"Profanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... draw a line along the property of folks that can pay for streets. The balance of us sets in mud puddles." The man evidently found some difficulty in expressing himself without the assistance of profanity. There were blanks left between the words, which he supplied mentally with compressed lips and lifting of shaggy brows, that served as an effective substitute. His conversation printed would resemble these grammatical exercises, struggled with an early youth, ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... with his white lamb, a new S. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with his keys, a new S. Peter. Both were laughing after their all-absorbent, divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, Sic Genius. Are not all things, even profanity, permissible in dreams? ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... up to a hook in the ceiling, and gradually drawn back by a pulley until it was far above the heads of the men, the chains meanwhile clanking continually against the receptacle, from which came forth a stream of smothered profanity. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... demonstrates these points to you by applying his hands to the parts designated, and uttering cries of feigned anguish to give effect to his description. He informs you, as a piece of refreshing intelligence, that it is devilish hard to bear, and enough to make a saint indulge in profanity. When he has proceeded thus far, he may be taken with one of his capricious pains, ducks his head between his knees, squeezes it with his hands, and bawls out: 'O-h! Je-ru-sa-lem!' with a duration of sound only limited by the capacity of his wind. He feels that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it only on political grounds that the Lord Chamberlain or the Master of the Revels exercised his power. The "View of the Stage," published by the nonjuring clergyman, Jeremy Collier, in 1697, first drew public attention to the immorality and profanity of the dramatic writers of that period. The diatribes and rebukes of Collier, if here and there a trifle overstrained, were certainly, for the most part, provoked by the nature of the case, and were justified by the result. Even Cibber, who had been cited as one of the offenders, admits that ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the last because their lamps had gone out, are a warning to all who profess the faith of Christ and have once been earnest in the spiritual service of God. They are represented as being shut out, not for profanity and wickedness; but for spiritual negligence—for not seeking to keep up the supply of grace through prayer and holy ordinances rightly used. Empty lamps were useless. So our Lord warned His future subjects that mere profession of faith and mere outward ordinances, without the Spirit, ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... under his ministration is recorded by Brother Cartwright in the autobiography written in the closing years of his life. At one time in crossing a stream, he was deeply offended by the profanity of the boatman. The kindly admonition and the gentle rebuke of the minister apparently added zest and volume to the oaths of the boatman. Suddenly seizing the offender, the irate preacher ducked him into the river, and turned a deaf ear ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... claw gymnastics for a space, becoming on the instant alertly attentive. There came a preliminary craning of neck and winking of white-parchment-lidded eyes, and then, in shockingly human fashion it proceeded to give voluble utterance to some startling samples of barrack-room profanity. Its shrill invective would have awakened the dead. The whistling, regular snores of the sleeper suddenly wound up with a gasping gurgle; he opened his eyes and, in a strong cereal accent gave vent ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... vain endeavor to fathom this inexplicable mystery the sound of voices broke upon her ears. Instantly she was all alert. They were coming closer! A second later she recognized the lurid profanity of the Swede. Malbihn, her persecutor, was returning! Meriem ran quickly to the opening of the tent and looked out. It was too late! She was fairly cornered! The white man and three of his black henchmen were ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had used up his English profanity, he called the Jury names in French, German and Spanish. The German stuck, but came out at last like a cork out ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... hope not," interpolated Abel Day, piously. "Entomology must be an awful interest-in' study, though I never thought of observin' words myself, kept to avoid vulgar language an' profanity." ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... preachments to Eastern despots (who utterly ignore them) are a staple produce of Oriental tale-literature and form the chiaro-oscuro, as it were, of a picture whose lights are brilliant touches of profanity and indelicate humour. It certainly has the charm of contrast. Much of the above is taken from the Sikandar-nameh (Alexander Book) of the great Persian poet, Nizmi, who flourished A.H. 515-597, between the days of Firdausi (ob. A.D.1021) and Sa'adi (ob. A.D. 1291). ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... of the youth's company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental line. The officer's profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a tack ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... to accomplish. By his unselfish labors and untiring efforts he had won the hearts of the natives. He had been indefatigable in his efforts to uplift the colony. The morale of the settlement was greatly lifted. Drunkenness, profanity and quarreling were unknown; the Sabbath was observed with strictness.[151] Nearly the whole adult population had come under the influence of Christianity. On the site of a once desolate forest consecrated to demon worship was erected the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... envy of Fashion—lying by the dog-trail, or hanging to some sheltering tree, because no one stole, and took their fellow's word without question, because no one lied. A very simple folk indeed, in whose language profanity was unknown, and who had no desire to leave their congenital solitudes for any other spot on earth: solitudes which so charmed the educated minds who brought the white man's religion, or traffic, to their doors, that, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... charge fell into so unseemly a rage that I deemed it wise not to insist. He, indeed, bluntly threatened a nameless violence to the barber if he were so much as touched with the iron, and revealed an altogether shocking gift for profanity, saying loudly: "I'll be—dashed—if you will!" I mean to say, I have written "dashed" for what he actually said. But at length I ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... language out of the mouth of man, and of course as a deacon I couldn't listen to such profanity, so I ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... and horses on which teamsters and others were mounted, all in great disorder took wildly to the hills and mountains to the northwest, followed by infantry in somewhat better order; the mules brayed, the horses neighed, the teamsters and riders indulged in much vigorous profanity, but the most of the retreating mass reached Bloody Run, Pennsylvania, marching via Sir John's Run, Hancock, and Bath. Citizens on Apple-Pie Ridge who witnessed the wild scene describe it as a ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... space of time it takes a watch to tick she stood startled and amazed, and then, like a flash, she was speeding down the street. A roar of rage, a burst of unbridled profanity went up from Rough Rorke behind her; it was mingled with equally angry vituperation in the young man's voice. She looked behind her. The two men were swaying around crazily in each other's arms. She ran on—faster than she had ever run ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... like his body, in black; for though he is so brisk a spark in company, he suffers sadly from the spleen when he is alone. We can follow him pretty closely through his day. He is a queer mixture of profanity and piety, of coarseness and loyalty, of cleverness and density; we do not breed this kind of beau nowadays, and yet we might do worse, for this specimen is, with all his faults, a man. He dresses carefully in the morning, in his uniform or else in his black suit. When he wants to be specially ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... intention, the new Grand Duke ordered the body of the Grand Duchess to be placed beside that of her husband in the Cappella Medici of the church. For six brief hours it was suffered to remain, and then, at midnight, agents of Ferdinando, well paid for their profanity, deported all that was mortal of the brilliant "woman whom he hated" to an unknown grave in the paupers' burial plot beyond the city boundary! "For," said he, "we will have none ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... filled clip of cartridges from the pocket of his linen coat. He had arrived hatless and breathless, and the blood from a stone-cut on the cheek oozed down his face. He, too, in a fit of anger, springing to his feet when he had changed clips in his pistol, burst out with mouth-filling profanity. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... the Rolling R; pictured himself riding out with the boys at dawn after horses, or sweating in the corrals, spitting dust and profanity through long, hot hours. There was a lure, of course; a picturesque, intangible attraction that calls to the wild blood of youth. But not as calls this other life which he had tasted. There was no gainsaying the fact—ranch life had grown too tame, too stale ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... strained his ears for sounds from the deck. There was excitement above. Voices from forward came to him, muffled, but angry and argumentative. They grew louder as the men came aft, and soon he could distinguish Jenkins' loud profanity, drowning the ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... words—the harmful words—which people speak concerning even those they love. I have thought about it a good deal and have made up my mind that the people do not speak these words because they always mean what they say, but because they have grown into the habit of saying unkind things. And the profanity! And the vulgarity! It is dreadful to listen to the language used by many men, and even boys, in their ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... Thomas Browne seems to be held back from abandoning himself to the ecstasies of abstract meditation, chiefly by his peculiar sense of humour. There is a closer connection than we are always willing to admit between humour and profanity. Humour is the faculty which always keeps us in mind of the absurdity which is the shadow of sublimity. It is naturally allied to intellectual scepticism, as in Rabelais or Montaigne; and Sir Thomas shared the tendency sufficiently to be called atheist by some wiseacres. ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... had been sure that sooner or later she would do great things in the musical world. Mr. Mahomet M. Moss was the gentleman in question, and he at present was in London. That such a voice as Rachel O'Mahony's should be lost to the world, was to his thinking a profanity, an indecency, an iniquity, a wasting of God's choicest gifts, and an abomination not to be thought of; for Mr. Mahomet M. Moss was in the affairs of his own profession a most energetic gentleman. Rachel rather turned up ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... returned the blow with interest. The other inebriate, hearing the disturbance, came to the assistance of his drunken companion. A general fight ensued; some heavy blows were interchanged, and for a few minutes there was a scene of confusion, profanity, and hard fighting on the decks of the Dolphin, which showed me a new, and not very attractive phase in ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... and not seldom the Sisters, that tears were a sign of weakness, and unworthy of reasonable, not to say religious, women—that they ought to be shed in penitence alone, or in grief at a slight offered to holy Church, that I could only suppose Mother Gaillarde had been guilty of some profanity. ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... dear aunt," exclaimed Emily, with glowing cheeks and eyes dancing with pleasure, "he would hardly dare to be so very base. It would be profanity." ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... a second and then looked rather sheepish. I had heard of a certain wordy battle between him and a Territorial Sergeant whom he had set out to teach. Marigold encountered a cannonade of blasphemous profanity, new, up-to-date, scientific, against which the time-worn expletives in use during his service days were ineffectual. He was ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... animated two-step not on the programme. It took one glance at the diabolical machine, and went up on its hind legs, preliminary to giving an elaborate exhibition of pitching. The rider indulged in vivid profanity and plied his quirt vigorously. But the bronco, with the fear of this unknown evil on its soul, varied its bucking so effectively that the puncher astride its hurricane deck was forced, in the language of his ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... bread-lockers and scrapings of sugar-casks. It was just like the East Wind's nature to inflict starvation upon the bodies of unoffending sailors, while he corrupted their simple souls by an exasperation leading to outbursts of profanity as lurid as his blood-red sunrises. They were followed by gray days under the cover of high, motionless clouds that looked as if carved in a slab of ash-coloured marble. And each mean starved sunset left us calling with imprecations upon the West Wind even in ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... before the end, the record was frankly profane, and saddest of all was the evidence that under the stress of annoyance the great love for "my Rebecca" was slowly, but surely, becoming tainted. From simple profanity, Uncle Ebeneezer descended into blasphemous comment, modified at times by remorseful tenderness ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... fine view of the janitor as he swept past. He was a regular volcano in pants. Never have I heard the English language more richly embossed with profanity. Firing a fat locomotive up the grades around Siwash with bad coal gives a man great talent in expression. We listened to him with awe. Pubby was entranced. He asked me if it would be safe to take anything down in ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... dollars of his ten to cover the period for which he had the car out. Jimmie the Monk and Baxter had returned from their unsuccessful chase. As they made their inquiries from the starter and learned the care with which the coup d'etat had been arranged they lapsed into angry, if admiring, profanity. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... secured together with a field-house, and Christ Church teams won an enviable reputation for high standards of sportsmanship. Their spirit may be judged by the story of a football player who waxed into colorful profanity in the heat of a game and was bawled out by a Roman Catholic teammate in terse words: "Don't you know who you represent?" During an interim when another parish house was being built, Christ Church basketball teams used the Holy Cross Monastery ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... fell by politics, Coroner Bullfast rose by it. A judicious distribution of money and liquors, a notoriety for street fights, a singular talent for profanity, and an unstinted adulation of the basest classes of the community, won for him, in succession, some of the best prizes of the Municipal lottery. He has his small, sunken eyes now fixed on one of the highest offices of the State; and it will take a strong combination ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... this period is to get the handle evenly balanced,—turned correct on centres, as they say; that is, not to get too far out of the normal in any particular, such as dress, promptness, profanity, ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... black portion of the crew—Portuguese natives from the Western and Canary Islands—were doing their work all right in a clumsy fashion; but the farmers, and bakers, and draymen were being driven about mercilessly amid a perfect hurricane of profanity and blows. And right here I must say that, accustomed as I had always been to bad language all my life, what I now heard was a revelation to me. I would not, if I could, attempt to give a sample of it, but it must be understood that it was incessant throughout the voyage. ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... but it is quite possible that the Boy-Bishop ceremonies themselves had degenerated into a farce. As the Rex Stultorum festival was prohibited at Beverly Minster in 1371, we must conclude that similar extravagance and profanity had crept into Yuletide observances in this country. The festival of the Boy-Bishop, however, was conducted with a decency hardly to be expected in view of its apparent associations. It would seem, indeed, to have been an impressive and ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... of profanity" cease spouting after these gay and youthful days in San Francisco. With Clemens it may truly be said that profanity was an art—a pyrotechnic ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... enigmatic Ireland which at once despises him, and tumbles his faithfullest worshippers in the sand of their own amphitheatre. Yet, so it is. The Confederate General, seeing victory suddenly snatched from his hands, and not for the first time, by Meagher's Brigade, exclaimed in immortal profanity: "There comes that damned Green Flag again!" I have often commended that phrase to Englishmen as admirably expressive of the historical role and record of Ireland in British Politics. The damned Green Flag flutters again in their eyes, and if they will but listen to ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... the assumption was a safe one," said the priest, smilingly, "unless," he added on afterthought, "it be by way of a genial profanity. There used to be some old Clare men who said 'Hell to my soul!' when they missed at quoits, but I haven't heard it for a long time. I ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... looking on see only two horses with two riders flying around the ring; but there is many a man on that stand whose honor and domestic happiness and fortune—white mane, white foot, white flank—are in the ring, racing with inebriety, and with fraud, and with profanity, and with ruin—black neck, black foot, black flank. Neck and neck they go in ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... my precious bag to such a person as this would have been simply to invite an outburst of profanity. I lowered myself to his own level, and mentioned my business in ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... and systems are still being sent out completed on their limitless circles. To conceive their Creator turning from such high efforts to send Medoline with a ten dollar bill to the Larkums, to my mind borders on profanity," Mr. Winthrop ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... line-up at the bar furnished appropriate accompaniment. Through the smoke he could see another room farther back, in which were a number of pool tables; loud voices and loud laughter and occasional awe-inspiring rips of profanity betokened deep interest in the game, and he allowed himself to drift in that direction. Soon he was in a group watching a gaudily dressed individual doing a sort of sleight-of-hand trick with three cards ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... Yes," said Reuben, "but they are all so good! so devilish good!"—and he puffed at his cigar with a nervous violence. It was not often that such an approach to profanity sullied the lips of Reuben, and Phil noted it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... said. "Three months ago most of those fellows were riffraff—the kind that hang around street corners smoking and indulging in loose talk and profanity. Young Lambert, the chap with them, their Scout-master, picked that kind from choice, turned down a respectable church-mothered bunch for this one, left the other for a man who wanted an easier row to ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... reasoning. They abetted those very tendencies in his nature which required to be checked. Their countenance, as clergymen, would allay the scruples and misgivings he might otherwise have felt, and stimulate to still wilder recklessness whatever profanity he might be tempted to indulge in. When he had let loose his first shafts of satire against their stricter brethren, those New Light ministers heartily applauded him; and hounded him on to still more daring assaults. He had not only his own quarrel with his ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... him with a low, savage stream of profanity. The gangman enraged was not a sight pleasing ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... this but profanity. She turned the attack on Bertha, who, by her soft way of speaking, simply encouraged the servants, she declared, ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... might have expressed it. But what I am most concerned to suggest here is that the distinction between prose and poetry (using prose to mean artistically wrought language) will not survive investigation. The popular instinct has long ago seen that the vital thing is the matter—that it is profanity to call that "poetry" which is only verse; it remains to be recognised that even the distinction of form rests only on the non-recognition of the rhythm of "prose,"—a rhythm that is not metre in so far as metre has the sense ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Jones and smiled at him, upon which he murmured "Oh fie!" as he passed her. The troop broke ranks and dispersed, to lounge and gossip until mess-call. Cumnor and Jones were putting a little snow down each other's necks with friendly profanity, when Jones saw the peddler standing close and watching them. A high collar of some ragged fur was turned up round his neck, disguising the character of the ancient army overcoat to which it was attached, and spots and long stains extended down the legs of his corduroys to ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... compartment where we were. The compartment into which we were moved was pretty full already. A good many were smoking strong tobacco, some were far gone in the tipsy direction, one of whom was indulging very liberally in profanity. I was the only woman in the compartment; but my countrymen, as always, were polite, inconveniencing themselves for my accommodation. Even the profane person made a violent effort to curb his profanity when ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... belligerents was up, and they were battling as for life, with a dogged determination which would have lasted upon the part of either, the man or the beast, until death. Rough scenes and inhuman, Bye had witnessed until blase; but nothing before like this. The man used quirt, rowel, and profanity like a fiend. The pony, panting, quivering, bucking, struggling, covered with foam and streaming with blood, shrilled with the impotent anger of a demon. Even the impassive cowboy spectators from ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... in his hand as he walked up the street, and he felt numbed and dazed as if someone had struck him a blow. He was nearly run over in crossing one of the thoroughfares, and heard an outburst of profanity directed at him from a cab-driver and a man on a bus; but he heeded them not, walking through the crowd ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... mob of five thousand men had congregated around the station, most of them out in the open, on the desert side of the track. They were waiting for the pay-train to arrive. This hour was the only orderly one that Benton ever saw. There were laughter, profanity, play—a continuous hum, but compared to Benton's usual turmoil, it was pleasant. The workmen talked in groups, and, like all crowds of men sober and unexcited, they were given largely to ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... of a voice," said Turnbull, who snatched at every chance of cheap profanity. "As a matter of fact, MacIan, it isn't the voice of God, but it's something a jolly sight more important—it is the voice of man—or rather of woman. So I think we'd better ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... The profanity with which these orders were issued convinced Roddy that Peter was very much in earnest and in ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... and profanity, deliberate atrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and to make the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted these tremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginative irony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... rose, and not until he stood up, did he see John Gaspar asleep in the big chair, his head inclining to one side, the book half-fallen from his hand, and the lamp sputtering its last beside him. But instead of viewing the weary face with pity, Sinclair burst into sudden and amazed profanity. ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... of forgiveness, and therefore the miracle of restored health. Let me mark the rich variety of the descriptive words. "Forgiven!" "Covered!" "Imputed not!" It is all removed and obliterated, and the place of defilement and profanity becomes the holy temple ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... good which is written by so great a genius as Voltaire, though I cannot excuse all his profanity. But you are right to give so much time to those little poems addressed to persons; they are unquestionably among the most charming of his works. There is not a line which is not full of thought, clear, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... good deal of resistance. Among the foreign and unintelligible cries and howls which rang through the market-place, my heart leaped up, in natural though unsanctified pleasure, as I heard the too well-known but unexpected accents of British profanity. ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... right;" "the right of taxing was never in the least given up to the Americans."[22] On another occasion he said, that "as attorney-general he had a right to set aside every charter in America."[23] What followed? Notwithstanding his youthful profligacy, the open profanity of his public and private speech, and his living in public and notorious contempt of matrimony,—he was made Lord Chancellor and elevated to the peerage in 1778! Him also we shall ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... corpse in burial clothes just lifted from its coffin and placed stiffly upright in a sitting position. Involuntarily Cardinal Bonpre, as he made the usual necessary genuflections, thought, with a shrinking interior sense of horror at the profanity of his own idea, that the Holy Father as he then appeared, might have posed to a painter of allegories, as the frail ghost of a dead Faith. For he looked so white and slender and fragile and transparent,—he sat so rigidly, so coldly, without a movement or a gesture, that it ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... in New York or San Francisco would not be untangled without much profanity and some police interference is cleared here in a moment because everyone is willing to yield and to recognize that the most heavily burdened ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... lateness of the hour, went to Mr. Toombs' residence, awoke him, and asked for an authoritative denial of what they considered a damaging charge. Mr. Toombs listened to the delegation, and then declared with emphasis, not free from profanity, that it was so. "I have responded to their calls just as I have those of other denominations. You can tell the people that the distribution of my money is none of ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... fiery son of the sea broke off into a string of Oriental profanity, mingling gods and devils, lineages and men, metaphors and monsters, with so savage a virility that Jacob Kent was paralyzed. He shrank back, his arms lifted as though to ward off physical violence. So utterly unnerved was he that the other paused in the mid-swing of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... another ugly face and indulged himself in a piece of profanity that was inexpressibly disgusting and mean in the mouth of a man who was used to cross himself when alarmed and swear by the saints. But perhaps he knew, even better than I, how little he had to expect from Providence. He filled his pipe, exclaiming that when he had smoked it out we should ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... as he lay, coughing and weeping with smoke, that there was something splendid and large in the other's rage. Vanrevel was ordinarily so steady and cool that this was worth seeing, this berserker gesture; worth hearing, this wonderful profanity, like Washington's one fit of cursing; and Crailey, knowing Tom, knew, too, that it had not come upon him because Carewe had a daughter into whose eyes Tom had looked; nor did he rage because he believed that Crailey's life ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... interfered but little in the management of political affairs, save in cases of imminent danger. Their duties, grave, tranquil, and solemn, held them aloof from the stir of temporary agitation. They were the last great refuge of the state, to which, on common occasions, it was almost profanity to appeal. Their very demeanour was modelled to harmonize with the reputation of their virtues and the dignity of their office. It was forbidden to laugh in their assembly—no archon who had been seen in a public tavern could be admitted to their order [208], and for an areopagite to ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would make an architect die with envy. The light breeze bears one's conversation audibly for half a mile; one hears the splash of a fish that jumps a thousand yards away; and the grim cliffs at the foot of which the canal winds in and out take up the profanity of the towpath and hurl it back and forth across the river as if it was great fun and all propriety. The stalwart exhortations and clean-cut phraseology of the mule-drivers and the notes of the bugles go ringing over to Virginia's shore, and fill the air with cadences so sweet and musical that they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... are about 215,000 retail liquor houses in this nation. Allowing 20 feet to each, it gives us an unbroken liquor front of about 781 miles. Just think of it! Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of profanity and vulgarity. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of Sabbath-breaking. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of drunkard-making. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of filth, debauchery, anarchy, dynamite and bombs. [Applause]. Seven hundred ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... with a grunt and begins to explain querulously that he has had nothing to eat all day but two boiled eggs. The teeth of the goblin driver flash white flame as he hangs wreath upon wreath of profanity about the trembling, tugging mules. With a terrific rattling jerk the coach sways to the safe side of the road. From inside angry heads are poked out like the heads of hens out of an overturned coop. Don Antonio turns to me and shouts in tones ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... he is gone—and what a hole! Other men can do his work as well, if not as quickly. The paper still goes to press and the public sees no change; but we, who worked beside him, see it nightly. By twelve o'clock on a busy night, nervous, drawn faces surround the central desk, and profanity is snapped crossly back and forth. There is no alleviation of cheerful inanity. Presently somebody looks up, remarking, "I wish Bobbie Barton was back." And somebody else replies with profane asperity and lax grammar, "I ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... on or the air less thin, one might have determined that Goat Hennessey was utilizing some choice profanity, directed at those two absent personages whose names were, ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... corner, where by Mr. Forshew's hardware shop there was often a country waggon standing, and always a knot of loitering men and boys gathering or retailing the news, if there was any; when there was none, seeking a poorer amusement still in stories and jests, mingled with profanity and tobacco. Tilly was always glad to have passed the corner; not that there was the least danger of incivility from any one lingering there, but she did not like the neighbourhood of such people. She turned up towards the church, which ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... "Profanity is always objectionable to a gentleman," declared Tom dryly, running over ere the newcomer could regain his feet. Once more Reade bent and rose. As he did so, Eugene Black shot through the tent doorway, landing on the ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... a sound of a heavy fall, followed by a volley of profanity, and the next instant something flew against the wall, and was shivered to fragments that ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... that have been overcome through the study of Science and Health, and through realizing and practising the truth it teaches, are profanity, the use of tobacco, a very quick temper, which made both myself and those around me at times very miserable, and such thoughts as malice, revenge, etc. - O. L. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... unfavorable opinion of the weather. I shared his feelings, even if I could not adopt his language, and, pantomimically wringing the perspiration out of my front hair, I remarked in Russian that it was zharko (hot). Encouraged by what he took for sympathetic and responsive profanity on my side, he scowled fiercely and exclaimed, "Mucha sol—damn!" whereupon we smiled ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... scarcely dozed a quarter of an hour, when the obnoxious vociferations arose again. They were fierce, ill-natured, and shrill. I arose again, vexed beyond endurance. All was quiet in a moment. I am not given to profanity; I deem it foolish and wicked; but on this occasion, after stretching my body like a sheeted ghost, half out of the window, and gazing into the shadows of the garden to discover the object of my ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... opened slightly and his slack lower jaw tightened in a ghastly little grimace. The transported Pablo seized him and shook him furiously, meanwhile deluging Don Mike with a stream of affectionate profanity that fell from his lips like ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... made even a superficial study of the hand he would have been spared much profanity and the pupil much heartache and disappointment. Tuition is twofold. There is direct teaching and there is development. The seed is sown and then the soil is watered and tended in the manner calculated to nourish and develop the particular plant to the best advantage. Again, ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... perhaps, should be viewed as the natural reaction from the over-stern, repellent Puritanism of the preceding period. The Puritans undoubtedly erred in their indiscriminate and wholesale denunciation of all forms of harmless amusement and innocent pleasure. They not only rebuked gaming, drinking, and profanity, and stopped bear-baiting, but they closed all the theatres, forbade the Maypole dances of the people, condemned as paganish the observance of Christmas, frowned upon sculpture as idolatrous and indecent, and considered any bright color in dress as utterly ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... six, eight, ten minutes, and no sound of the coming west-bound express. Up ahead we could hear the flutter and flap of the blow-off; for the black flier was as restless as the fat drummer who was snapping his watch, grunting "Huh," and washing suppressed profanity ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... past history, she is treated by her neighbours with marked respect. She never speaks of the past, but it has been remarked that whenever the stalwart form of a certain policeman passes her door, her clean, delicate face assumes an expression which can only be described as frozen profanity. The Strong ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... Buxton, with an outburst of profanity. "Not sunset! why, it's well-nigh dark now, sir, and every man in the troop had side-lined his horse half an hour ago. D—n your insolence, sir! your excuse is worse than your conduct. Mr. Billings, see to it, sir, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... our friends would listen openmouthed—it seemed to them impossible of belief that anything so stupendous could have been devised by mortal man. That was why to Jurgis it seemed almost profanity to speak about the place as did Jokubas, skeptically; it was a thing as tremendous as the universe—the laws and ways of its working no more than the universe to be questioned or understood. All that a mere man could ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... by the steady rain of missiles, could see no one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... task; My royal master's brow is still uncrowned, 'Twere better for me I had ne'er been born! Henceforth no more of this, unless ye would Provoke the Spirit's wrath who in me dwells! The eye of man, regarding me with love, To me is horror and profanity. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... ask to be let in, but his next was, that it would be profanity to disturb the intercourse of father and child, and he was silent. However, he had been announced, and Caillaud appeared at the grating begging permission for his friend to enter. It was at first refused; but presently something ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... myself to my medicinal beverage the general conducted a most remarkable raid on the bar. As I have hinted, he was in demeanor a mild appearing, if not indeed a timid man. In the course of an hour's conversation no word of profanity, such as is affected by many military men, had crossed his lips. The framed photograph of his wife and daughters on his desk and his respectful references to women indicated he was not the type of soldier who lusts for ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... sergeant. "Hey, you black offspring of a yellow whippet!" he bellowed to a driver, "back out there and be damn quick about it!" And he leaned from his saddle, and seizing the leaders by the head, swung them around with a volley of profanity. Then, grinning amiably at Berkley, he motioned the stretcher bearers forward and sat on his horse, garrulously superintending the transfer of the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... next day, the chief returned, carrying in his hand a small bag made of bark, and filled with something they did not attempt to ascertain, well knowing the chief would look on such an act as unpardonable profanity. He had gone into the forest without supper, and had taken no breakfast, yet he refused anything to eat. They did not urge him, for they had never seen such an expression of humility and meekness on the chief's features before as they wore then; and Jane and Edward felt ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... on in critical silence. But very soon their influence was felt, for a commanding officer stated that his men were more contented and more easily handled since the unprecedented innovation of women in the camp than they had been within the experience of the old Regular Army officers. Profanity practically ceased in the vicinity of the hut and was never indulged in in ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... curry-combs knocking against back fences and stable walls, for the darkies loved to curry their horses in the alley. Darkies always prefer to gossip in shouts instead of whispers; and they feel that profanity, unless it be vociferous, is almost worthless. Horrible phrases were caught by early rising children and carried to older people for definition, sometimes at inopportune moments; while less investigative children would often merely repeat the phrases ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... make profession of all the orthodox truths, special care being employed to guard against the intrusion of heretics. Days of fasting and abstinence were enjoined, and members were urged to avoid profanity, the theater, dancing and law-suits. The order met with astonishing success, cardinals, bishops, emperors, empresses, kings and queens, gladly enrolling themselves among ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... forbade corporal punishment, and principles—and the Principal—forbade noisy upbraidings. And so with long, strange words, to supply the element of dread uncertainty, she began to speak, slowly and coldly as one ever should when addressing ears accustomed to much sputtering profanity. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... me that they heard it in their youth—that anciently the Indians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth, and they used much profanity, as the story goes, though this vice is one of which the Indians were never guilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly sank, and only one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook, these stones ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Simon halt betwixt two ways like one distracted, but only he did mingle a mass of sacred words with his arguments which seemed to me nought but profanity, his sole concern being the gain of money. Then he falls to the old excuses Don Sanchez had told us of, saying he had no money of his own, and offering to show his books that we might see he had taken not one penny beyond his bare expenses from the estate, save ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... answering chorus of laughing profanity and worse, amongst which I caught the words, "Pretty filly!" "A dainty tit!" "A kiss all round, Tom! Share an' share, Tom!" "Oho, Tinker, pull ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... who wore His sandals out in tramping over the countryside, he professed the most bitter contempt; nor was he more lenient to those poorer members of the clergy who winked at the vices of their patrons that they might secure a seat at their table, and who would sit through a long evening of profanity rather than bid good-bye to the cheesecakes and the wine flask. That such men represented religious truth was abhorrent to his mind, nor would he even give his adhesion to that form of church government ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... obliged to throw persons who command his sympathy into the company of the most abandoned wretches for an entire night. Drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and fighting, are the principal charges brought against the occupants of the Bummers' Cell. The noise, profanity, and obscenity are fearful. All classes ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... one the trappers they met voiced this opinion. There was Bordeaux, the grizzled old Frenchman, clad in ragged buckskin; Moses Harris; "Pegleg" Smith, whose habit of profanity was shocking; Miles Goodyear, fresh from captivity among the Blackfeet; and James Bridger. The latter had discovered Great Salt Lake twenty-five years before, and was especially vehement in his condemnation ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... Ben. There's lots of miserable wretches and immorality and profanity among the regulars. I want you to remain a good boy, as you always have been. I need not tell you to be brave. You will ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... absent-minded clerk really liked him, and longed to tell him that he was leaving Riverton shortly—he hoped for years and years—and was only awaiting the message that should speed his departure. Mr. Humphreys, then, cannot be blamed for complaining with feeling and profanity that of all the damidjits he had ever seen in his life, Peter Champneys was about the worst. Loony was no name for him, and what was to become of such a chump he didn't know. "If this thing keeps up, he'll be drooling before he's forty, and we'll have to hire a nigger to feed him out of a papspoon," ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... on Sunday. Indeed everything then had its full course on Sunday. There were various sports; drinking and gambling ran riot. Blasphemous words filled the air. Men swore without the least thought. But profanity is not alone restricted to a frontier or border community, where laws and a sense of propriety are wanting. One may hear it in old and civilised towns, as he walks the streets, and sometimes from the lips of boys. ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... for us to understand how such a farrago of absurdity, profanity, and indecency could ever have been gravely produced in a so-called court of justice in England as a state paper—a bill of indictment against a body of noblemen and gentlemen; against an order that for two hundred years had been the right arm of the Church and the defender of Christianity against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... them, they knew, in fact, that the vortices or concourses did and could involve but a small proportion of the society in which they occurred. They knew that there must be large tracts of unbelief, profanity, and false worship in every so-called Christian nation, left utterly unaffected by any of the true associations of Christ's real people; besides the huge wilderness of heathenism and idolatry lying all round ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... exhibited, entered the auditorium unnoticed. Palmer, while driving a nail, miscalculated, the hammer came down on one of his fingers. Flinging the hammer on the floor with all the force he could command, he poured forth a torrent of profanity. Gideon, by signs, gave Palmer to understand that others were near. With a change as quick as a flash, Palmer grabbed Alfred by the coat collar, nearly lifting the boy off his feet. With a voice that sounded as if it were choking with indignation, he began: "You ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... passengers. A delicious pair, and admirably mated, they took to each other at once and became as thick as thieves. Joe was passing under a fictitious name, and old Wakeman didn't suspect that he was a parson; so he gave his profanity full swing, and he was a master of that great art. You probably know Twichell, and will know that that is a kind of refreshment which he is very capable of enjoying. Sincerely yours, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Ranny's mother had hit upon a phrase that made it possible for them to discuss his father's affliction without the smallest, most shadowy reference to its essential nature. For Ranny's mother, such reference would have been the last profanity, a sacrilege committed against the divinities of the hearth and of the marriage bed. But for that phrase Mr. Ransome's weakness must have been passed in silence as the unspeakable, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... making derisive faces behind my mother's back, as she sat at the piano, without betraying ourselves, and in getting our tongues out and in again during the natural pauses and convolutions of the tune. But these occasional fits of boyish profanity did not hinder me from having an equally boyish fund of reverence and enthusiasm at the bottom of my heart, and it was with proud and pleasurable emotions that I heard the old clerk give forth ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a not unusual compound of piety and profanity. We read in one place of his reckless exploits in burning churches and desecrating shrines, and in others of his liberal endowments ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... of threats, reproaches and profanity the Belgian officer succeeded in persuading his trembling command to fire a volley after the retreating apes. A ragged, straggling volley it was, but at least one of its bullets found a mark, for as the jungle closed about ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... such language in my presence?" roared the old gentleman, growing purple to the neck. "Have you, also, been fighting for barmaids and taking up with gaol-birds? It is what I have to expect, I suppose, and I may as well accustom my ears to profanity; but damn you, sir, you must learn some decency;" and going into the hall he shouted to Congo to bring ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... well-deserved perdition. But Abigail did not say perdition. She left that to weak spirits. She thought it a virtue to say "hell" with unction and emphasis, by way of alarming the consciences of sinners. Mrs. Anderson's prayer is not reportable. That sort of profanity is too bad to write. She capped her climax—even as I have heard a revivalist pray for a scoffer that had vexed his righteous soul—by asking God to convert her daughter, or if she could not be converted to take her away, that she might not heap up wrath against the day of wrath. ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... and one or two when they were not; but that a woman should deliberately preface her words with oaths was something new and shocking to her. Lady Enville's strongest adjurations were mild little asseverations "by this fair daylight," or words no nearer profanity. However, startled as she was, Clare came out of ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... Breton's existence as unalterably as sacred and profane elements are into the occasions of his religious festivals. A feast day well and piously begun is interspersed and concluded with a gaiety and abandon which by contrast strikes a note of profanity. Yet Brittany is quite the most devotedly religious of all the French provinces, and one may see the great cathedrals filled to their uttermost with congregations including as many men as women. Nowhere else, perhaps, will one find such great masses of people ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... perhaps more dangerous seductions; so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east, while our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly flushed with cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast of more than wonted profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the apartment, and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said that some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with me ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of Macedon, whose character as a man, with all its dark shades of violence, rage, and profanity, has a nobleness and sweetness that win our hearts, while his greatness rests on a far broader basis than that of his conquests, though they are unrivalled. No one else so gained the love of the conquered, had such wide and comprehensive views for the amelioration of the world, or rose ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Veemie whispered, calling upon her nearest approach to profanity. But they continued to stare after him, by unspoken accord moving to the fence and leaning over it, farther and farther, to keep him in sight as long ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... Anne had a voice in the matter. Mrs. Tresslyn is at the back of all this. She is the one who has roped you in,—duped you, or whatever you choose to call it without resorting to profanity. She's forcing Anne into this damnable marriage, and she is making a perfect fool of you. Can't you see it? Can't you see—but, my God, how can I ask that question of you? When a man gets to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... a curious bit of composition—uncouth, assuredly, and marred, maybe, with an unpardonable profanity—but it served. In the silence and gloom of the old stable, the doctor's fingers trembled as he read, and the good wife's eyes, peering anxiously above his heaving shoulder, filled and ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... perfection. However, it was now too late to assert myself, and I could only trust blindly to Fate to furnish me with the information I needed. Mapes merely glanced in upon us occasionally, leaving the overseeing of the gang to a squatty, red-faced white man, whose profanity never ceased. There were ten of us in the gang, several being negroes, and I was unable to extract any information of value from those I attempted to converse with. One had assisted in rescuing the party from the wrecked keel-boat, and had seen the two women, as they came aboard ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... place; heard the raving of the maniac, his frenzied call for bread, and his abject desolation, until death came kindly to relieve his sufferings, and felt not that the hand of God had never worked so much ill for his people? Is it profanity to say that the eye of God had wandered from them? We believe it; for the Book that teaches us of the Almighty, depicts him as a God of mercy and compassion. The eye of the Omnipotent is not upon the wretched. "He seeth all things," but there are times when His eyes are turned from those who endure ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... young unmarried mother. A maiden of fifteen said to me: "I must go to a party this evening decolletee, and I hate it. Benigno is getting old enough to marry, and he wants to see all the girls in low neck before he makes up his mind." They all swear like troopers, without a thought of profanity. Their mildest expression of surprise is Jesus Maria! They change their oaths with the season. At the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the favorite oath is Maria Purissima. This is a time of especial interest to young girls. It is a period of ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the sacred vessels of the second class, it is undignified, if not a desecration, that vessels of such a sacred character should be subjected to a sale by auction and afterwards used as table ornaments by collectors to whom their religious significance makes no appeal. We are reminded of the profanity of Belshazzar's feast.[33] It would be far better to place such objects for safe custody and preservation in some local museum. Not long ago a church in Knightsbridge was removed and rebuilt on another site. It had a communion cup presented by Archbishop Laud. Some ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... expressive simplicity, "Chort tolko znal kooda"—"the devil only knew where." This was rather an unfortunate beginning of our campaign; but in the course of two hours most of the wandering beasts were found, packs were adjusted, and after an unnecessary amount of profanity from the drivers, we turned our backs on Jerusalem and rode slowly away over the rolling grassy foot-hills ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... lost their purity and intensity that it became desirable to draw the eye away from the statue to its covering, so that at last the canopy became the more important of the two, and is itself so beautiful that we are often contented with architecture from which profanity has struck the statues, if only the canopies are left; and consequently, in our modern ingenuity, even set up canopies where we have no intention of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... into that profanity he meant what he said. "Partner, I've got a pull on this trigger. There's a slug in this gun just trembling to get at you. And I tell you honest, friend, I'd as soon drill you as turn around. Now tell me ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Shelby Cousin on the bank of the Kanawha and built a fire over his grave to conceal it. Colonel Christian arrived at midnight, and there was some lurid profanity when his men learned they had arrived too late for the fighting. One week after the battle eleven hundred troops crossed the Ohio to carry the war to the Indian ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... not," interpolated Abel Day, piously. "Entomology must be an awful interest-in' study, though I never thought of observin' words myself, kept to avoid vulgar language an' profanity." ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... half-ashamed memories of that dance, Sadie spoiled a good bit of her work on Monday morning. The forewoman descended on her with a torrent of coarse abuse, whereupon Sadie rose suddenly from her machine, and in a burst of hysterical profanity and tears rushed out of the factory, vowing never to return. There was only one course, she decided, for her to take, and ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... shortly after I had sneezed myself into a condition of pale blue profanity that a newly married couple of grip germs had taken a notion to build a nest somewhere on the outskirts of my solar plexus, and two hours later they had about 233 children attending the public school in my medusa oblongata; ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... the claims of other guests soon diverted his attention from me, and I was left to get warm and make further observations. At a table in the middle of the room several hard-looking fellows were betting at cards, amid terrible profanity and frequent drinks of whisky. They cast inquiring and not very friendly glances at me from time to time, once or twice exchanging whispers and giggling. As their play went on, and tumbler after tumbler of whisky was ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald |
