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More "Despicable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A desperate resolve to find some way up toward the light, if not to it, formed itself within her. She would not fall into the pit opening before her. Somehow, somewhere lay The Way. She must never fall lower; never be utterly despicable in the eyes of the man she had loved. There was no dream of forgiveness, of purification, of re-kindled love; all these she placed sadly and gently into the dead past. But in awful earnestness, she turned toward the future; struggling blindly, groping in half formed ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... miserable if she married him: her own sister was continually hinting as much. Mr. Roscorla cared nothing for her except in so far as she might prove a pretty housewife for him. The selfishness that would sacrifice for its own purposes a girl's happiness was of a peculiarly despicable sort which ought to be combated, and deserved no mercy. Therefore, and because of all these things, Harry Trelyon was justified in trying to win ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... inheriting it. None of the emperors during this interval had male children. Marcus Aurelius made the mistake of associating with him in power his son Commodus, who was eighteen years old when his father died, and reigned alone from 180 to 192. He began his despicable career as sole ruler by buying peace of the Marcomanni and the Quadi. He turned out to be a detestable tyrant, who was likewise guilty of the worst personal vices. He was strangled in his bedroom by one of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... compass. He was an ignorant man, with a vulgar mind; he had some reverence for a corpse, but none whatever for a ghost. His mind had undergone a change concerning the dead the moment he had heard him move, and he looked upon his charge now as equally despicable and gruesome. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... intendant's wife, who had never forgiven me for taking her victim away from her, had suggested this hint as an excuse for withdrawing the Countess from me, without obliging the Count to keep house with her, and becoming the attentive husband, who seemed, to his perverted notions, a despicable being. Perhaps neither of them had expected the matter to be taken up so seriously, and an old country-bred Huguenot as Madame Croquelebois had originally been, thought that as we were at Court, gallantry ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... four men's bread: shall I disdain to defile my fingers by holding them out relief in their necessity? It is you who are mean—you Normans—not we of the ancient race. You have your vulgar measurement for great things and small. You call a thousand pounds respectable, and a shekel despicable. Psha, my Codlingsby! One is as the other. I trade in pennies and in millions. I am above or ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... point. I am going to fulfill your wishes in perhaps a little different way from what you desire. To lie, to act a degrading comedy, to bribe women of the streets for evidence—the ugliness of it all disgusts me. I am a bad man, but this despicable thing I am utterly unable to do. My solution is after all the simplest. You must marry to be happy. I am the obstacle, consequently that obstacle must ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... But she could not do away with the memories which lingered obstinately. Not since the days when Dick had offered his blind loyalty had any one tried to understand her as Austin Selwyn had done. She was grateful for that. She might even have valued his friendship if he had not been so despicable that awful night. To insult her with his talk of pacifism, and then, heedless of her intensity, to propose to her! She could not forgive him for that. She was glad her words had ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... [261] 'The despicable wretchedness of teaching,' wrote Carlyle, in his twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all. One meets with few spectacles ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... gave her his likeness in miniature,' related the macaroni, never minding; 'set round with diamonds, and, will you believe it? when she came to examine it, they were not brilliants, but rose-diamonds—despicable fellow!' ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... prisoner," she said. "Isn't that enough? Why do you jab at me by saying that? A wounded prisoner. Isn't that enough despicable trickery for God even to play on Teddy—our Teddy? To the very last moment he shall not be dead. Until the war is over. Until ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... race, he sent the man himself word by a Seneca Indian that he was looking for him, and intended to keep it up until able to draw a bead on him. Evans sent word back in reply, that he was also looking for the Mohawk, and dared him to shoot him if he could. The only palliating characteristic of the despicable wretch was his bravery, and he really did do his utmost to gain a shot at the Indian who had threatened him. But he engaged in a game in which his antagonist was his superior, and ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... against them. That, although he had fallen into their hands, in forfeiting the protection of the divine power, by some impurity or other, yet he had still so much virtue remaining, as would enable him to punish himself more exquisitely than all their despicable, ignorant crowd could possibly do, if they gave him liberty by untying him, and would hand to him one of the red hot gun-barrels out of the fire. The proposal, and his method of address, appeared so exceedingly bold ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... which is attached to it, as a direct agent in producing social reforms, in no other European country. The journalist lays every day a mass of facts before all people capable of thought; the adult, who has learnt only to write and read, acquires his remaining education—often not despicable in amount—from his weekly paper. Jeremy Bentham, speaking of those old superstitious rites by which it was intended to exorcise evil spirits, says very truly, "In our days, and in our country, the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania. But Mr. Hoover's action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as the smallpox. He and we were charged with being actuated by the most despicable and sordid motives. The King himself told me that he was convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... mistake to let the story of the Confessions carry us into exaggerations. The brutality of his master and the harshness of his life led him to nothing very criminal, but only to wrong acts which are despicable by their meanness, rather than in any sense atrocious. He told lies as readily as the truth. He pilfered things to eat. He cunningly found a means of opening his master's private cabinet, and of using his master's best instruments by stealth. He wasted his time in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... much the Chinese countenance. I remarked an exception to this rule in a grenadier battalion, who, with tall, elegant persons, possessed remarkably fine, commanding faces. The officers in general are the most despicable wretches I ever saw: accustomed, as they have always been, to fight with troops much inferior to themselves, they thought themselves invincible. They take the field with an immense number of artillery, with which they cover their front and flanks, and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... nothing but abuse and slander, and that he shall be allowed to abuse as much and as purulently as he likes, that is, as he can;—in short, a mule,—quarrelsome by the original discord of his nature,—a slave by tenure of his own baseness,—made to bray and be brayed at, to despise and be despicable. 'Aye, Sir, but say what you will, he is a very clever fellow, though the best friends will fall out. There was a time when Ajax thought he deserved to have a statue of gold erected to him, and handsome Achilles, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... be misleading to suggest a narrow definition of Pope's Dunces. Some were critics of worth, such as Dennis and Gildon; some were not despicable minor poets, such as Welsted and Cooke. But if we leave these aside, as well as his aristocratic enemies, Lady Mary and Lord Hervey, some valid generalizations emerge. The very persistency of the Dunces' attacks on Pope (I have located over one hundred and fifty ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... ourselves but onwards, and take strength from the leaf and the signs of the field. He is indeed despicable who cannot look onwards to the ideal life of man. Not to do so is to deny our birthright of ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... the despicable and miserable creatures I have ever known it is the poor starving devil, with latent genius, who attempts to pay court to a cad, snob, or drunken lord around the refuse of literary or ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... fight him with his own weapons. He accordingly sent a message to the prince in the proposed terms; but Cacamatzin understood the manner in which his uncle was constrained to act, and declared his determination to assail our quarters within four days, saying that Montezuma was a despicable monarch, for having neglected to attack us at the Port of Chalco, as he had advised. That he was resolved to be avenged of the wrongs which we had heaped upon Montezuma and his country, and that if the throne of Mexico should ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the bright side of the European situation as I saw it. Unfortunately, to complete the picture, it is necessary to acknowledge the numerous evidences of a widespread revival of one of the most despicable, brutal, and dangerous forms of racial hatred and antagonism known to mankind—anti-Semitism. Even in England, long hitherto so free from Jew-baiting, the land in which the Jew Disraeli became Prime Minister, I found an extensive, active, and skillfully ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... she instantly burned, and her husband was restored to liberty. John Muller was among the more remarkable of the servants of the state who had remained at Berlin. This sentimental parasite, the most despicable of them all, whose pathos sublimely glossed over each fresh treason, was sent for by Napoleon, who placed him about his person. Among other things, he asked him, "Is it not true the Germans are somewhat thick-brained?" to ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... as a slight evil in relation to the person, just as we are wont to think little of the defects of children and imbeciles: and then to make game or fun of a person, is to scorn him altogether, and to think him so despicable that his misfortune troubles us not one whit, but is held as an object of derision. In this way derision is a mortal sin, and more grievous than reviling, which is also done openly: because the reviler would seem to take another's evil seriously; whereas ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... repugnance at the thought that the tailor's daughter had the presumptuous idea of becoming his wife. He forgave her low origin for the sake of her immense fortune, and thought it not a despicable lot to be the husband of the beautiful Anna Prickerin. He assured her of his love in impassioned words, and Anna listened with beaming eyes and a happy smile. Suddenly a loud weeping and crying, proceeding from the next room, interrupted this ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... guided through a thousand perils and dangers that Nature has set before it, with disease as Nature's agent, crouching and ready to destroy the child's life, not in open combat, but invisibly concealed by the limitation of our senses. This is one of Nature's unspeakable crimes; one of God's despicable impositions. ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... independence, and must foster the secret calculations of a vicious ambition. If it be asserted that evil passions are displayed in all ranks of society, that they ascend the throne by hereditary right, and that despicable characters are to be met with at the head of aristocratic nations as well as in the sphere of a democracy, this objection has but little weight in my estimation. The corruption of men who have casually risen to power has a coarse and vulgar ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... violence, of treason heaped on treachery, of insult repaid by fraud, would be easy enough. Indeed, a huge book might be compiled containing nothing but the episodes in this grim history of despotism, now tragic and pathetic, now terror-moving in sublimity of passion, now despicable by the baseness of the motives brought to light, at one time revolting through excess of physical horrors, at another fascinating by the spectacle of heroic courage, intelligence, and resolution. Enough however, has been said to describe the atmosphere ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought. Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is, that ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... despicable of me even to listen to you. I don't think I would have listened, if you had not been frank. But you have had the honesty not to pretend. I must be ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... they do, and the ruin they work, would require much more space to adequately ventilate than we can devote to it here. The healing art is a noble one, and duly qualified men, interested in their profession, are public benefactors; but the despicable race of charlatans not only rob their victims, but frequently ruin their health, and drive them to the verge of insanity. There is probably hardly a reader of this page who has not met, within the circle of his or her acquaintance, some unfortunate individual whose hopes in life ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... the matter with us republicans? Liberty, fraternity and equality; we flaunt that flag as much as we ever did. Yet, what a howdy-do when a title comes along! What a craning of necks, what a kotowing! How many earldoms and dukedoms are not based upon some detestable action, some despicable service rendered some orgiastic sovereign! The most honorable thing about the so-called nobility is generally the box-hedge which surrounds the manse. Kotow; pour our millions into the bottomless purses of spendthrifts; give them our ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... motives already mentioned, we may add another. He who had refused, must inevitably have been branded with the name of coward: and, so despicable was the condition of a coward, in those times of general heroism, that death itself appeared the more preferable choice. Nay, such was the rage of fighting for women, that it became customary for those who could not be honored with the decision of their real quarrels, to create fictitious ones ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... haunted her parlour; yet was I assured that in London he was assiduous in waiting on Miss Gunning—a young lady with every advantage of fortune, beauty, and connection. I own the thought sometimes occurred to me that he might be that most despicable of characters—a male flirt. I had thoughts sometimes also of a word of warning to Miss Burney, but was restrained by fear ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... pestilence to Greece would that man have been, if incredible and godlike virtue had not checked the enterprise and audacity of that frantic man. What promptness was there in Brutus's conduct! what prudence! what valour! Although the rapidity of the movement of Caius Antonius also is not despicable; for if some vacant inheritance had not delayed him on his march, you might have said that he had flown rather than travelled. When we desire other men to go forth to undertake any public business, we ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... in even still greater disgrace than his fellow-cardinalists. He longed, he said, to be in Burgundy, drinking Granvelle's good wine. His patience under the daily insults which he received from the government made him despicable in the eyes of his own party. He was described by his friends as pusillanimous to an incredible extent, timid from excess of riches, afraid of his own shadow. He was becoming exceedingly pathetic, expressing frequently a desire to depart and end his days in peace. His faithful ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Aberdeen had been stripped off by the order of the Scottish Council, and shipped to be sold in Holland. He continues:—'Let us not however make too much haste to despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence, and we are in danger of doing that deliberately, which the Scots did not do but in the unsettled state ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... that Reginald Eversleigh could be mean or base. People liked him, and trusted him, in spite of themselves; and it was only when their confidence had been imposed upon, and their trust betrayed, that they learned to know how despicable the handsome young officer could be. Women did their best to spoil him; and his personal charms of face and manner, added to his brilliant expectations, rendered him an universal ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Ladies have their Share in the Possession; and if they have not the Devil in their Heads, or in their Tails, in their Faces or their Tongues, it must be some poor despicable She-devil that Satan did not think it worth his while to meddle with; and the Number of those that are below his Operation, I doubt is very small. But that Part I have much more to say to in ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... old father had taught me to avoid falsehood from much higher considerations than those of mere temporal prosperity. I determined therefore that, whatever the danger, I would not endeavour to shield myself by anything so despicable as ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... is gross till clothed upon: I must take what men offer, with a grace As though I would not, could I help it, take! An uniform I wear though over-rich— Something imposed on me, no choice of mine; No fancy-dress worn for pure fancy's sake And despicable therefore! now folk kneel And kiss my hand—of course the Church's hand. Thus I am made, thus life is best for me, And thus that it should be I have procured; And thus it could not be another ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... next? If this were not an insult, a gross, flagrant, and unendurable outrage, he was totally at a loss to comprehend what was meant by offended pride. Optimism, indeed! He felt far more inclined to embrace the faith of the Manichee! And what a fool was he to have submitted to such a despicable, such a degrading situation! What infinite weakness not to be able to resist her influence, the influence of a woman who had betrayed him! Yes! betrayed him. He had for some period reconciled his mind to entertain the idea of Henrietta's treachery ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... toady to them in the old way just on account of their name. Why, it began with Eldon's father—didn't he put his pride in his pocket, and try to make cash by speculation? Now I can respect him: he at all events faced the facts of the case honestly. The despicable thing in this Hubert Eldon is that, having got money once more, and in the dirtiest way, he puts on the top-sawyer just as if there was nothing to be ashamed of. If he and his mother were living in a small way on their few hundreds a ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... at last that his enemy was not so despicable, took vigorous measures to remedy his mistake, and, preparing himself to meet the Christians in front, he despatched the Sultan Soliman of Roum to attack them in the rear. To conceal this movement, he set fire to the dried weeds ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the true apogee of Napoleon's power. From the November day in 1799 when the successful general had overthrown the corrupt and despicable Directory down to 1808, his story is a magnificent succession of the triumphs of peace and of war. Whatever be the judgment of his contemporaries or of posterity upon his motives, there can be little question that ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... much finer mould than the chief of the Green Mountain Boys, was well educated and had a personal following of his own in the Grants, second only to Allen's. But there was never any jealousy between them. Allen's was a nature too frank and generous to harbor such a despicable feeling, while Warner was too deeply interested in the cause ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... those wretches on the plantation. They, through their ignorance, have learned to wield the tyranny of petty power; they look upon us with suspicious eyes. They know we are negroes (white negroes, who are despicable in their eyes), and feeling that we are more favoured, their envy is excited. They, with the hope of gaining favour, are first to disclose a secret. Save my child first, and then ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... broke out, Major Waldron treacherously seized a band of Indians at Dover in New Hampshire and sent them to Boston, where several of them were hanged for alleged complicity in Philip's war[5] and others sold into slavery. This despicable act the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... in the end to a general war and carnage—a result in the case of these particular Indians, utterly abhorrent to the generous sympathies of the whole American people. Every possible kindness compatible with the necessity of removal must therefore be shown by the troops; and if in the ranks a despicable individual should be found capable of inflicting a wanton injury or insult on any Cherokee man, woman, or child, it is hereby made the special duty of the nearest good officer or man instantly to ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... imagination. Whether or not his testimony gave a clew to the police, the one irrevocable issue was that somewhere in London there was a girl named Evelyn who would regard a certain young man, Francis Berrold Theydon to wit, as a loathsome and despicable ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... and they end by believing that the man whom they are acclaiming is almost divine; yet it is certain that they elected this man on the whole because of the two he had more points in common with them, this poor despicable and very unheroic thing was the person whom they delighted to honour because they themselves were very unheroic and somewhat despicable. We cannot see the greatness of a truly great man unless there is just a bit of greatness in ourselves; Christ was too ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... marriage up to this moment no man could have fought better the bitter struggle of life than David Cable; yet, now, in this hour—his hour of travail and temptation, he piteously succumbed. Cowardice, the most despicable of all emotions, held ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... the road he had trodden like heavy milestones, telling his story to every passer-by. She could read them, as everyone else could read them. He had wasted his substance, he had bartered his birthright for a moment's pleasure; there was no one so low and despicable who could not call him comrade, to whom he had not given himself without reserve. There was nothing left, and now the one thing he had ever wanted had come, and had found him like a bankrupt, his credit wasted ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... these general observations an instance, which Mr. Locke has given us of providence, even in the imperfections of a creature which seems the meanest and most despicable in the whole animal world. We may, says he, from the make of an oyster, or cockle, conclude, that it has not so many nor so quick senses as a man, or several other animals: Nor if it had, would it, in that state and incapacity of transferring ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... Platen, the wife of the Elector's chief minister of state, was—with the connivance of her despicable husband, who saw therein the means to his own advancement—the acknowledged mistress of Ernest Augustus. She was a fleshly, gauche, vain, and ill-favoured woman. Malevolence sat in the creases of her painted face, and peered from her mean eyes. Yet, such as ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... so this morning?' he answered loftily. There is always a despicable joy in resuscitating a lie which events have changed ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... chest felt heavy, as if a load were dragging it down. He heard voices. He saw his wife, Angele, wringing her hands. Suddenly he thought he was to blame for her illness, that he was a criminal; and all his thoughts of Ingigerd Hahlstroem made him doubly despicable in his own eyes. His ideas grew confused. In a wave of absolute credulity, he thought the voice of his conscience was condemning him to death. He thought that his life was being demanded as an atonement, that he must sacrifice ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... trembling with rage, while his eyes lightened scorn and indignation. "You hulking, stupid, cowardly bully,"—here Barker seized him, and every word brought a tremendous blow on the head, but blind with passion Eric went on—"you despicable bully, I won't touch that cap again, you shall pick it up yourself. Duncan, Russell, here! do help ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... upon as a nobody, slow, patient, and ever courageous, he unites to a complete technical knowledge a marvellous intuition of the beautiful, and his treasures are for him pride, bliss, and life. There is no show in this case, no desire for show, no ambition of the despicable shoddy-genteel sort—a more than powerful creation of fiction. A strikingly opposite career of selfishness is suggested by the fairly well-known story of Don Vincente, the friar bookseller of Barcelona, who, in order to obtain a volume which a rival bookseller, Paxtot, had secured ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... dresses fast. Remember that while good looks are a kindly gift of God wrinkles or accident may despoil them. Remember that Byron was no more celebrated for his beauty than for his depravity. Remember that Absalom's hair was not more splendid than his habits were despicable. Hear it, hear it! The only foundation for happy marriage that ever has been or ever will be, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... had the satisfaction of meeting Piet and Mohanycom, who had fortunately seen and recaptured the truant. Returning to the giraffe, we all feasted merrily on the flesh, which, although highly scented with the rank mokaala blossoms, was far from despicable, and losing our way in consequence of the twin-like resemblance of two scarped hills, we did not finally regain the wagons until after the setting sunbeams had ceased to play upon the trembling leaves of the light acacias, and the golden splendor which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... be resisted: and that the only means to that end was for the people to defend themselves, since they had no other help: that four-and-twenty lictors waited on the consuls, and they men of the common people: that nothing could be more despicable, or weaker, if only there were persons to despise them; that each person magnified those things and made them objects of terror to himself. When they had excited one another by these words, a lictor was despatched ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... cause and effect, the principle and the result? Well, no man knows what I love, nor what I wish. Perhaps what I have loved, or what I may have wished will be known, as a drama which is accomplished is known; but to let my game be seen—weakness, mistake! I know nothing more despicable than strength outwitted by cunning. Can I initiate myself with a laugh into the ambassador's part, if indeed diplomacy is as difficult as life? I doubt it. Have you any ambition? Would you like ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... offer it to them as so much capital, for whatever it may be worth. In pondering the fancy, I need hardly say that I do not assess myself at any extravagant value. I but venture to think that the devotion of one human creature, however humble, throughout a lifetime, is not a despicable offering. To use me as they would, to fetch and carry with me, to draw on me for whatever force resides in me, as they would on a bank account, to the last penny, to use my brains for their plans, my heart for their love, my blood ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... and yet it was absolutely necessary to have the house. Napoleon learned what was passing, and was angry, but allowed the offer of the forty thousand. Again the dealer retracted, and demanded fifty thousand. "He is a despicable creature," said the Emperor. "I will have none of his paltry hut: it shall remain where it is, as a testimony of my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... suspect that if he had the power, Paris would become for him as little interesting as an ant-heap by the roadside to a hurrying passer-by. The circle of the sciences was for Castanier something like a logogriph for a man who does not know the key to it. Kings and Governments were despicable in his eyes. His great debauch had been in some sort a deplorable farewell to his life as a man. The earth had grown too narrow for him, for the infernal gifts laid bare for him the secrets of creation—he saw the cause and foresaw its end. He was shut out from all that men call "heaven" ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... sure," said Lord Airlie, "that I could pardon anything sooner than a lie; all that is mean, despicable, and revolting to me is expressed in the one word, 'liar.' Sudden anger, passion, hot revenge—anything is more easily forgiven. When once I discover that a man or woman has told me a lie, I never care to ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... mother, was entrusted, by Lord Altham, to the charge of a woman of indifferent character, named Joan or Juggy Landy. Juggy was a dependent of the family, and lived in a cabin on the estate, about a quarter of a mile from the house of Dunmain. This hut is described as a 'despicable place, without any furniture except a pot, two or three trenchers, a couple of straw {p.304} beds on the floor,' and 'with only a bush to draw in and out for a door.' Thus humbly and inauspiciously was the boy reared under the care of a nurse, who, however unfortunate ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... proved not to be despicable; the measures she recommended relieved the little one, and by the time Percy and the apothecary made their appearance, it was asleep on Theodora's lap, and Mr. Legh pronounced that it was in a fair way to do ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... large number of the spectators had seen the despicable act and roared their disapproval. Some shook their fists at the monster dwarf, and cried for speedy punishment for his vile trick. This outburst of indignation made him fear again to ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... is drawn under two widely different characters: In classic story he is depicted as an admirable archer, slain by Diomed, and honored as a hero-god in his own country; but in mediaeval romance he is represented as a despicable pimp, insomuch that the word pander is derived from his name. Chaucer, in his Tro[:i]lus and Cresseide, and Shakespeare, in his drama of Troilus and Cressida, represent him as procuring for Troilus the good graces of Cressid, and in Much Ado About Nothing, it is said ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... would come to that; unhappy, miserable Alice! how could you bestow the affections of a warm, true heart on a despicable wretch like Theophilus Moncton. The old fiend's ambition and this fatal passion ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... Highness will graciously come this way," said the despicable Xuriel, bowing low. Poor Edna had to follow him up a steep outside staircase to a gloomy room where deep-set windows commanded a view of the Courtyard below. He found some sheets of parchment and a reed pen, and lent ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... British territory and cut off a detachment of British sepoys. It was evident that the Burmese were bent on the conquest of Bengal. Lord Amherst, who had assumed charge early in 1824, sent an expedition against them under Sir Archibald Campbell. The resistance of the Burmese was despicable. The British soldiers nowhere found foes worthy of their steel. In May, the British expedition, having marched straight to Burma, occupied the capital Rangoon, which was found deserted and denuded of all supplies. Ill fed and far from succor, the British had to spend a rainy season there. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... growing of a soul is an almost Divine act of faith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity with itself, of a consciously despicable character standing before Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that? Yet must one trust the process fearlessly, and without misgiving. "The Lord the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... characters better because they are of our own time. There is a definite and grievous wrong committed against the young woman with whom the central character is in love, therefore the wrong is committed indirectly against the lover himself. We are made to realize the despicable nature, the utter heartlessness, of the young woman's betrayer, and we actually hate him as soon as the facts are made clear to us. We realize how great has been the love for her cherished by the man who ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... did his wolves,'[186] or Berkeley, that 'if ever man deserved to be denied the common benefits of bread and water, it was the author of a Discourse of Freethinking,'[187] and that 'he should omit no endeavour to render the persons (of Freethinkers) as despicable and their practice as odious in the eye of the world as they deserve.'[188] But we find almost as truculent notions in writings where we might least expect them. It was, for example, a favourite accusation ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... over the despicable behaviour of Rouquin's servant. She kept on berating the creature and advising Rouquin to dismiss her, until at last Mrs. Bingle announced that the poor thing undoubtedly had acted for the best and out of the goodness of her heart. ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... ye despicable creatures! do you come poste to fetch a Lady from me? from a poor School-boy that ye scorn'd of late, and grow lame in your hearts when you should execute? Pray take her, take her, I am weary of her: What did you bring to ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... had men of all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to shew an usurper and a murderer not only odious, but despicable; he therefore added drunkenness to his other qualities, knowing that kings love wine like other men, and that wine exerts its natural power upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty minds; a poet overlooks the casual distinction ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... braggarts followed the valorous Dona Gorja with their eyes; and then with a despicable gesture drew their knives across their sleeve as though wiping off the blood there might have been, sheathed them at one and the ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... told by Johnson in the Lives of the Poets. Congreve "disgusted him [Voltaire] by the despicable foppery of desiring to be considered not as an author but a gentleman; to which the Frenchman replied, 'that, if he had been only a gentleman, he should not have come ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... herself. Judy, in her way, was stately too; a curiously-fine lace cap on her head, which had not been allowed to see the light since Charley's christening, with a large white satin bow in front, almost as large as the cap itself. And that was no despicable size. ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... child, thou art over-young to have any knowledge of so despicable an intrigue. But the matter is naturally of deep concern for us all," she added, as Ecciva, having recovered her perfect self-control lifted her eyes to Madama di Thenouris with a smile that was intended to thank ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... His mind was clearly made up. Whatever weakness may have been his there was none to be traced in his actions now. He saw ahead of him the possibilities of furthering his own interests, and he revelled in the thought of George Iredale's wealth. The despicable methods he was adopting troubled him not in the least. Iredale should pay dearly if his work partook of the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... that you yourself are a traitor to your Order. You prostitute a great cause when you stoop to use its machinery to assist your own private vengeance. I ask you for your own sake to consider your words. Lucille is mine—mine she will remain, even though you should descend to something more despicable, more cowardly than ordinary treason, to wrest her from me. You reproach me with the failures of my life. Great they may have been, but if you attempt this you will find that I am ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to control their flocks. If they only had the nerve to pick us up, turn our hearts inside out, show us the black corners, and the ossifications, and call sin, sin, we should begin to realize what despicable shams we are. Dr. Douglass, the Bishop, is the only one I know who lays us on the dissecting table, and who does not speak of 'human fallibility' when he means vice. He told us one day that the Gospel required a line of demarcation between ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little Christian work even is a protection against unchristian feeling! That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly needs the Christian envy, the large, rich, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... forward, with her hands about her knees, she began to brood over tumbled images of a wrong done to her. She had two distinct visions of herself, constantly alternating and acting like the temptation of two devils. One represented her despicable in feature, and bade her die; the other showed a fair face, feeling which to be her own, Emilia had fits of intolerable rage. This vision prevailed; and this wicked side of her humanity saved her. Active despair is a passion that must be superseded by a passion. Passive despair comes later; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with its contents I was obliged again to submit to the officious intervention of my indefatigable servitor. Various other dishes followed, the chief manifesting the most hospitable importunity in pressing us to partake, and to remove all bashfulness on our part, set us no despicable example ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... city. So many died that there were not boats enough to bear them away to their sepulture in the lakes, and the bodies rotted in the streets. There was not wanting at this time the presence of a traitor in the devoted city; and that this wretch was a Swiss will be a matter of no surprise. The despicable valor of these republicans has everywhere formed the best defense of tyrants, and their fidelity has always been at the service of the highest bidder. The recreant was a lieutenant in the Swiss Guard of the Duke; and when he had led ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... obtaining brilliancy or splendour. The urn was of thick and solid silver, as were also the tea-pot, coffee-pot, cream-ewer, and sugar-bowl; the cups were old, dim dragon china, worth about a pound a piece, but very despicable in the eyes of the uninitiated. The silver forks were so heavy as to be disagreeable to the hand, and the bread-basket was of a weight really formidable to any but robust persons. The tea consumed was the very best, the coffee the very blackest, the cream ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... at Rose. Francie, with her gilded wretchedness, thinks Rosie's lot quite despicable; but I can tell you, Molly, she is the most utterly comfortable and contented little soul on the face of this earth. She would not change places with a queen." "But Rose is not plain. Rose is the happy medium. And THEY are the lucky ones—the ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... innocence in boys is proportioned to the amount of mischief with which they are stuffed. They seem to be determined to risk their lives on mow-poles where the hay lies thin. They come out from under the stable floor in a despicable state of toilet, and cannot give any excuse for their depreciation of apparel. Hens flutter off the nest with an unusual squawk, for the boys cannot wait any longer for the slow process of laying, and hens have no business ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... to England! Our oysters are small I know; they are said by Americans to be coppery, but our hearts are of the largest size. We are thought to excel in shrimps, to be far from despicable in point of lobsters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the universe. Our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is supposed to exercise in these ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... this time with sufficient agility—the sword of Sporus had inflicted a severe wound upon his right leg; and, incapacitated to fly, he was pressed hard by the fierce swordsman. His great height and length of arm still continued, however, to give him no despicable advantages; and steadily keeping his trident at the front of his foe, he repelled him ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... has to wonder what the dictator of Iraq is thinking. If he thinks that by targeting innocent civilians in Israel and Saudi Arabia, that he will gain an advantage—he is dead wrong. If he thinks that he will advance his cause through tragic and despicable environmental terrorism—he is dead wrong. And if he thinks that by abusing coalition P.O.W.s, he will ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... Dirt from any Place without finding some of it sticking to his skirts." Such dirty clods were undoubtedly thrown by nameless antagonists, as unworthy of Fielding's steel as was one whose name has come down to us, the despicable Dr John Hill, who once suffered a public caning at Ranelagh; and one clod, "more filthy perhaps than all the rest," soiled the hands of Smollett. [2] But the dirt which was very freely flung on to our eighteenth-century Hercules has, by now, fallen ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... to me!' he said quickly, with a tender glance. 'My God! I shall quit France with less regret if I can leave one man behind me in whose eyes I am not half a swindler, nor a spendthrift, nor a man of illusions! Alain, I have loved an angel in the midst of my misery. A man who truly loves cannot be despicable.' At those words I stretched out my hand to him. He took it and wrung it. 'May heaven protect you!' I said. 'Are we still friends?' he asked. 'Yes,' I replied. 'It shall never be that my childhood's comrade ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... continued the Captain, laying his huge hand on his companion's knee, and gazing earnestly into his face, "I don't mean for to hurt your feelin's by sayin' that you are mean, or contemptible, or despicable, for I don't suppose you've thought much about the matter at all, and are just following in the wake of older men who ought to know better; but I say that the thing—gambling for money—is the meanest thing a man can do, short of stealing. What does it amount to? Simply this—I ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... is impossible to blame the trader and the man of commerce for this. The real fault, the real sin, is not individual, it is collective—the guilt properly belongs to Society. Men do not descend to these mean subterfuges and these despicable trickeries merely to make money, to pile on hundreds on hundreds and thousands on thousands. In their hearts all the best of them despise the methods by which they are forced to earn their incomes and make their fortunes; but the penalties which the laws ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... "Your despicable villainy is known!" said Barnabas. "Ha!—smile if you will, but while you knelt, pistol in hand, in the barn there, had you troubled to look in the loft above your head you might have murdered me, and none the wiser. As it ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... philosopher," said Meldon, "or rather he was, for he's dead now. He divided all morality into two kinds—slave morality, which he regards as despicable, and master morality, which is of ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... of a pistol told that his threat was executed. The brutal monster waited a moment for the smoke to clear away from his vision, not liking to venture upon that ominous looking dagger until assured of a bloodless victory. Poor, despicable coward! ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... went along, were to pass for fine stratagems; for witty sport; and to demonstrate a superiority of inventive talents!—O my cruel, cruel brother! had it not been for thee, I had not been thrown upon so pernicious and so despicable a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... into her eyes. Never, in any novel that she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. He was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's interests, a cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, with his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national degradation with which the country was afflicted. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... stooped to a course of conduct as to which there can be but one judgment among brave and upright opponents. No one knew better than the Czar the German Emperor's love of peace. This love of peace was reckoned upon in the whole despicable game. Fortunately the plan was perceived on the German side at the right time. Advices received by Germany's representative in St. Petersburg concerning the actual Russian mobilization against Germany moved him to add to the report given him upon the Russian word of honor a statement ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... that contained scarce a trace of virility—only a keen selfishness and a crafty faithlessness. And of a verity, if ever a human visage revealed truly the soul within, this one did; for a more scheming sycophant, vacillating knave and despicable traitor than Thomas, Lord Stanley, England had not seen since the villain John ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... and moral improvement, these churchmen asserted that the highest property possible to be acquired in servants could not cancel the obligation to take care of the religious instruction of those who "despicable as they are in the eyes of man are ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... snarl and hunger for their due, Till there seems naught so despicable as you In all the grin o' ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... and Frobisher breathed a sigh of thanksgiving. He had set his heart on commanding her, and he would have been bitterly disappointed if so fine a ship had been lost to him and the Navy through the despicable cupidity of a mandarin and the incompetence ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Provencal student declared that history was a thoroughly despicable exercise of rhetoric. According to him, the only true history was the natural history of man. Michelet was in the right path when he came in contact with the fistula of Louis XIV., but he fell back into the ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... their fortunes destroyed, their affections crushed, their bleeding hearts; to forget themselves, and to feel thenceforth but a single wound—the wound of France to cry aloud for justice; never to suffer themselves to be appeased, never to relent, but to be implacable; to seize the despicable perjurer, crowned though he were, if not with the hand of the law, at least with the pincers of truth, and to heat red-hot in the fire of history all the letters of his oath, and ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... practically that plain and wholesome, though humble fare at the board, was all that they ought to desire, and that luxuries and delicacies, such as load "the rich man's table," were truly a matter of small moment, and utterly despicable when compared with those luxuries of the mind, and that superiority of character, which are derived from moral and intellectual culture. These latter, accordingly, were day by day pressed on their attention as the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... trying to be agreeable. I pointed out—when I succeeded in seizing a place in the conversation—that if Gorman's theory were applied to Ireland Belfast would come out as a reality while Cork, Limerick, and other places like them would be as despicable as Dorsetshire. ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... entirely physical. When Paganism rose men had not begun to reflect upon themselves, or the infirmities of their own nature. The bad man was a bad man—the coward a coward—the liar a liar—individually hateful and despicable. But in hating and despising such unfortunates, the old Greeks were satisfied to have felt all that was necessary about them; and how such a phenomenon as a bad man came to exist in this world, they scarcely cared to inquire. There is no evil spirit in the mythology as an ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... lectures.) They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down No. IV. with this reflection, "What is the good of writing a thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book, so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad, I may as well shut up shop altogether. You put capitally and most simply and clearly the relation of animals and plants to each ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... or arduous performances: the most unskilful hand and unenlightened mind have sufficient incitements to industry; for he that is resolutely busy, can scarcely be in want. There is, indeed, no employment, however despicable, from which a man may not promise himself more than competence, when he sees thousands and myriads raised to dignity, by no other merit than that of contributing to supply their neighbours with the means of sucking smoke through a tube of clay; and others raising contributions upon those, whose ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... drew aside and watched, his eyes losing their hard glare, and some of his old expression returned to his face. It was as if his resurging emotions were bringing back to him the shame and remorse of a gentleman inveigled into performing a despicable action. He, too, saw Dolores approaching; saw the tensity of her expression; sensed some of the tremendous hopes that actuated her, now that she saw the rapid culmination of all her ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... lover's smile. Frank sprang up, and his brother, smiling even more affectionately, took his chair. At the same moment the widow stopped playing, and the scales seemed suddenly to fall from the young soldier's eyes. He saw himself as the most despicable villain in Europe, and Ellen as lost for ever, whether as sister or friend. So distraught was he that he had nearly tried to open a mid-Victorian cabinet before he discovered it was not the door. Downstairs he hurried wildly, threw on an ulster ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... dismissal of four officers, so they say. And so I'm to be boycotted in this manner! Is that argument, Mr. Machin? Tell me. You're a man, but honestly, is it argument? Why, it's just as mean and despicable as brute force." ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... bankboys who delighted in what they called "stringing skirts." Those fellows were despicable to him; they were scarcely worth despising. And their numbers were altogether too large. He had met others—very many—who were not in the despicable class, but who also were guilty of unfaithfulness. Why, he asked himself, ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... their defeat he is again taken prisoner. But the main interest of the last act is concentrated in Adelheid, who now reveals all the depths of her sensual nature and her unscrupulous ambition. Weislingen she has discovered to be a despicable creature, and she attaches herself to Sickingen, in whom she finds a man after her own heart, able to satisfy all the cravings of her nature. She poisons Weislingen, who dies as he has lived, the victim of weakness rather than of wickedness. ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... small sticks, around which in hard zero weather all the family of ten persons shivered, and beneath which in the morning we found our socks and coarse, soggy boots frozen solid. We were not allowed to start even this despicable little fire in its black box to thaw them. No, we had to squeeze our throbbing, aching, chilblained feet into them, causing greater pain than toothache, and hurry out to chores. Fortunately the miserable chilblain pain began to abate as soon as the ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... "My attention has been called to the alleged activities of some person or persons who through telephone calls and underground methods are seeking to undermine confidence in my integrity. A more despicable method of attempting to arouse distrust I cannot imagine. It is criminal and if anyone can assist me in placing the responsibility where it belongs I shall be glad ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... creatures I had ever beheld. For, indeed, while I was in that prince's country, I could never endure to look in a glass after mine eyes had been accustomed to such prodigious objects, because the comparisons gave me so despicable a conceit of myself. The captain said that while we were at supper he observed me to look at everything with a sort of wonder, and that I often seemed hardly able to contain my laughter, which he knew not well how to take, but imputed it to some disorder in my brain. ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... the most abiding impression upon him. On his way back to Woodnesborough he paid his first visit to the House of Lords, and heard a debate on the Copenhagen expedition, an affair in which, he considered, 'Ministers cut a most despicable figure.' On quitting school life at Woodnesborough, an experience was in store for him which enlarged his mental horizon, and drew out his sympathies for the weak and oppressed. Lord and Lady Holland had taken a fancy to the lad, and the Duke of Bedford ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... to conceive any trash more despicable than the slang songs which are current amongst the common people in Ireland; and this is the more to be lamented, as the extreme susceptibility of the people makes them liable to be easily moved to either good ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... is well to disabuse one's mind of the idea that every spy is necessarily the base and despicable fellow he is generally held to be. He is often both clever ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... wear PINAFORES; as if the British female were in the invariable habit of wearing this outer garment, or slobbering her gown without it. There was another celebrated piece, enacted some years since, upon the subject of Queen Caroline, where our late adored sovereign, George, was made to play a most despicable part; and where Signor Bergami fought a duel with Lord Londonderry. In the last act of this play, the House of Lords was represented, and Sir Brougham made an eloquent speech in the Queen's favor. Presently the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... turned on the two women between whom his path had lain: how highly he had aimed, and how low he had fallen! How enviable would have been his fate had he consistently kept to either! for each had been peerless in her way. How despicable was his position having greedily grasped at both! And now the one was dying, and the other degraded like himself. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... maintenance by literature, as all the literary people he had ever met or heard of bewailed their poverty. But there was Madame's little income of two hundred a year: that formed a basis, not altogether an insecure or despicable one. It would pay more than the rent, with the rates ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... interval had male children. Marcus Aurelius made the mistake of associating with him in power his son Commodus, who was eighteen years old when his father died, and reigned alone from 180 to 192. He began his despicable career as sole ruler by buying peace of the Marcomanni and the Quadi. He turned out to be a detestable tyrant, who was likewise guilty of the worst personal vices. He was strangled in his bedroom by one of his concubines, Marcia, with the assistance of others, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... account has been given of the operations in the China seas, enough has been said to show that the Tartar troops were no despicable enemies, while the bluejackets of Old England had ample opportunities of exhibiting their daring courage, as well as that perseverance, discipline, endurance, and humanity, for which they have ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... her companion and said, "I don't know anything more despicable than when a man does not dare, either by word or deed, to declare plainly what he feels in his inner consciousness to be in opposition with generally received opinions. A man who sneaks through life in this manner is, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... flagrant, and unendurable outrage, he was totally at a loss to comprehend what was meant by offended pride. Optimism, indeed! He felt far more inclined to embrace the faith of the Manichee! And what a fool was he to have submitted to such a despicable, such a degrading situation! What infinite weakness not to be able to resist her influence, the influence of a woman who had betrayed him! Yes! betrayed him. He had for some period reconciled his mind to entertain the ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... they are; and it is one evidence of their mental development. They have a great variety of native dishes, some of which, I believe, are not despicable." ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... representatives of the great {302} Shoshone nation are among the meanest, most degraded, most despicable Indians on the continent. This did not hinder them from being among the most brutal and ferocious. They made the tenure of life and property more than precarious in that far-off section during and after the Civil War. They were not very numerous, nor were ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... into the hands of the Romans. While the insurrection spread among the Bosporan towns, and Chersonesus (not far from Sebastopol), Theudosia (Kaffa), and others joined the Phanagorites, the king allowed his suspicion and his cruelty to have free course. On the information of despicable eunuchs his most confidential adherents were nailed to the cross; the king's own sons were the least sure of their lives. The son who was his father's favourite and was probably destined by him as his successor, Pharnaces, took his resolution and headed the insurgents. The servants ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... offence; but by way of judgment this is the reward you shall have. I don't forbid their return, but they shall be famished with hunger, lest they be not able to keep their stomachs in order. And as for those who sent such despicable {Ambassadors} as you, they shall never be free from ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... and my thumb the trigger. Mad with excitement as I was, ruined, dishonored, and now finally determined to make an end of my misspent life, my only surprise to this day is that I did not do so then and there. The despicable satisfaction of involving another in one's destruction added its miserable appeal to my baser egoism; and had fear or horror flown to my companion's face, I shudder to think I might have died diabolically happy with that look for my last impious consolation. ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... man reveals himself by some brilliant and intelligent works, the public is pleased to find them united with good qualities of the heart. Nor should its joy be less hearty on discovering the absence of all intellectual merit in a man who had before shown himself despicable by his passions, or his vices, or even only by serious blemishes ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Charles was no despicable rival. At first, self-flattery, and the habitual contempt wherewith he regarded his brother, blinded him to Emily's attachment: moreover, in the scenes of gayety and the common social circle, she never gave him cause to complain of undue preferences; readily ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... this girl's fortune was ready to fall into his hands? Fool, to risk his health, his character, his beauty, the little money which at this moment of time might be so indispensable to his great project, for the chance of winning something which in comparison with Marie Melmotte's money must be despicable! But at last he came! She waited patiently till he had thrown aside his hat and coat, and then she appeared at the dining-room door. She had studied her part for the occasion. She would not say a harsh ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... accursed passion of the agent of all this misery. I devote my remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a monster. I am told I may hope to accomplish my righteous and merciful purpose. At present there is scarcely a gleam of light to guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable affectation of superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy—all—too late. I cannot write or talk collectedly now. I am distracted. So soon as I shall have a little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to enquiry, ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... declared that history was a thoroughly despicable exercise of rhetoric. According to him, the only true history was the natural history of man. Michelet was in the right path when he came in contact with the fistula of Louis XIV., but he fell back into the old rut ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... Deity; for surely if the lord liveth, he judgeth rightly of these things. But it were vain to expect that those who think God is related to his creatures as a despot is related to his slaves, will hope to please that God by aught save paltry, cringing, and dishonestly despicable practices. Yet, no other than a despotic God has the great Newton taught us to adore—no other than mere slaves of such a God, has he taught us to deem ourselves. So much for the Theism of Europe's chief religious philosopher. Turn we now to the ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... there is no longer a place for you and your work in this world where all men are sinners at some time in their lives? I tell you, Champney Googe,—and mark well what I say,—your sin, as sin, is not so despicable as your attitude towards your own life. Why, man, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... poems had fallen into his hands, copies of which he offered to supply him, if he would send a guinea to cover expenses. He inclosed a specimen of "Aella." "The motive that actuates me to do this," he wrote, "is to convince the world that the monks (of whom some have so despicable an opinion) were not such blockheads as generally thought, and that good poetry might be wrote in the dark days of superstition, as well as in these more enlightened ages." Dodsley took no notice of the letters, and the owner of the Rowley manuscripts next turned to Horace ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and adopted, by which the patricians might be resisted: and that the only means to that end was for the people to defend themselves, since they had no other help: that four-and-twenty lictors waited on the consuls, and they men of the common people: that nothing could be more despicable, or weaker, if only there were persons to despise them; that each person magnified those things and made them objects of terror to himself. When they had excited one another by these words, a lictor was despatched by the consuls ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... The occupation of a fisherman, and, indeed, any occupation which involved the sin of slaughtering animals, was considered despicable. Fishermen, butchers, and leather-sellers were equally objects of scorn. In Lower Bengal the castes of Jaliyas and Bagdis, who live by fishing, etc., are amongst the lowest, and eke out a precarious livelihood by ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... so immensely eager to pay their despicable court to the Spade-Guinea Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the young, the lame, the paralytic, all found means to creep in to Grandfather Iden's annual dinner. His only son and natural heir was alone absent. How eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time at ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... be glad to see him," she thought. The fancy pained her, and yet she seemed to see Thomas Payne and Barney side by side, the one like a young prince—handsome and stately, full of generous bravery—the other vaguely crouching beneath some awful deformity, pitiful yet despicable in the eyes of men, and her whole soul cleaved to her old lover. "What we've got is ours," she ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... than poor—is to be despicable!" replied Hinkley with a half-sfnile, as he interrupted a speech which might have been construed into a very contemptuous commentary on his own pretensions. It would seem that the young man had so ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... checked the enterprise and audacity of that frantic man. What promptness was there in Brutus's conduct! what prudence! what valour! Although the rapidity of the movement of Caius Antonius also is not despicable; for if some vacant inheritance had not delayed him on his march, you might have said that he had flown rather than travelled. When we desire other men to go forth to undertake any public business, we ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... great deal longer, adding indecorum to awkwardness, and impertinence to incivility, accumulating incongruities, despising what is respectable, respecting what is despicable; but no ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... passage to smoke. A few pieces of bark, overhead, sheltered them from the rain, and the excessive heat of the sun. Upon these poles they slept, kindling smouldering fires beneath. They could better endure the suffocating fumes which thus enveloped them and drove away their despicable tormenters, than bear the poison of their stings. The voyagers were ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... each of these singly, when they are tagg'd to their sensible phrases, may be proper enough in Farce or Low Comedy; but as he has modell'd 'em, 'tis true they are very frightful—And if I had nothing to sing or say to divert Ladies better than this, I should think my self so despicable, that I would e'en get into the next Plot, amongst his Brother Grumblers—then despairing, do some doughty thing to deserve hanging, and depend upon no ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... have seen in books, I have seen written on battlefields, with steel and blood. They sneer at my mean origin. Where,—and may the gods bear witness,—where, but in the spirit of man, is nobility lodged? Tell these despicable railers that their haughty lineage cannot make them noble, nor will my humble birth make me base. I profess no indifference to noble descent; but when a descendant is dwarfed in the comparison, it should be a shame, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... spectacle it was,—this venerable worthy sitting behind his bunch of wooden decoys, a wounded tern fluttering in agony at his feet. Withal, be it said, he was a man of gentlemanly bearing, courteous, and a Christian. He did not shoot on Sunday,—not he. Such sport is to me despicable. Yet it is affirmed by those who ought to know—by those, that is, who engage in it—that it tends to promote ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... supportable far from some stately and magnificent object, worthy of endless study and admiration. But what of life in the plains? Truly, most plains are dreary enough, but still they may have fine trees, or a cathedral. And in the cathedral, here, I find no despicable compensation for the loss of ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... thus explained in a private letter from Colonel Hamilton—"This man (Arnold) is in every sense despicable. In addition to the scene of knavery and prostitution during his command in Philadelphia, which the late seizure of his papers has unfolded, the history of his command at West Point is a history ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... ourselves to think we are not, altogether strangers, and without credit: Therefore, most beautiful lady, if you would vouchsafe to honour the wedding with your presence, we shall be infinitely obliged to you; because the ladies of your country will then know that we are not looked upon here as despicable wretches, when they shall come to understand that a lady of your quality did us that honour. But, alas! madam, if you refuse this request, we shall be altogether disgraced, and dare not ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... no despicable horse-jockey, selected for his purpose a strong well-made horse, about sixteen hands high, and had him led into the yard, to see whether the paces corresponded with his appearance. As these also gave perfect satisfaction to the customer, it remained only to settle the price with Bridlesley; who of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... read and dreamed, with its bright pageantry, its charges and shock of arms, its feats of single combat. Fate willed that I was yet to see another, trained on the battlefields of Europe, humbled in the dust by these foes whom I found so despicable, and the soldiers of the king taught a lesson they ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... sitting easy with a load of Calumny, is a sufficient Consolation to Inferiors under the most despicable Usage, and there is this satisfactory Reflection, that perhaps the most perfect Work that ever was compos'd, if not so entirely correct, but there may be some room for Criticism by a Man of consummate Learning; for there is nothing more common than to find ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... business of employing savages to scalp brave, patriotic men and defenseless women and children. The cries of the widows and the fatherless on our frontiers require the blood of the Indian partisans at my hands. If you choose to risk the massacre of your garrison to save those despicable red-handed partisans, have your pleasure. What you have done you know better than I do. I have a duty to perform. You may be able to soften its nature. I may take it into my head to send for some of our bereaved women to witness ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... suspect that in fighting fire with fire, that is in fighting propaganda with propaganda, we descended by degrees to use the same despicable methods of distorting truth for the sake of influencing people to a certain desired end. England and France and all other countries had the same sad experience. Doubtless we could not very well avoid it. It is part ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... given by the wife of one of them—men who had been driven to hatred and revolt by an inefficient, exclusive, and unscrupulous Government, which was endeavouring to reduce the subjects of a suzerain power to the level—to the, to them, despicable level—of the Kaffirs? Of the fate of these unhappy sufferers ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... much as Lord Kames. "Just criticism," says he, "calls on us also to point out some of the passages that appear exceptionable in the Dunciad. Such is the hero's first speech, in which, contrary to all decorum and probability, he addresses the goddess Dulness, without disguising her as a despicable being, and even calls himself fool and blockhead. For a person to be introduced speaking thus of himself, is in truth unnatural and out of character." Would that the Doctor had been alive to be set at ease on this point by our explanations—but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... beginning to feel the impulses of indignation arising in your breast, for who am I, the admittedly despicable Jehu, to group you as my fellow convicts, my co-conspirators, in a sense? And you are right, for I am not your judge and neither do I wish ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... in a curious tone. 'Impossible. He is the perfection of health. In three months he will be married. No, I shall never be anything but a Serene Highness, the most despicable ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... dangerous fit of illness, occasioned by that cursed incident at Gloucester, which I mentioned in my last. — She is a poor good-natured simpleton, as soft as butter, and as easily melted — not that she's a fool — the girl's parts are not despicable, and her education has not been neglected; that is to say, she can write and spell, and speak French, and play upon the harpsichord; then she dances finely, has a good figure, and is very well inclined; but, she's deficient in spirit, and so susceptible — and so tender forsooth! — truly, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... always been a sentiment of mine—that to propagate a malicious Truth wantonly—is more despicable than to falsify from Revenge, but can you Maria feel thus [f]or others and be unkind to me alone—nay is hope to ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... gentleman with the manners of a bear and the composure of a prig. Furthermore, it is through women's novels that we have had brought home to us most adequately what women who have tasted it, or seen it, can best relate, the despicable egotism of a weak man. Anzoleto in ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... by the youth as a very important thing. Without salve, he could not, he thought, wear the sore badge of his dishonor through life. With his heart continually assuring him that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, through his actions, apparent ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... plunder, tending directly to the insecurity of the lives of numerous travelers and of the rich treasure belonging to our citizens passing over this transit way, should be peremptorily arrested. Whatever it might be in other respects, the community in question, in power to do mischief, was not despicable. It was well provided with ordnance, small arms, and ammunition, and might easily seize on the unarmed boats, freighted with millions of property, which passed almost daily within its reach. It did not profess to belong to any regular government, and had, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... in the Bunker Hill mansion but Denver Russell sat sulking in his cave with no company but an inquisitive pack-rat. He regretted now his curt refusal to join the Hills at supper, for Drusilla was singing gloriously; but a man without pride is a despicable creature and Old Bunk had tried to insult him. So he went to bed and early in the morning, while the shadow of Apache Leap still lay like a blanket across the plain, he set out to fulfill his contract. Across one shoulder he hung a huge canteen of water, on the other ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... converse with the meanest of the Lacedaemonians, he will at first find him, for the most part, apparently despicable in conversation; but afterwards, when a proper opportunity presents itself, this same mean person, like a skilful jaculator, will hurl a sentence, worthy of attention, short and contorted; so that he who converses ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little Christian work even is a protection against un-Christian feeling! That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly need the Christian envy—the large, rich, generous soul ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... then possessed. Most of the persons accused and executed, like Giles Corey, his wife Martha, and Bridget Bishop, were supposed to have been of humble, if not mean condition, of vagrant habits, and more or less despicable repute. By following the threads placed in my hands, in the files of the county-offices of Registry of Deeds and Wills, and documents connected with trials at law, and by a collation of conveyances and the administration ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... life is another. It horrified him. Mordaunt Prince had committed the unforgivable sin. He had stolen a girl's love, and basely, meanly, he had slunk off, deceiving her to the last. To Septimus the lover who kissed and rode away had ever appeared a despicable figure of romance. The fellow who did it in real life proclaimed himself an unconscionable scoundrel. The memory of Emmy's forget-me-not blue eyes turning into sapphires as she sang the villain's praises ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... feel that I have been utterly despicable," she pleaded. "You have made no mistakes—in the conduct of the case. I should be so helpless ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... for my indignation almost stifles my heart, and, instead of smiling on people, I would rather show them my fist. Ah, Gneisenau, men are mean and contemptible, after all, and those at headquarters are the most despicable! They want peace! Do you comprehend that, Gneisenau—peace! now that we are on the road to Paris, and only need make up our minds to destroy the power of our enemy! Oh, it is enough to make a fellow swear! ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... odd thing, asking, "Oh, can it be you are a less despicable person than you are striving ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... honesty, yes; for he is as despicable a miscreant as ever lived; but, still, not likely to have married such a woman. And it may be possible that there was no California marriage at all. Therefore I feel very anxious to get ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... they being without a firelock, or any load, no man with his arms, accoutrements, &c. can escape them, and they give no quarters; but if you will but observe the above directions, the are the most despicable enemy that are." ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... compromise with a political idea are evident enough. The oligarchy will be luxurious and corporately corrupt, and individually somewhat despicable, with a sort of softness about it in morals and in military affairs. The despot or the bureaucracy will be individually corrupt, especially in the lower branches of the system, and ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... absurd customs and degrading ceremonies imposed on them by the Chinese and other semi-barbarous nations, for the purpose of advancing their mercantile interests. Taught by them, these people look upon all Europeans as tribes of mean and despicable traders, who have neither the power nor the spirit to resent ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... watching her intently for a few seconds. Then he bent over her, low and lower, till his lips almost rested upon hers. But at this point something checked his despicable impulse—perhaps the purity of her face, or merely its unresisting stillness. Perhaps he chose to defer the pleasure till a more acceptable moment. He straightened himself with a jerk; and hastening into the hall, shouted for brandy ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... seldom seen in the streets by day: his most profitable season is the night. And what meagre pickings are his at the best! what despicable bits of paper, of twine, of coal-refuse, of rejected food, bones, potato-skins, he gathers carefully in his hoard! A bit of paper no larger than a postage-stamp he saves. A crust of bread no bigger than ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... grave, the gallant father, and that sort of thing. Amory was drowned commanding a country ship between Calcutta and Sydney; Amory and the Begum weren't happy together. She has been unlucky in her selection of husbands, the good old lady, for, between ourselves, a more despicable creature than Sir Francis Clavering, of Clavering Park, Baronet, never—" "Never legislated for his country," broke in Warrington; at which Pen ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this people; and prayeth that God would remember that: "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee." True, the church, the saints, are despicable in the world; wherefore men do think to tread them down; the saints are, also, weak in grace, but have corruptions that are strong, and, therefore, Satan, the god of this world, doth think to tread them down; but the saints have a God, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... replied Dame Hilda, with one of those superior smiles which used to make me feel so very naughty. It seemed to say, "My poor, little, despicable insect, how could you dream of supposing that your intellect was even with Mine?" (There, I have writ that a capital M in red ink. To have answered to Dame Hilda's tone when she put that smile on, it should have ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... adherents; such encouragement of oppression and connivance at corruption; such a prostitution of justice; such a cynical indifference to all moral principle—unparalleled even in the history of Greece—could not but make the Cretan's rule both odious and despicable. What made it more hateful still in the eyes of the people was the fact {214} that it had been imposed upon them by foreign arms, and what made it more contemptible still was the fact that it functioned ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... find a charm in my escapades. At first I tingled with fear, but I gradually laid aside that cloak of suspicion which guards safety, and stalked about naked. A despicable contempt arises from an unreserved intimacy. We grow ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... all vessels arriving, and see that all negroes or colored seamen are committed to prison. One is a South Carolinian, by the name of Dusenberry, and the other an Irishman, by the name of Dunn. These two men, although their office is despicable in the eyes of many, assume more authority over a certain class of persons, who are unacquainted with the laws, than the mayor himself. The former is a man of dark, heavy features, with an assassin-like ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... not a despicable or very ascetic regimen which Stevenson lays before us under April in his reproduction of Breton's "Fantasticks," 1626, under the title of the "Twelve Months," 1661:—"The wholesome dyet that breeds good sanguine juyce, such as pullets, capons, sucking veal, beef not above three ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... a man a coward simply because he was afraid of a rat, but you would call a man a coward who was afraid in battle. To be a coward there seems to me to be a coward all round. I have always thought the one virtue in man I really envied was bravery, and that a coward was the most despicable creature living. It might not be his actual fault, but one can't help that. It is not anyone's fault if he is fearfully ugly or born an idiot, for example. But cowardice seems somehow different. Not to be brave when he is strong seems to put a man below the level of a woman. I feel ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the advantages arising from a strict adherence to truth are too obvious not to be immediately perceived, and I trust, from the principles I have always endeavoured to instil into your young mind, that you will ever prefer the fair and open path she points out, to the intricate labyrinths of despicable falshood. ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... moments, and imagine themselves exposed to the same hardships by a power superiour to their own; let them conceive themselves torn from the tenderness and caresses of their families by midnight irruptions, dragged in triumph through the streets by a despicable officer, and placed under the command of those by whom they have, perhaps, been already oppressed and insulted. Why should we imagine that the race of men for whom those cruelties are preparing, have less sensibility ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... own affairs according to his mind, he would not in any thing keep his faith with the Romans inviolate." He requested that he would exhort and stimulate Scipio not to delay. Though driven from his kingdom, he said he would join him with no despicable force of foot and horse. Nor was it right, said he that Laelius should continue in Africa, for he believed that a fleet had set sail from Carthage, with which, in the absence of Scipio, it would not ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... school I was the least impetuous of the two. Everything went, and they cheated me from the start. Roulette and faro. Then I put my hand in the safe. To this day I can not tell why. I owed nothing to those despicable thieves, ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... fingers by holding them out relief in their necessity? It is you who are mean—you Normans—not we of the ancient race. You have your vulgar measurement for great things and small. You call a thousand pounds respectable, and a shekel despicable. Psha, my Codlingsby! One is as the other. I trade in pennies and in millions. I ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... nature and the productions of art with indifference and neglect. We should be unaffected with the calamities of others, deaf to the calls of pity, and dead to all the feelings of humanity. Without generosity, benevolence, or charity, man would be a groveling, despicable creature. Without the passions, man would ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... honey cakes and tarts, biscuits of all descriptions, including maccaroons and gingerbread, vegetables far more numerous than we use, salads, cucumbers, melons, and all fruits in season, puddings of semolina, millet, and rice, almonds, spices, pickles—went to make up a menu by no means despicable. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... substances (substantiae noumena). At the same time, he made these conceptions valid of phenomena, because he did not allow to sensibility a peculiar mode of intuition, but sought all, even the empirical representation of objects, in the understanding, and left to sense naught but the despicable task of confusing and disarranging the representations ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... say, allow men to make the laws, as God and nature planned. I think women should keep to the sphere God made them for—the home. Said Gladstone, 'Woman is the most perfect when most womanly.' There is nothing, I think, more despicable than a masculine, mannish woman, unless it be an effeminate, sissy man. Dr. Clarke voiced my sentiments when he said: 'Man is not superior to woman, nor woman to man. The relation of the sexes is one of equality, not of better or worse, of higher and lower. The loftiest ideal ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... and made me miserable and ashamed. I dare say, too, I have hurt Duke's pride by trying to give him a reason for your indifferent attitude, yet never having courage for the real, piffling explanation. I am mortified at my despicable weakness and I will overcome it by realizing how unworthy I am to bear Duke's honorable, unstained name, even if it is Hogg. You might as well give up, mother! If the dearest, best, most delightful man in the world loves me, I shall marry him, name ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... say you, Gnatho? Is he despicable? Or, Captain, what say you?—Dumb?—Praise sufficient; Try him in letters, exercises, music: In all the arts, a gentleman should ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... miss him prodigiously at the Club," said the Dandy, with a slight shake of the head. "What a bore!" replied the Nobleman, with a long yawn. We could hardly venture to express compassion for a character so despicable. Our auditors, however, entertained very different opinions of right and wrong! "Poor fellow! he was much to be pitied: had done some very foolish things—to say the truth was a sad scoundrel—but then he was always so mad." And ...
— English Satires • Various
... that the Jesuit had stated in writing that he could never induce the Queen-mother to consent to separate herself from him, although he had entreated of her to leave him in the Low Countries when she returned to France.[207] Despicable, indeed, were such alleged terrors from the lips of the Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu—the first minister of one of the first sovereigns of Europe. What had he to fear from a powerless and impoverished Princess, whose misfortunes had already endured a sufficient time to outweary ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... fault that the eloquence was wasted. To meditate upon the embroidery of a flower, when I was expatiating on the beauties of Milton! She might at least have admired the poetry, if she did not relish the manner in which it was delivered: though that was not despicable, for I had recited passages in my best style, which my mother and sisters had always considered equal to a play. "Oh, it is evident," thought I, "Miss Somerville ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... cruel and heartless wrong has been done you by a despicable scoundrel, for whom no retribution would ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... it left him no rest until, by hook or by crook, by supplication, or by trickery, or by paying down hard cash, he had obtained the close and constant proximity of—what?—of a man whom he himself described as a 'singe' and a 'scelerat,' a man of base soul and despicable character. And Frederick appears to see nothing surprising in this. He takes it quite as a matter of course that he should be, not merely willing, but delighted to run all the risks involved by Voltaire's undoubted roguery, so long as he can be sure of benefiting from Voltaire's no less undoubted ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... lake near Isel, and country-folk and despicable people used to occupy the island that was upon it. The noise and uproar of those worthless people used to cause disturbance for the clerics. Ciaran prayed to the Lord that the island should be removed from its place, and that was done. The place ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down Number 4 with this reflection, "What is the good of my writing a thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad I may as ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... in a vise-like grip. It was well he had, for the fellow had burst into a frantic rage, yet was bound so utterly helpless as to appear almost pitiful. The knowledge of what he had planned, of his despicable treachery, left us merciless. In spite of his struggles we bore him to the floor, and pinned him there, cursing and snapping like a ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... This is to acquaint you that one came to us who is not of our nation and of our land, an Amalekite, the son of great ancestors, and his name is Haman. He made a trifling request of me, saying: 'Among us there dwells a people, the most despicable of all, who are a stumbling-block in every time. They are exceeding presumptuous, and they know our weakness and our shortcomings. They curse the king in these words, which are constantly in their mouths: "God is the King of the world ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... is a Widow, to whom the Indulgence of a tender Husband has entrusted the Management of a very great Fortune, and a Son about sixteen, both which she is extremely fond of. The Boy has Parts of the middle Size, neither shining nor despicable, and has passed the common Exercises of his Years with tolerable Advantage; but is withal what you would call a forward Youth: By the Help of this last Qualification, which serves as a Varnish to all the rest, he is enabled to make the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... impelled the living tide against the tottering house founded on the desert sand. The Arab suffered acutely from poverty, misgovernment, and oppression. Infuriated, he looked up and perceived that the cause of all his miseries was a weak and cowardly foreigner, a despicable 'Turk.' The antagonism of races increased the hatred sprung from social evils. The moment was at hand. Then, and not till then, the third wave came—the wave of fanaticism, which, catching up and surmounting ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... covet, being lord, king and emperor over the whole country I had in possession, without dispute and without control: I had loadings of corn, plenty of turtles, timber in abundance, and grapes above measure. What was all the rest to me? the money I had lay by me as despicable dross, which I would freely have given for a gross of tobacco pipes, or a hard mill to grind my corn: in a word the-nature and experience of these things dictated to me this just reflection: That the good things of this world are no farther good to us, than they are for our use; and that ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... likeness in miniature,' related the macaroni, never minding; 'set round with diamonds, and, will you believe it? when she came to examine it, they were not brilliants, but rose-diamonds—despicable fellow!' ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Highness, and he noted with pleasure that he spoke quite as if it did not matter. "Nevertheless, this was a despicable trick to play upon the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... those countries, which she thought of with pleasure, though then only twelve or thirteen: that for this reason, and having been on a late occasion still more unsettled (looking down with blushes, which often overspread her face, as she talked), she had refused some offers, not despicable: that indeed Lord C. threatened to follow her to Italy, in hopes of meeting better success there, than he had met with here: but if he did, though she would make no resolutions, she might be too much offended with him, to give him reason to boast of his journey; ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... his liberty, and life itself. Many of the officials of Southern States, including numerous judges and not a few Christian ministers, helped or sanctioned these Negro-hating editors and reporters in their despicable onslaught upon the Negro, while tens of thousands of white business men of the South fattened upon Negro convict labor and the proceeds of ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... off and carried away bodily by the raging wind, and the opened fountains of the firmament beat down the breakers before they could grow to their full growth. Otherwise we were lost men; the southern shore was still two miles distant, and, as it was, the danger was not despicable. These tornadoes are harmless enough to a cruiser, and under a good roof men bless them. But H.M.S. "Heron" was sunk by one, and the venture of a cranky gig laden a fleur d'eau is what some ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the wise and prudent." Man's wisdom may not vaunt itself. God's moral system is no well-lit room in which all furnishings are visible; rather a twilight gloom, where men and women grope. We know enough. Virtue is made very evident, and vice very despicable, and God very apparent—and these be the sufficient data for the monograph of life. "All things work together for good to them that love God," is the far-away response to Job's troubled cry. God converses with Satan long enough to deny the allegation that Job serves God as a matter ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... but in a pale and weak and almost despicable miniature that such ideas are now set up, but you will observe that the poison lies—that the poison and the mischief lie—in the principle and not the scale. It is the opposite principle which, I say, has been ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... continent, and not suffering the full malice of the winter and summer anywhere. But as yet, the derision that attaches to moving attends even the goer-out of town, and the man of many trunks and a retinue of linen- suited womankind is a pitiable and despicable object to all the other passengers at the railroad station and on ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... as the headquarters of Major-General Wool. We passed by unchallenged; in our bag, however, we had rebel ammunition: a loaded shell fired at our men as they were crossing the stone bridge at Antietam. Fortunately the fuse had gone out, and it remained a trophy for one of the despicable Down-East Yankees. We heard the old General was still the centre of attraction to the pretty secesh ladies who had friends or relatives in durance vile in Fort McHenry. The veteran hero, though rich, wears a uniform that shows the marks of service. That, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sufficiently to swallow a few drops—was yet too drowsy from the fatigues of the day, sundry cups of Christmas egg-nogg, and the obesity of age, to maintain alert vigil over one she, in common with her fellow-servitors, scorned as an aggravated specimen of the always and ever-to-be despicable genus, "poor white folks." There was next to nothing for her to do when the fire had been replenished, the bottles of hot water renewed at the feet and heart, and fresh mustard draughts wound about the almost pulseless limbs of the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... the Refugee Concentrated Camps, and when he left he had a camp of about six thousand women and children under his care. All charges of cruelty and inhumanity were vile and calumnious falsehoods. Nay, worse, they were miserable, despicable concoctions. Both women and children were better off, the great bulk of them, than ever they were in their lives. The only thing approaching cruelty to them was at the authorities insisted upon cleanliness and proper attention to sanitary regulations, which the average ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had no gift but that of music, so that even if he had been a musician he would have ranked far lower in the scale of manhood than the shoemakers of the village; but he would have done the best he could do, while as a shoemaker he was despicable. ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... somehow, the keys to a courtlier and nobler world. These tales made living seem a braver business, for all that they were written by a poltroon. Was it pure posturing? Patricia, at least, thought it was not. At worst, such dexterous maintenance of a pose was hardly despicable, she considered. And, anyhow, she preferred to believe that Charteris had by some miracle put the best of himself into these books, had somehow clarified the abhorrent mixture of ability and evil which was John Charteris; and the best in him she found, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... his own state, he thus writes of this place:—"I began to pray as on the verge of eternity; and the Lord was pleased to break my hard heart. I lay in tears, interceding for the unfortunate natives of this country; thinking within myself that the most despicable soodra of India was of as much value in the sight of God as the King of Great Britain." It was from such supplication that he was once roused by the blaze of a Suttee's funeral pyre, on which he found that the living widow had been consumed with the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... made the best figure in the ballroom were not always qualified to please in conversation; I saw that beauty and grace were sometimes accompanied by a frivolous character, by disgusting envy, or despicable vanity. All this I had read of in poetry and prose, but there is a wide difference, especially among young people, between what is read and related, and what is actually seen. Books and advice make much more impression in proportion ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... he didn't want to know of any. According to his ideas no circumstances could excuse a crime—and certainly not such a crime. This was the opinion generally received. The duty of a human being was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an animal; base, low, vile, despicable, shameless, and deceitful. He had been deceiving him since last year. He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person, without necessity, uselessly, for no earthly reason, and regardless of another's self-respect ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... often the cause of their destruction: for though, for instance, those who raised themselves to the supreme power generally preserved it; but those who received it from them have, to speak truth, almost immediately all of them lost it; for, falling into an effeminate way of life, they soon grew despicable, and generally fell victims to conspiracies. Part of their hatred may be very fitly ascribed to anger; for in some cases this is their motive to action: for it is often a cause which impels them to act more powerfully ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... case, been simply for the purpose of filling up a void occasioned by my lack of memory. I may have taken for granted as true what I knew to be possible, never what I knew to be false. Such as I was, I have exhibited myself,—despicable and vile, when so; virtuous, generous, sublime, when so. I have unveiled my interior being, such as Thou, Eternal Existence, hast beheld it. Assemble around me the numberless throng of my fellow-mortals; let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my depravities, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... wish you to consider this well. I am offering you all that I have in the world; it is not despicable. Your family, I know, would be pleased. Besides, it would be well for you—God knows, not because I am what I am, but for other reasons. Wait. I beg of you not to answer me till you have thought it over. You know me; I am no saint, but a man who would give his life for you. I ask of you nothing ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... I did, 'twere better for my peace. But to see him despised and despicable,— The man whom ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... only, as a little child could instantly move it, but no one man or many remove it. This natural monument all travellers that came that way desired to behold; but in the time of Oliver's usurpation, when all monumental things became despicable, one Shrubsall, one of Oliver's heroes, then Governor of Pendennis, by labor and much ado, caused to be undermined and thrown down, to the great grief of the country; but to his own great glory, as he thought, doing it, as he said, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... to draw your attention to this subject: it is important in every sense, both as regards your public and private stations. There is nothing more worthy of a man than truth: nothing makes him feel himself so despicable as a lie. Recollect that men act lies without speaking them, and that all false appearances are lies. "He, therefore, who, seeing his employer injured, neglects to make it known, is equally guilty—with this addition, that he is practising a lie. Want ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... that was approaching them from the opposite direction. In a second she saw that it carried Harding and Mortlake. They both looked angry and blank. Peggy guessed at once that they had discovered their loss. But she resolved not to stop unless they did and asked questions. She felt that such a despicable act as they had attempted to perpetrate deserved no help on ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... notoriety; our desires on this point, as upon others, are not noble, but the human is very despicable vermin and only tolerable when it tends to the brute, and away from the evangelical. I will tell you an anecdote which is in itself an admirable illustration of my craving for notoriety; and my anecdote will serve a double purpose,—it will bring me some of ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... very high idea of Etruscan artistic skill as it then stood; yet the best of the Etruscan works in bronze, to which the later critics of art assigned so high a place, may have belonged to this primitive age; and the Etruscan terra-cottas also cannot have been altogether despicable, for the oldest works in baked clay placed in the Roman temples—the statue of the Capitoline Jupiter, and the four-horse chariot on the roof of his temple—were executed in Veii, and the large ornaments of a similar kind placed on the roofs of temples passed generally ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... raven-black, for that has a shiny gloss, and hers had not, but it was hair never to be painted nor described,—wonderful hair, Jewish hair. Her nose had a beautiful outline, though I could see that it was Jewish too; and that, and all her features, were so fine that sculpture seemed a despicable art beside her, and certainly my pen is good for nothing. If any likeness could be given, however; it must be by sculpture, not painting. She was slender and youthful, and yet had a stately and cold, though soft and womanly grace; ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... flighty work, where many crude but genuine feelings tumble together for the mastery as in the lists of tournament, we are tempted to think of the "Large Testament" as of one long-drawn epical grimace, pulled by a merry-andrew, who has found a certain despicable eminence over human respect and human affections by perching himself astride upon the gallows. Between these two views, at best, all temperate judgments will be found to fall; and rather, as I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have been in physical shape like these, how despicable in comparison I am; to be shapely of form is so infinitely beyond wealth, power, fame, all that ambition can give, that these are dust before it. Unless of the human form, no pictures hold me; the rest are flat surfaces. So, too, with the other ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... he says, 'make too much haste to despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... a crafty political move. The enormity of the despicable acts was advertised as never before, while the endorsement of them by federalist legislators went upon record. Petitions for repeal came in so numerous and numerously signed that the VIth Congress could not but raise a committee to consider such action. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... nobody, slow, patient, and ever courageous, he unites to a complete technical knowledge a marvellous intuition of the beautiful, and his treasures are for him pride, bliss, and life. There is no show in this case, no desire for show, no ambition of the despicable shoddy-genteel sort—a more than powerful creation of fiction. A strikingly opposite career of selfishness is suggested by the fairly well-known story of Don Vincente, the friar bookseller of Barcelona, who, in order to obtain a volume which a rival bookseller, Paxtot, had ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... do so, but he would be hanged by indignant authority if he resisted. It was a great deal worse than outlawry. It included scorn and contempt and opprobrium. It meant dishonor and humiliation and admitted degradation. A disgraced man was despicable in his own eyes. And Hoddan had kidnaped these men who'd been forced to engage themselves to fight him, and if they killed him they would obviously die in space, and if they didn't they'd be ashamed to stay alive. The moral tone on Darth was probably not elevated, ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Lycidas having expressed himself in favour of the terms, he was immediately stoned to death. The Athenian women, roused by a similar passion with the men, inflicted the same fate upon his wife and children—one of those excesses of virtue which become crimes, but for which exigency makes no despicable excuse. [96] The ambassador ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brother, John, who enjoys the reputation of being the most despicable of English kings, speedily gave Philip a good excuse for seizing a great part of the Plantagenet lands. John was suspected of conniving at the brutal murder of his nephew Arthur (the son of Geoffrey), to whom the nobles of Maine, Anjou, and Touraine had ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... the very light of Heaven Is venal; earth's unsparing gifts of love, The smallest and most despicable things That lurk in the abysses of the deep, 180 All objects of our life, even life itself, And the poor pittance which the laws allow Of liberty, the fellowship of man, Those duties which his heart of human love Should urge ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... with a smile. "Trying to the other men, until I got my bearings and lost the silliest of the silly ideas put in my head by college and that sort of thing. But, now that I realize I'm an apprentice and not a gentleman deigning to associate with the common herd, I think I'm less despicable—and less ridiculous. Still, I'm finding it hard to get it through my head that practically everything I learned is false and ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... are of our own time. There is a definite and grievous wrong committed against the young woman with whom the central character is in love, therefore the wrong is committed indirectly against the lover himself. We are made to realize the despicable nature, the utter heartlessness, of the young woman's betrayer, and we actually hate him as soon as the facts are made clear to us. We realize how great has been the love for her cherished by the man ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... you! You have no honor! With the touch of Gertrude's lips and arms still on yours, you come to me and dare to perjure yourself! Oh, Mr. Murray! Mr. Murray! I did not believe you capable of such despicable dissimulation! In the catalogue of your sins, I never counted deceit. I thought you too proud to play the hypocrite. If you could realize how I loathe and abhor you, you would get out of my sight! You would not waste time in words that sink you deeper ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... your life, and will be proud to blame. Flagitious manners make impressions deep On those, that o'er a page of Milton sleep: Nor in their dulness think to save your shame, True, these are fools; but wise men say the same. Wits are a despicable race of men, If they confine their talents to the pen; When the man shocks us, while the writer shines, Our scorn in life, our envy in his lines. Yet, proud of parts, with prudence some dispense, And play the fool, because they're men ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... opportunity of girding at those whose weights and measures were not according to the current and only authentic standard, has left no very flattering account of his person. "He was a little crooked man, and of a despicable presence. He was laughed at by the boys of this University, because, as they said, he himself looked like a little wizard." Small as might be his stature, and questionable the shape in which he appeared, he might still have taken up the boast of the author of the Religio Medici: "Men ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... abuse as much and as purulently as he likes, that is, as he can;—in short, a mule,—quarrelsome by the original discord of his nature;—a slave by tenure of his own baseness,—made to bray and be brayed at, to despise and be despicable. "Aye, Sir, but say what you will, he is a very clever fellow, though the best friends will fall out. There was a time when Ajax thought he deserved to have a statue of gold erected to him and handsome ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... entire people—men, women, and children—have engaged in this fight, and are animated by the single heroic and indomitable resolve to perish rather than submit to the despicable invader now threatening us with subjugation. They will ratify the ordinance of secession amid the smoke and carnage of battle; they will write out their indorsement of it with the blood of their foe; they will enforce it at the point of the bayonet ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... suppress such mighty truth, lest he disturb some fancied right, or absurd feeling ruffle? When the volcano of his mind suppress and keep its furious fires in, lest he consume some petty despot's despicable sway; or else, at least, touch his tender sensibilities with momentary pain? "Fiat justitia, ruat coelum," is a favorite maxim with other abolitionists. But St. Paul, it seems, could not assume quite so lofty a tone. He could not say, "Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall." He ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... his head, but well down over it, he wears an antique high hat, which has assumed that patient, resigned expression occasionally to be observed in the face of some venerable mule, which, having long and hopelessly struggled to free herself of a despicable bondage, at last bows submissively to the inevitable and trudges bravely on till she ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... lives with the irresponsibility of a baby hammering at the jewels of a watch. The fact that he knew better made him far more culpable, he thought, than little Peterkin or any of his comrades. Yes, he was despicable; he ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... with Drums and Pipes and dancing until almost day, and then they take these Images and cast them out into the high ways to be trampled under foot: and the Victuals taken away and eaten by the attendants, and despicable people that ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... gave way to her hopes of a juster treatment.—Then I would think it impossible (so slight an opinion had I of woman's virtue) that such a girl as this, cottage-born, who owed every thing to my family, and had an absolute dependence upon my pleasure: myself not despicable in person or mind, as I supposed; she unprejudiced in any man's favour, at an age susceptible of impressions, and a frame and constitution not ice or snow: 'Surely,' thought I, 'all this frost must be owing to the want of fire in my attempts ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... abolition of slavery, in which he was one of Clarkson's earliest associates, he had, on several occasions, proved that he could write well, though, we believe, he was never avowedly an author. He had left no despicable collection of books, so that in his school vacations ample means were afforded to his son of indulging his taste for reading. A pleasing tribute to the memory of Mr. Barton's father will be found in his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... brethren. During the last few days I have frequently met Constantine, the grand-duke, and the other distinguished Russians; and the blind, stupid, and impudent national pride with which they assailed Austria and Germany generally, calling our country a despicable part of earth, where none but traitors and cowards were to be found, cut me to the quick. I know very well that we are at present scarcely allowed to maintain our dignity as Germans; our government has reduced us to so degrading a position; but when we keep in ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... dignified by her school fellows with the honourable appellation of Dolly Cagmag. As she advanced in years, the habit grew upon her; and when she was old enough to be introduced into company, and go a visiting, she carried on the same mischievous and despicable trade abroad, in which she had met with such encouragement at home. Whatever she saw or heard in one place, she would be sure to report it in another; so that all the masters and misses who had the mortification to fall into her company, considered ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... delivered. I remember once I went down to assist a friend of mine in an electioneering campaign in a small borough. His opponent was a most worthy and estimable squire, who resided in the neighbourhood. It was, of course, my business to prove that he was a despicable knave and a drivelling idiot. This I was engaged in doing at a public meeting in the town-hall. The Philippics of Demosthenes were milk and water in comparison with my denunciations—when just at the critical moment—as I was ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... restoration of peace and order. The fraudulent auctioneer was naught in his sight but a breaker of the law. As such he was deserving of such punishment as the law decreed and no more. But his howls just now were the means of rousing in the hearts of the crowd that most despicable of all passions to which the Roman—the master of civilisation—was a prey—the love of seeing some creature, man or beast, in pain, a passion which brought the Roman citizen down to the level of the brute: therefore Taurus Antinor wished above ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
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