"Vilely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... behind the door of his small office, and in her fear called loudly for assistance. A little knot of servants collected, and stood regarding him stupidly. One made a brutal jest. Gunn, pressing through the throng, turned the senseless body over with his foot, and cursing vilely, ordered them ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... for her recovery were diminishing rather than increasing. Reports of George Blood's ill-conduct, repeated for her benefit, hurt and irritated her. On one occasion, her house was visited by men sent thither in his pursuit by the girl who had vilely slandered him. Mrs. Campbell, with the meanness of a small nature, reproached Mary for the encouragement which she had given his vices. She loved him so truly that this must have been gall and wormwood to her sensitive heart. Mr. and Mrs. Blood continued poor and miserable, he ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... with his mother, for a wonder, and he told her how Miss Vizard had come round; he told her also about the bull, but so vilely that she hardly comprehended he had been in any danger: these encounters are rarely described to the life, except by us ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... said she, "I have acted vilely towards you. Listen. On your departure from this house, you will meet your death. The love which I feel for another has bewildered me, and without being able to hold his place here, you will have ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... It is a little outrageous to the stranger, but in it the general public sentiment is drawn in grand oudines, magnified many times, but not in the least caricatured. The patriotic prejudice goes everywhere. It lives at the very roots of life. Truthful men will tell you that London is vilely supplied with cabs in comparison with Melbourne. They believe it. They will tell you that the flavours of English meats, game, fruits and vegetables are vastly inferior to those they know at home. And ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... know, then, whether they ever uttered these simple 'utterances'? or whether they are not part of the corruptions? or how can you separate the one from the other? or how can you ascertain these men meant what you mean, when you thus vilely copy their language?" ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... see What the tax hath done for thee, And thy children, vilely led, Singing hymns for shameful bread, Till the stones of every street ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... had trusted the North until trusting had ceased to be a virtue. They wished peace, but feared not war. All this idle talk, so common since the war, of a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight" is the merest twaddle and vilely untrue. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... turning to his panegyrist. 'No. I believe you are mistaken. I never can satisfy myself! I am so fastidious in the choice of my phrases! I dislike this word, I reject that, and do not know where to find one that pleases me. I certainly think, for my part, that I spoke vilely. The duke indeed and lord Piper both declared they never heard me greater: but I cannot believe it. Though Sir Francis, who went to the house purposely to hear me, positively swears it was the first ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... exploded fallacy. I can tell you the same without being an eminent divine. The wicked carry their own hell about with them during life—here, somewhere between the gullet and the pit of the stomach, and it prevents their enjoyment of herrings which smell vilely of gas." ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... O, title vilely purchas'd!—by the blood Of innocence—by treachery and murder! May heav'n, incens'd, pour down its vengeance on him, Blast all his joys, and turn them into horror Till phrensy rise, and bid him curse the hour That gave his crimes ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... congener of the Sanskrit "Suka Saptati," or Seventy Parrot-stories. The tale is not in the Bull. or Mac. Edits. but occurs in the Bresl. (i., pp. 90, 91) much mutilated; and better in the Calc. Edit I cannot here refrain from noticing how vilely the twelve vols. of the Breslau Edit have been edited; even a table of contents being absent from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... it will be a grand argument in favour of the actuality of migration; but not finding them will not, in my eyes, much diminish the probability of their having thus migrated. My pen always runs away, in writing to you; and a most unsteady, vilely bad pace it goes. What would I not give to write simple English, without having to rewrite and ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... her into eating more, and occasionally essayed his talents as a chef, and cooked weird looking things in his rooms over a vilely smelling English oil stove, but the Jewess in Arithelli found him wanting in the "divers washings" she required of the saucepans, and they generally ended these ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... of his domestics, tells me, that his tenants hate him: and that he never had a servant who spoke well of him. Vilely suspicious of their wronging him (probably from the badness of his own heart) ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... shame of self and pity for thy Lord That One so sweet should e'er have placed Himself At disadvantage such, as to be used So vilely by a being ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... said the maid, "how vilely you have been handled, to be sure! Why, your knees are all cut, and your clothes ruined! Do you know the wretch who ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vilely, in a lifeless monotone, cursing Literacy, and all Literates back to the invention of the alphabet. Then he ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... stilt-like legs, it may be seen every now and then popping from one bush to another with uncommon quickness. It really requires little imagination to believe that the bird is ashamed of itself, and is aware of its most ridiculous figure. On first seeing it, one is tempted to exclaim, "A vilely stuffed specimen has escaped from some museum, and has come to life again!" It cannot be made to take flight without the greatest trouble, nor does it run, but only hops. The various loud cries which it utters when concealed amongst ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Tutor'd by her all rivals to surpass, 'Mongst Drury's sons he comes, and shines in Brass. Lo, Yates[27]! Without the least finesse of art He gets applause—I wish he'd get his part. When hot Impatience is in full career, How vilely 'Hark ye! hark ye!' grates the ear; When active fancy from the brain is sent, And stands on tip-toe for some wish'd event, 350 I hate those careless blunders, which recall Suspended sense, and prove ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... even Morris's poorest workman could make you a more comfortable seat than the whole of Nature can. Nature pales before the furniture of 'the street which from Oxford has borrowed its name,' as the poet you love so much once vilely phrased it. I don't complain. If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture, and I prefer houses to the open air. In a house we all feel of the proper proportions. Everything is ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... than he, and as stalwart as dear woman can be; an especially common-looking person, bungled as to her dress, which was tawdry-fine, unseasonable for the place as well as time, inappropriate to herself, inharmonious in its composition, and every way most vilely put on; a clumsy and, as I presently perceived, a loud person, whose face, still showing traces of the coarse but decided beauty it must once have possessed, fell far short of compensating for the complete gracelessness of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... good in the forest world, it doesn't always work among the human herd. Man considers that he has the right of selection—quite a mistake of his I'm sure, for he has no real sense of beauty or fitness, and generally selects most vilely. All the same he is an obstinate brute, and sticks to his brutish ideas as a snail sticks to its shell. I am an obstinate brute!—I am absolutely convinced that I have the right to choose my own woman, if I want ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... certain limits to this desire (they are hard to find in things that a man conceives to be good), and to stint this good husbandry so that it may not degenerate into avarice: men still are intent upon adding to the heap and increasing the stock from sum to sum, till at last they vilely deprive themselves of the enjoyment of their own proper goods, and throw all into reserve, without making any use of them at all. According to this rule, they are the richest people in the world who are set to guard the walls and gates of a wealthy city. All ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... I should tip; only this I found my soul desire, even to cast itself at the foot of grace, by prayer and supplication. But, oh! it was hard for me now to bear the face to pray to this Christ for mercy, against whom I had thus most vilely sinned; it was hard work, I say, to offer to look him in the face against whom I had so vilely sinned; and, indeed, I have found it as difficult to come to God by prayer, after backsliding from him, as to do any other thing. Oh, the shame that did now attend me! especially when I thought ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he had come to this city to meet him, and to demand in the name of their old comradeship some assistance in his need. He had found his captain's wife. She had basely deceived him after having promised to help him, and he had been insulted and vilely treated by that old negro, who was once a slave in the Rackbirds' camp in Peru, and who had been brought here with the other negro by the captain. He also freely admitted that he had intended to punish the black fellow, though he had ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... such as this, I need scarcely point out to you that the hope is absolutely futile of advancing their intelligence by collecting within this building (itself devoid absolutely of every kind of art, and so vilely constructed that those who traverse it are continually in danger of falling over the cross-bars that bind it together,) examples of sculpture filched indiscriminately from the past work, bad and good, of Turks, Greeks, Romans, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... it, but her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it, those little offices in which I have commended her discretion, were vilely done, from first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met hers—or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up—augmented her confusion in ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... and for a little longer remained motionless, his legs planted well apart, and his head lowered as though he were studying his own comical, deeply-split shadow. Then he made a sign to the rotund gunner, who had kept at hand, motionless, like a vilely-stuffed specimen of a fat man, with a lifeless face and glittering little eyes. The fellow ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... incomprehensible journey. He became possessed by an irresistible desire to hurry. Once more Dorn attempted to control the far-flinging of his thoughts—to come down to earth. The earth was there under his hand, soft, sticky, moldy, smelling vilely. He dug his fingers into it, until the feel of something like a bone made him jerk them out. Perhaps he had felt a stone. A tiny, creeping, chilly shudder went up his back. Then he remembered, he felt, he saw his little ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... I crave thee cup-comrade to be * And hearten my heart of its malady; Nor pass me the bowls for I sorely dread * when drunken all dolours of Love- lowe to dree, To be vilely reviled in the sittings of men, * To be frowardly treated where zephyrs play free. God-blest is the Lute for her melodies * Which pain me with painfullest penalty, With the jewels of speech whose transcendent charms * Like fires of Jahim[FN290] burn the vitals of me. By ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... they were out of sight over the ridge, Malcom Porter had turned on his heel and started back toward the cluster of buildings. He was swearing vilely in a rumbling monotone, and had apparently forgotten ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... half out of the cave, and, when Carew glimpsed him, jerked him back again. Swearing vilely, Carew changed his course, and began to draw Ruth towards the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... Marie-Anne dared not thank him. How was she about to reward his generosity? By vilely traducing him. Ah! she would infinitely have preferred to see him ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... days of our merchant marine, too often barely fit to keep life in men's bodies. The unceasing round of salt pork, stale beef, "duff," "lobscouse," doubtful coffee sweetened with molasses, and water, stale, lukewarm, and tasting vilely of the hogshead in which it had been stored, required sturdy appetites to make it even tolerable. Even in later days Frank T. Bullen was able to write: "I have often seen the men break up a couple of biscuits into a pot of coffee for their breakfast, and after letting it stand ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... shield of the mighty, Even Saul's shield, to-day, As though he was ne'er the Anointed of God, Is vilely cast away. ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... gypsies of making such bargains, but the motive power of them all is taderin, or drawing the eye of the purchaser, a game not unknown to Gorgios. I have heard of a German yahud in Philadelphia, whose little boy Moses would shoot from the door with a pop-gun or squirt at passers-by, or abuse them vilely, and then run into the shop for shelter. They of course pursued him and complained to the parent, who immediately whipped his son, to the great solace of the afflicted ones. And then the afflicted seldom failed to buy ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... Janet vehemently asserted that she had mollified the angry old man, who, however, was dark of visage, though his tongue kept silence. He was gruff over his wine-glass the blandishments of his favourite did not brighten him. From his point of view he had been treated vilely, and he was apparently inclined to nurse his rancour and keep my fortunes trembling in the balance. Under these circumstances it was impossible for me to despatch a letter to Ottilia, though I found that I could write one now, and I sat in my room writing all day,—most eloquent stuff it was. The ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I wrenched the weapon from her. Then, pinning her in fierce grip and despite her furious struggles and writhing, I belaboured her soundly with the flat of the blade, she meanwhile swearing and cursing at me in Spanish and English as vilely as ever I had done in all my days, until her voice broke and she choked upon a great sob. Thereupon I flung her across my bed and taking such things as I needed, strode out of the ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... march and a satisfactory fight with the "Deliverer," he soon received news of the lost one. With roars of derision he refused to believe in the little "corporal's" voluntary desertion, and from the first moment began to agitate. What! punish a hero for his heroism? That, in Four Eyes' vilely profane opinion, expressed with elaborate expletives in the Legion's own choicest vernacular, was what it would amount to if St. George were branded "deserter." Precisely why Max had joined Stanton's caravan instead of returning to ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... persecuted me to my undoing; Driven me to basest wants; can I behold him, With smiles of vengeance, butcher'd in his age? The sacred fountain of my life destroy'd? And canst thou shed the blood that gave me being? Nay, be a traitor too, and sell thy country? Can thy great heart descend so vilely low, Mix with hir'd slaves, bravoes, and common stabbers, Nose-slitters, alley-lurking villains! join With such a crew, and take a ruffian's wages, To cut the throats of wretches as ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... with spreading this poison of theirs by word of mouth, they published tracts and scattered them among the people. In these books—to say nothing of the insatiable and unheard of avarice of which almost every letter in them vilely smells—they laid down those same impious and heretical doctrines, and laid them down in such wise that confessors were bound by their oath to be faithful and insistent in urging them upon the people. I speak the truth, and none ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... the very chance it needed. It felt much better, the swelling had materially decreased, and the cap seemed descending into its proper place. Also, the three days' rest brought the trouble I had foreseen. It was plainly Thomas Mugridge's intention to make me pay for those three days. He treated me vilely, cursed me continually, and heaped his own work upon me. He even ventured to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming animal-like myself, and I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened him back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself, Humphrey ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... noble sonnet by Fanny Kemble, beginning, "Art thou already weary of the way?" He has put it in, and several others of hers, but she is very unequal, and I don't know if the others should be there, but you should take the one in question. It sadly wants new punctuation, being vilely printed just as I first saw it when a boy in ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... some extraordinary ill-luck she had never taken a fish during a cruise of seven months, although in the company of others that were doing well. The master, one of those fanatically religious New Englanders that by some strange irony of fate may be often met with commanding vilely licentious crews of whaleships, was a skilled and hitherto lucky man. On reaching Ponape the whole of his officers and crew deserted en masse and went off in other ships. Utterly helpless, W——— was left by himself. There were, ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... has been more profoundly felt and more beautifully handled by the old painters, nor more vilely mishandled by the moderns, than the ANNUNCIATION, of all the scenes in the life of Mary the most important and the most commonly met with. Considered merely as an artistic subject, it is surely eminently beautiful: it places before us the two most graceful forms ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... But no one, even moderately acquainted with the early literature of the Reformation, can be ignorant of words freely used in it, which now are not merely coarse and as such under ban, but which no one would employ who did not mean to speak impurely and vilely. ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the idea that we were drunk all through that wild cruise, because we were not. But one thing and another combined to make the excitement so vivid, that with the liquor handy it did not take much inducement to make us tipple pretty heavily. We were vilely fed, bitterly exposed, heavily overworked, unable even to smoke—and—the ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Why could he not have said Miss Butterworth? These Van Burnams are proud, most vilely proud as the poet has ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... forgive me, sir! I'm behaving disrespectfully; I beg your pardon. No, no; let me go on. When I spoke to him in your best interests (as I did most truly believe) I never suspected what mischief I had done, till I looked in his face. Then, I saw how he hated you, and how vilely he was ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... prepared against such eventualities, and jamming back the plank into its place, I produced from my pocket a bottle of brandy which I had brought for the purpose. Half of it had been already sprinkled over my clothes, so that when the man approached he found me in a state of drunkenness, smelling vilely of spirits, and profuse in my offers to him to share ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... Bardolph, am I not falne away vilely, since this last action? doe I not bate? doe I not dwindle? Why my skinne hangs about me like an olde Ladies loose Gowne: I am withered like an olde Apple Iohn. Well, Ile repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking: I shall be out of heart shortly, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... you would smell vilely of mint if he kissed you. But he was born before the decree was carried, so that you have not ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... cavalry Lie stretched in swathes, fronting the furnace-throats Of the English cannon as a breastwork built Of reeking copses. Marshal Ney's third horse Is shot. Besides the slain, Donop, Guyot, Lheritier, Piquet, Travers, Delort, more, Are vilely wounded. On the other hand Wellington has sought refuge in a square, Few of his generals are not killed or hit, And all is tickle with him. But I see, Likewise, that I can claim no reinforcement, And will return and ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... who did the guilty deed, Whether alone he lurks, or leagued with more, I pray that he may waste his life away, For vile deeds vilely dying; and for me, If in my house, I knowing it, he dwells, May every curse I spake on ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... not altogether sorry for this; it would give him a chance of taking in fresh water and of adding to the store of fresh provisions now almost exhausted. For ships in those days were vilely found, and the men called contractors were held in general detestation by ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... still in hyperspace, brought Baron Rathmore. Shaking hands with him as he left the landing craft, Trask wanted to know if he'd been sent out as the new Viceroy. Rathmore started to laugh and ended by cursing vilely. ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... tickling desires of nature, and look upon that thing called Love through a multiplying glass, it is somewhat pardonable: But that those who are once come to the years of knowledge and true understanding should be drawn into it, methinks is most vilely foolish, and morrice fooles caps were much fitter for them, then wreaths of Lawrel. Yet stranger it is, that those who have been for the first time in that horrible estate, do, by a decease, cast themselves in again to a second and third time. Truly, if for once any one ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... wretched ruin." "Now go," said he, "for I see him who hath most fault for this[2] dragged at the tail of a beast, toward the valley where there is no disculpation ever. The beast at every step goes faster, increasing always till it strikes him, and leaves his body vilely undone. Those wheels have not far to turn," and he raised his eyes to heaven, "for that to become clear to thee which my speech cannot further declare. Now do thou stay behind, for time is so precious in this kingdom, that I lose ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... and the labourer, are all of the same nature, born with the same propensities and subject to similar influences. They are, it is true, born in different positions, but it rests with themselves whether they shall live their lives nobly or vilely. They may not have their choice of riches or poverty; but they have their choice of being good or evil,—of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... unusually animated appearance. The customary oil-lamp was receiving the support of two vilely smelling yellow candles. The additional light thus obtained was hardly in proportion to the offensiveness of the added aroma. Still, the remoter corners of the place were further lit up, and the rough faces ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... am so lonely, so lonely," she murmured, "I don't know what to do. If you would only help me. I know I behaved horribly to you, vilely; but surely—surely you have some pity for me in my misfortune. I have no one to turn to—no one—no one. If you would only help me to understand—if you would only talk the matter over with me, it would be ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... west, By six or seven men at least. Two trumpets she does sound at once, But both of clean contrary tones; 70 But whether both with the same wind, Or one before, and one behind, We know not; only this can tell, The one sounds vilely, th' other well; And therefore vulgar authors name 75 Th' one Good, the ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... The nobles demanded a poll tax on every man, woman, boy, and girl in the land; and when one of their collectors would exact it from Wat Tyler, at his place in Dartford, and (disbelieving his word concerning the age of his young daughter) vilely insulted the maiden, he arose and slew the wretch with his hammer. ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the top plank, which was painted light blue. In the boat were the various bits of equipment needed for shark-fishing, including a thick wooden beam to which were attached four hooks of wrought iron, a keg of shark-bait which stank vilely, and barrels for the shark's liver. There were shark knives under the thwarts and huge gaffs hooked under the rib-boards. The crew had put the boxes containing their food ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... try to do so," returned Mr. Jeffrey, rising and pacing the room in his intense restlessness. "We did have some words; her conduct the night before had not pleased me. I am naturally jealous, vilely jealous, and I thought she was a little frivolous at the German ambassador's ball. But I had no idea she would take my sharp speeches so much to heart. I had no idea that she would care so much or that I should care so much. A little jealousy is certainly pardonable in a bridegroom, ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... at only half the price, and that was about the usual division of labour between them. The two men were born to it. Sam's art took the lucrative shape of portrait-painting; Will's the side of flower and fruit and landscape painting, which was vilely unremunerative then, and allegorical painting, which no one will be at the pains to understand, or, what is more to the purpose, to buy, in this enlightened nineteenth century. Sam, who was thriving already, fell in love with Clarissa Gage, with her six thousand ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... not seem worth while. The taste had gone from his mouth; his bock was water vilely coloured; his cigarette was a hot stench. And yet a full moon was peeping in the trees along the path, and not far away, where the countryside bowed in silver quietude, the rivers ran through undistinguishable ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... I scarce went anywhere, Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel? Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were, I favoured none—nay, was almost uncivil? Is it for this that General Count O'Reilly, Who took Algiers,[75] declares I used him vilely? ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... The Mess went vilely to-night. Sister adds up on her fingers, and that's fatal, so all the numbers were out, and the chef sent in forty-five meats instead of fifty-one. I blushed with horror and responsibility, standing there watching six hungry men ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... without its uses, some of which are referred to in Nos. 1, 3, and 11. In Nos. 3 and 18 reference is made to the Rush-ring, a ring, no doubt, originally meant and used for the purposes of honest betrothal, but afterwards so vilely used for the purposes of mock marriages, that even as early as 1217 Richard Bishop of Salisbury had to issue his edict against the ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward: if fair-fac'd, She'd swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, nature, drawing of an antick, Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agate very vilely cut: If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out; And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... can consider, without a secret indignation, that all those affections of the mind which should be consecrated to their children, husbands and parents, are thus vilely prostituted and thrown away upon a hand at loo? For my own part, I cannot but be grieved, when I see a fine woman fretting and bleeding inwardly from such trivial motives: when I behold the face of an angel, agitated and discomposed by ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Pardee! Respect my coxcomb, cousin. Hark! ha, ha! [Laughing.] [Bells ring a joyful peal.] Some one has changed my music. Heaven defend! How the bells jangle. Yonder graybeard, now, Rings a peal vilely. He's more used to knells, And sounds them grandly. Only give him time, And, I'll be sworn, he'll ring your knell ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... so, and the chief salaamed when he saw the royal signature. He was mightily bewildered, and gradually he was made to understand that he had been vilely tricked. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... would shun an impure life, avoid those who indulge in impure conversation. There are many people whose chief mirthfulness is in that line. They are full of innuendo, and phrases of double meaning, and are always picking out of the conversation of decent men something vilely significant. It is astonishing in company, how many, professing to be Christians, will tell vile stories; and that some Christian women, in their own circles, have no hesitation at the same ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... vengeance does not sleep. Twice has he sent after me his assassins—since assassination is the only weapon now remaining to him. But his poor tools have each time been taken, exposed to Philip's greater infamy and shame—and hanged as they deserve who can so vilely serve so vile a master. It has even been sought to bribe my faithful Gil de Mesa into turning his hand against me, and that attempt, too, has been given the fullest publication. Meanwhile, my death to-day could no longer avail Philip very much. My memorial is published throughout Europe for all ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... to note in Modern Oxford, attempts to re-establish those local connections, which the wisdom of our ancestors established, and which the self-complacency of Victorian reformers "vilely cast away." ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... came over me. I said it in all honest simplicity, meaning only to excuse myself for the disrespect I had shown to the Duke; but I phrased the sentence most vilely, for I said: ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... of Mr Quelch on hearing this knew no bounds. Scarcely recovered from the effects of his ample potations, the little sense he possessed entirely forsook him. He began to storm and swear, and declared that he had been vilely tricked. Loud peak of laughter from the guests present were the only answer ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... Caldwell our brigade general. In this place I saw Hancock and Caldwell ride by. Hancock was mad about something, and he was shaking his fist under Caldwell's nose, and God-daming him at the top of his capacity. Hancock was a brave and capable general, but he was demonstratively passionate, and vilely abusive with his tongue. Junius Gaskell of my Company was for months his private orderly, and he saw the polish and the rough of him. Gaskell has told me that he would get mad at his own brother, who ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... let an aged woman work where youthful limbs can help her; too proud to trample basely on what lies low already; too proud to be a coward, and shrink from following conscience in the confession of known error; too proud to despise the withered toil-worn hands of the poor and old, and be vilely forgetful that those hands succoured you in your utmost need ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... brute is the animal viewed as dull to all finer feeling; the beast is looked upon as a being of appetites. To call a man a brute is to imply that he is unfeeling and cruel; to call him a beast is to indicate that he is vilely sensual. We speak of the cruel father as a brute to his children; of the drunkard as making a beast of himself. So firmly are these figurative senses established that we now incline to avoid applying brute or beast to any creature, as a horse or dog, for which we have any affection; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... an admirable actress, was the Desdemona. She played the part remarkably well, and was a fairly attractive figure to the eye, if one excepted her foot. It was exceptionally long and shapeless, and was most vilely shod. Her dresses, too, all tipped up in the front, unduly exposing the faulty members; many were the comments made, and often the query followed, "Why doesn't she get some American shoes?" I am sorry to say that some of our daily papers even were ungracious enough to refer to that physical ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... solitude, in which all the flitter-mice of ennui soon came and nested, and he called work to his aid but in vain. Every evening, after wasting as much perspiration over the job as he did in ink, he produced a score of lines in which some old idea, as worn out as the Wandering Jew, and vilely clad in rags cribbed from the literary dust heap, danced clumsily on the tight rope of paradox. On reading through these lines Rodolphe was as bewildered as a man who sees nettles spring up in ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... heart flared up to deny the insult and all her woman's cunning fought to keep back words that inevitably must lead to revelation. She drooped, unable to hold up under her shame, yet strong to let him think vilely of her, for his sake. That way she had a ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey |
