And weaklings like Sorensen, and Jacobsen, and Bob, cannot be anything else than slaves to the men who ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... the simpering viciousness of her comments on the new furniture, stirred Carol to economy. She spoke judiciously to Bea about left-overs. She read the cookbook again and, like a child with a picture-book, she studied the diagram of the beef which ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Ego is little more [62] than a bundle of potentialities. But, very early, these become acutalities; from childhood to age they manifest themselves in dulness or brightness, weakness or strength, viciousness or uprightness; and with each feature modified by confluence with another character, if by nothing else, the character passed on to ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... many who alledge, that slaves can not at once be entrusted with the powers and privileges of self-government. However this may be, they can not be better qualified under the influence of slavery. That must be broken up from which their ignorance, and viciousness, and wretchedness proceeded. That which can only do what it has always done, pollute and degrade, must not be employed to purify and elevate. The lower their character and condition, the louder, clearer, sterner, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... allurement of the unsophisticated, who saw in this strained and overdone imitation of the old West the romance of their expectations. If they hadn't found it there thousands of them would have been disappointed, perhaps disillusioned with a healthful jolt. All the reality about it was its viciousness, and that ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... snow as it comes and hurls it defiantly at every obstruction with the viciousness of an exasperated woman. Now it shakes the dugout, and, as it passes on, shrieks invective at the world over which it rushes, and everything it touches feels the bitter lash of the whipping snow it bears upon its bosom. Again come the strange howls of the animal world, but they sound more distant ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... wild viciousness now. They won't let a ship get near them. They destroy everything on sight. They seem tremendously afraid of that apparatus of yours. Too ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... people Mrs Hamps was apparently convinced that the explanation of Parnell's scandalous fall and of his early death was to be found in the inherent viciousness of the Home Rule cause, and also that the circumstances of his end were a proof that Home Rule was cursed of God. She reasoned with equal power forwards and backwards. And she was so earnest and so dignified that Edwin was sneaped into silence. Once more ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... vice; evil-doing, evil courses; wrongdoing; wickedness, viciousness &c adj.; iniquity, peccability^, demerit; sin, Adam^; old Adam^, offending Adam^. immorality, impropriety, indecorum, scandal, laxity, looseness of morals; enphagy^, dophagy^, exophagy^; want of principle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... were not the worst injuries to mar the girl convict's life. That which bore upon her most weightily and incessantly was the degradation of this environment from which there was never any respite, the viciousness of this spot wherein she had been cast through no fault of her own. Vileness was everywhere, visibly in the faces of many, and it was brimming from the souls of more, subtly hideous. The girl held herself rigidly from any personal intimacy with her fellows. To some extent, at least, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... vindication. His railing and ridicule against creatures who yearned, grimaced—neurasthenics, in short—left him with no fine feeling of the victorious sufficiency of himself. Thus to conceal himself from doubts always threatening an appearance, it was necessary for him to assume a viciousness of attitude not entirely sincere. So he read with unction political speeches and art reviews denouncing the phantasts of his day, and from them he borrowed elaborate invective. Yet his invective seemed like ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... circumstances of the case. In some men it results in paralysis of the energies, changing the character into shiftlessness. In other cases it results in destroying the moral sense, but does not amount to positive viciousness, while on the other hand it may result as it unquestionably did in this case, in absolutely perverting the affections so as to render the man incapable of the natural feelings of a husband and father, and supplying motives which ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... all the laws of Affinity must stand or fall together, and that no ground in reason can be alleged against marriage with a husband's brother which does not tell against marriage with a wife's sister. Yet again he regarded the proposed changes as betraying the smug viciousness of ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... a taste of viciousness. "I did give them a little time," he agreed. "How was I to know?" He looked calmly at them over the tops of his glasses. "You can go now," he said, ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... heretic. But this way of viewing Islamism in some inconceivable relation to the Church of England, or to Protestantism, would not be more extravagant than the attempt to fasten upon an oriental prince the charge of debauchery and a dissolute life. The very viciousness of Asiatic institutions protects him from such reproaches. The effeminate delicacy of easterns, and the morbid principle of seclusion on which they build their domestic honour, will for ever secure both Hindoo Pagans and Mussulmans from blame ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... been ripped to ribbons and his exposed chest showed a spiderwork of scratches, where branches and brambles had sought to restrain him in his frenzied flight. Across his back from shoulder to shoulder ran a deeper cut around which the caked blood attested to the needle-sharp viciousness of a thorn bush a mile to the north. With each tortured breath he winced, as drops of sweat ran down, following the spiderwork network and burning like acid. Incessantly he rubbed his bruised torso with mud-caked palms to dislodge the gnats and mosquitoes ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... been ruffled, would have grown up in a vicious and futile court, were forced to practise economies and learn at first hand the dignity of labour. With those families who returned to the increasing viciousness which culminated under Napoleon III. the lesson may not always have been lasting, but for those who, like the forbears of Mr. Eliot, allied themselves with their English hosts, and remained where they were, the hard life of struggle, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... says there was a most beautiful and powerful charger belonging to a friend of his, then a captain in the fourteenth dragoons, which was bought by him in Ireland, at a low price, on account of his viciousness, which had cost the life of one or two grooms. The captain was a celebrated rider, not to be thrown by the most violent efforts, and of a temper so gentle and patient that he could effect a cure if vice ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... becomes simply a contributory force in the process of degeneration. For this degradation of character we are bound to hold this new social force in a measure responsible, even though it has so operated because of its inherent qualities and in no material respect through conscious cynicism or viciousness; indeed it is safe to say that in so far as it was acting consciously it was with good motives, which adds an element of even greater tragedy to a ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... York has less evil in it than most places. Here, after the mills shut down, there's no recreation for the men, and so they amuse themselves with viciousness. But in a great place like New York, there are a thousand amusements specially planned for the evening hours. Exhibitions, theatres, concerts, libraries, lectures—everything to tempt one away from wrong-doing to fine ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... and cut evenly like the bristles of a brush, shadowed a coarse and sardonic mouth. He appeared to be about forty, or rather more. In his whole appearance there was something disagreeably hybrid and morose, that indefinable air of viciousness which belongs to the later generations of bastard races brought up in the midst of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... succumb, her compact frame, strengthened by generations of healthful toil, possesses an endurance which in the end must prevail over the paroxysmal rage of John Kurt. When the combatants part there is not a whole piece of furniture in the room. John Kurt retires a conquered man. But with cowardly viciousness he locks the door and leaves his wife for hours despairing, while he himself goes to a dinner-party. There he is ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... themselves. In writing his own memoirs, a man will not tell all that he knows about himself. Augustine was a rare exception, but few there are who will, as he did in his 'Confessions,' lay bare their innate viciousness, deceitfulness, and selfishness. There is a Highland proverb which says, that if the best man's faults were written on his forehead he would pull his bonnet over his brow. "There is no man," said Voltaire, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... something to have her declare that he had suspected her fidelity, but chiefly out of spleen, because she had discovered his infidelity. A little sifting of many statements, which took a long time, for I was on the case nearly two years, as I said, revealed Mrs. Tom as a remarkable woman. In viciousness she must have been something of a monster, though she was beautiful enough to have posed for an angel. Her corruption was of the marrow. She breathed crime and bred it. But her blade was too keen. She wounded herself ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... a damn fool and I can prove it," Jerry announced without prelude of any kind save, perhaps, the viciousness with which he thrust a pitchfork into a cock of hay. The two were turning over hay-cocks that had been drenched with another unwelcome storm, and they had not been talking much. "Forking" soggy hay when the sun is blistering hot and great, long-billed mosquitoes are boring ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... I was pleased to see her hatred increase. It was amazingly vivid. I observed the viciousness of her features. Her face had become contorted. Its fury was like a mask. But she had dropped the knife. I could not refrain smiling an encouragement at her—the naive applause an author ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... variety of dried plum, has been recommended as a remedy against viciousness and irritability. An American doctor declares that there is a certain medicinal property in the prune which acts directly upon the nervous system, and that is where the evil passions have their seat. He reports ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... was an easy victim. Then came a shock that changed the whole aspect of his life, and later one stood beside him who taught him how to fight. But until those events took place, the town of Links knew him for what he was, a reckless, dare-devil youth, without viciousness or malice, but ripe for any extravagance or adventure. His pranks were always begun in fun though it was inevitable that they should lead to serious consequences. It was admitted by his severest critics that he had never done a cruel or a cowardly thing, yet the constant escapades and drinking ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... if Petronius had only lived in the fourth instead of the third century, then the painting of obscenity would have been odious to them, and the inducement to it infinitely smaller."[58] There is no trace in Diderot of this deep contempt for the viciousness of his time. All that can be said is that he did not escape it in his earlier years, in spite of the natural wholesomeness and rectitude of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... heard. From the beginning of the boat trip he had been learning the stubbornness and inconceivable viciousness of the elements, and this glimpse of what was below him acted as a challenge. "We've got to ride that ridge," he said. "If we get off it ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... others—which he could—were numerous. His clothes were cut in a way that harrowed Psmith's sensitive soul every time he looked at them. The fact that he wore detachable cuffs, which he took off on beginning work and stacked in a glistening pile on the desk in front of him, was no proof of innate viciousness of disposition, but it prejudiced the Old Etonian against him. It was part of Psmith's philosophy that a man who wore detachable cuffs had passed beyond the limit of human toleration. In addition, Bristow wore a small black moustache and ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... regardless of his profession, mingled freely, at county musters and political barbecues, with the lowest and vilest of the community, using every art his genius suggested to inflame the mad passions of men already excited to frenzy. In after life the viciousness and unscrupulousness of his nature overmastered his hypocrisy and burst out in acts of dishonesty and profanity, which disgraced and drove him from the State. He sought security from public scorn in the wilds of Florida; but all restraint had given ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... law may be due to ignorance, to indifference or to wilfulness and viciousness. The effects will always be commensurate ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... Walden, such as 'Sniveling puppy!' 'Canting rascal!' 'Elderly humbug!' 'Sneaking upstart,' which were quite in accordance with his native good taste and refinement of speech. And when at last his stock of expletives became, for the time being, exhausted, and when Miss Tabitha's dumb viciousness had, like an invisible sculptor's chisel, carved sudden deep lines in her face as fitting accompaniments to the deepening malice of her thoughts, they all rose from the luncheon table and went their ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... more than he did. There seemed in many of them a tendency to combine the defects of the grades from which he sprung rather than their good points. In some, the quietness of the Short-horn degenerated into stupidity, and in others the activity of the Devon into nervous viciousness. Take them together they perhaps paid for rearing, or nearly so. After using him another year, he was killed, having been used ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale |
