"Damning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for, to her, Damocles confessed the ghastly, terrible, damning truth that he was a Coward. He said that he had hidden the fearful fact for all these years within his guilty bosom and that now it had emerged and convicted him. He lived in subconscious terror of the Snake, and in its presence—nay even in that of its counterfeit presentment—he was a gibbering, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... defrauded the innocent as surely as if he had plunged his great red fist into the little pocket of a child, had defrauded, indeed, with so strong a blow that the very consciousness of his victim had been stunned. There had been about his act all the damning hypocrisy of a great theft—all the air of stern morality which makes for the popular triumph ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... drinking up their happiness, their prospects for this life, and, perhaps, for the life to come. Sometimes an appreciation of what he is doing comes upon him. His nervous system is all a tangle. From crown of head to sole of foot he is one aching, rasping, crucifying, damning torture. Where is he? In hell on earth. Does it ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... no doubt about it," chimed in Fairholme, to whom, in response to a gesture, Brett had passed the damning document. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... You can hope, then, to make the machine visible to those who work it, as well as to the chiefs who are responsible, and to the public outside. When the office-holders begin to see themselves,—or rather when the outsiders, the chiefs, and the subordinates all begin to see the same facts, the same damning facts if you like, the obstruction will diminish. The reformer's opinion that a certain bureau is inefficient is just his opinion, not so good an opinion in the eyes of the bureau, as its own. But let the ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... was puzzled. Why had Doc Crombie not produced the knife and the handkerchiefs? But perhaps he wanted his story first, and then would confront him with the evidence against him. Yet his manner was purely judicial. It in no way suggested that he possessed damning evidence. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... when one day he glanced through the new Mudie and Smith lists and found 'Lynwood's Heritage' no longer down. I had been trying to cheer him up about the book and quoting all the favourable remarks I had heard about it. But unluckily this was damning ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... Christianity to avert bloodshed, and the horrors under which Christendom is now submerged, are naturally used as a proof that the ethic of Christianity is lamentably feeble. The difference between theoretical Christianity and the social practices which the Church condones is held to be damning evidence of hypocrisy and falsehood. The quarrels between sects and divisions, the petty subjects which rouse the ire of the orthodox mind, the persistent quibbling over insignificant details of faith ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... a dreadful reaction on the soul and mind. Its influence is deadening and damning. It shrivels and dries up the joy and spontaneity of service. It makes one feel inferior and weak. Instead of causing one to fight, doubts lead one to give up the fight; instead of prompting resistance, ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... doubt this patience, when the world is damning us, Is philosophic in our former friends; 'T is also pleasant to be deemed magnanimous, The more so in obtaining our own ends; And what the lawyers call a "malus animus" Conduct like this by no means comprehends: Revenge in person's certainly no virtue, But then ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... camped at Tewfikeeyah, I entirely suppressed the river traffic; but the fact of my leaving over-taken three vessels with 700 slaves belonging to Abou Saood at the close of the expedition, on my return towards Khartoum, must be a damning proof of complicity on the part of certain ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... among the Dissenters, breaks out into the following rhapsody:—"No man of common sense and common integrity can deny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, a worthless contemptible infidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common profligate, a soul-despising, a soul-murdering, a soul-damning, thoughtless wretch as could exist on the face of the earth. Now be astonished, O heavens, to eternity! and wonder, O earth and hell! while time endures. Behold this very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror of wisdom, goodness, holiness, truth, and love." But whoever takes ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sneered at for old-fashioned ways were discovered to have shamelessly speculated with trusts! An eminent deacon and pillar of the church was found dead in his room with a bullet in his heart and a damning confession on the desk before him! Foreign bankers were sending their gold out of the country; government would be appealed to to open the vaults of the Mint; there would be an embargo on all bullion shipment! Nothing was too wild or preposterous to ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... had negotiated a peace, were in themselves sufficient to induce hostilities on the part of the Indians. Charity would incline to the belief that the continuance of the war was rightly attributable to these causes—the other reason assigned for it, supposing the existence of a depravity, so deep and damning, as ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... notes here and there, but as a rule I just opened the door and fired the black-mailers out. The moment a fellow came in, and handed me his card, and said he had proofs of two kinds of articles in his pocket, one praising me, one damning me, I told him to go and see my advertising agent, and if he wouldn't do that, then to go to hell. That's the way you've got to talk in the City," he added, as ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... dread, unhallowed necromancy of evil, that turns things sweetest and holiest to phantoms of horror and affright. That pale, loving mother,—her dying prayers, her forgiving love,—wrought in that demoniac heart of sin only as a damning sentence, bringing with it a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. Legree burned the hair, and burned the letter; and when he saw them hissing and crackling in the flame, inly shuddered as he thought of everlasting fires. He tried to drink, and revel, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... exclaimed George, "and has this but added another damning proof, to those we have already on our minds, of one of the must dreadful superstitions that ever ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... as a type of the men who suppose themselves to be worshipping God when they are only following their own wills. All his ceremonial had this damning characteristic, that it was 'devised of his own heart'; and so it was himself that was enshrined in his new house of the high places, and himself to whom the sacrifices were offered. Absolute obedience to God's will, whatever perils may seem to attend it, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... this meant. Even if I rescued Raffles for the time being, the police would promptly ascertain that it was I who had been rung up by the burglar, and the fact of my not having said a word about it would be directly damning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate us both. It made me quite faint to feel that we might escape the Scylla of our present peril and yet split on the Charybdis of circumstantial evidence. Yet I could see no middle course of conceivable safety, if I held ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... a long one, but the evidence was most damning and convincing, although the brothers passionately declared that Miret's story was a pure invention. Sentence of death was passed, but was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life, and the Roriques are now ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... Christ crucified, to pray the holy father that he adopt zealously, without negligence, every remedy which can be found consistent to his conscience for the reform of Holy Church and peace to this great war which is damning so many souls, since for all negligence and lukewarmness God will rebuke Him most severely, and will demand the souls who through this are perishing. Commend me to him; and I ask him humbly for his benediction. I say no more. Remain ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... endurable. She began to question the propriety of having suggested drastic measures to her mother. "Till death do you part" rang in her ears in spite of the certainty that the union of her mother and her father was an unholy thing which was damning them more surely than a separation could possibly do. Of only one thing could Elizabeth be sure: she saw without mistake at last that she must decide upon her own duties hereafter without listening to a mother who could not decide anything ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... expression, while Myler told the story of Stoner's visit to Darlington, and of the revelation which had resulted. And nothing proved his extraordinary command over his temper and his feelings better than the fact that as Myler narrated one damning thing after another, he never showed ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... ears and a great bloody mist rose before my eyes. The wailing and screeching of a million souls was borne in loud protracted echoings through the drum of my ears. Men and women with evil faces rose up from crag and boulder to spit and tear at me. I saw creatures of such damning ugliness that my soul screamed aloud with terror. And then from the mountain tops the bolt of heaven was let loose. Every spirit was swept away like chaff before the burst of wind that, hurling and shrieking, bore down upon me. I gave myself up for lost. I felt all the agonies of suffocation, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... return of the queen as the wife of an English protestant nobleman would afford the best prospect of safety to himself and his party, readily acceded to the proposal, and consented still to withhold the "damning proofs" of Mary's guilt which he ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... electrical. Meredith could only utter his wife's name in blank amazement. What could he say under such damning circumstances? ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... been thus early extinguished? how many promising human plantlets thus ruthlessly destroyed in the very act of germinating? It is to be hoped that in the final account the extenuating influence of ignorance may weigh heavily in the scale of justice against the damning testimony of ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... the arsenal. The town was in a blaze of fire and the arsenal was roaring and popping and bellowing like pandemonium turned loose as we marched through Corinth on the morning of the evacuation. We bade farewell to Corinth. Its history was black and dark and damning. No little speck of green oasis ever enlivened the dark recesses of our memory while at this place. It's a desert that lives only in bitter memories. It was but one vast graveyard that entombed the life and ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... and her calf, Leviatt had known that the stray-man suspected him of being leagued with the rustlers. But this knowledge had not disturbed him. He felt secure because of his position. Even the stray-man would have to have absolute, damning evidence before he could hope to be successful in proving a range boss ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... warehouse Picthatch. Takes up single testons upon oath, till doomsday. Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat bonds. He waylays the reports of services, and cons them without book, damning himself he came new from them, when all the while he was taking the diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber for rent and victuals. He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will salute one for an old acquaintance ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... an engineer from Modena. And if you care to ascend the torrents, you will find they have been scientifically dammed by the administration, whereas the peasant, when they overflow and ruin his crops, contents himself with damning them in quite an amateurish fashion. Which reminds me that I picked up during this visit, and have added to my collection, a new term of abuse to be addressed to your father-in-law: Porcaccio d'un cagnaccio! Novel effects, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... pointed to a flag as to a nation. "Yes sir, the Yanks have kept faith. Do you see a single one of their uniforms down here? Do you notice anywheres that Yankee protectorate we were predicting? No sir, you do not! The Yanks—" But the term was damning to eloquence. Mr. Boone found another. "The Americans, I repeat, have hurled back the European invader. They have given Mexico to the Mexicans. They have endowed a people with nationality. But they have not gobbled ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Lord! [Climbing up.] I am got out at last, and (which is a Miracle) without a Clue— and now to Damning and Cursing,— but if that would ease me, where shall I begin? with my Fortune, my self, or the Quean that cozen'd me— What a dog was I to believe in Women! Oh Coxcomb— ignorant conceited Coxcomb! to fancy she cou'd be enamour'd with my Person, at the first sight enamour'd— Oh, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... eaten in a famine; but these were nothing to my purpose, for the same thing is done under the same stress by all kindreds and generations of men. At last, in some manuscript notes of Dr. Turner's, which I was allowed to consult at Malua, I came on one damning evidence: on the island of Onoatoa the punishment for theft was to be killed and eaten. How shall we account for the universality of the practice over so vast an area, among people of such varying civilisation, and, with whatever intermixture, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been the go-between on this occasion, and that the whole thing is a cowardly and diabolical plot between this Phil—whom the girl, it seems, refused to marry before—and herself. I don't know how this may be; but the damning fact of this ugly scoundrel having been seen to go into her room, with her own consent, and being found there, attempting to conceal himself, by his father's cavalry, overweighs, in my opinion, anything that can be said in her favor. As it is, the family are to be pitied, and she herself, it seems, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... groups and scattered fours, and one by one, his heavy-breathing troopers followed, cursing the order that had sent them abroad with-out their horses, damning—as none but a dismounted cavalryman can damn—the earth's unevenness, their swords, their luck, their priests, the night, their boots, and Jaimihr. Forewarned, Alwa held on down the pitch-dark side street, into whose steep-sided chasm the moon's rays would not reach for an hour or two to come, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... propositions I shall, before I have done, give such convincing, such damning proof, that, however the contrary may be whispered in circles or bawled in newspapers, they never more will dare to raise their voices in this House. I speak with great confidence. I have reason ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... just as sure of Tom Cameron's guiltlessness as she was of her own faithfulness. But how damning the circumstantial evidence must ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... police are too much occupied with the salvation of souls, and too little with the preservation of bodies; that they prevent honest people from damning themselves by swearing, reading bad books, or associating with Liberals, but that they don't prevent rascals from murdering honest people; that property is as badly protected as persons; and that it is very hard ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... consequences of his apostasy appeared most to come home to Lady Agnes was the loss for the Dormer family of the advantages attached to the possession of Mrs. Dallow. The larger mortification would round itself later; for the hour the damning thing was that Nick had made that lady the gift of an unforgivable grievance. He had clinched their separation by his letter to his electors—and that above all was the wickedness of the letter. Julia would have ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... from sleeping, which had made it impossible for her to get well, were now in the possession of him from whom she had been most anxious to conceal them. The criminal stood face to face with the witness whose damning evidence was to condemn her. There ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... upon the speaker and I failed to note how the accused man met this damning charge. It was his voice which drew my ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... were to consent to this, without having previously exercised her power to "break every yoke" of slavery in the District, the blood of those so cruelly left there in "the house of bondage," would remain indelible and damning upon her skirts:—and this too, whether Virginia and Maryland did or did not intend to vest Congress with any power over slavery. It is enough, that the nation has the power "to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain," to make her fearfully guilty ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and shamed away Soon as the sun rekindles day, For none can damning light resist And 'neath ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... his remorse, I might disarm this wrath. I tried to think so. But I knew well enough that there was more to come. I had hardly taken my seat when, looking up, I could see between my fingers the little man standing up and gesticulating beside one of the keepers. At one moment he rapped the damning page with his forefinger; the next, he turned sidewise and flung out a hand toward me; and I divined, without hearing a word, all the bitterness of his invective. The keeper appeared to take it seriously. I felt myself blushing. "There must be," thought I, "some law ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... untired strength of never-ceasing motion, A restless rest, a toilless operation, Heaven then had given it, when wise Nature did To frail and solid things one place forbid; And parting both, made the moon's orb their bound, Damning to various change this lower ground. But now what Nature hath those laws transgress'd, Giving to Earth a work that ne'er will rest? Though 'tis most strange, yet—great King—'tis not new: This work was seen and found before, in you. In you, whose mind—though ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... a pocket-book, and began to turn over the leaves in search of the damning details, when Drake interrupted him. 'You don't expect me to discuss the man's ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... shooting of cattle and poultry, sich a yelling and singing of ther darned frenchy stuff—sich a rolling of drums and a damning of officers, I ain't hear yit"—said the agent. "And they does ride more on the outside of the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... than they altered their clear confidence. The situation as reflected in Flora looked naive enough, but there was nothing naive about Kerr. The very perfection of his coolness, there in the face of her burning agitation, was appalling. Oh, why couldn't he see, Flora thought wildly, how it was damning him—how it was showing him so practised, so marvelously equal to any emergency, that his presence here among fleeces could be nothing ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... being found in his tent, he was pronounced guilty and sentenced to be stoned to death. Though fully aware of the base treachery practised against him, Palamedes offered not a word in self-defence, knowing but too well that, in the face of such damning evidence, the attempt to prove his ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... everyday purpose to deal justly with one's neighbor. Let him who would be a patriot and serve the nation put his life into the work close at hand, and, with a civic temper and moral courage that can grip the scourge, rid our social life of its damning influences. This is the spirit of true national honor. This it is that makes of a nation a real nation. The call to arms is but another signal of the defeat of the ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... opposition to him, that kept the price of his work down. The little authors—venomous with spite and jealousy—the little authors, chief among whom was Rufus Griswold of the furtive eye and deprecating voice, were sending forth little whispers defaming his character, exaggerating his weakness and damning his work with faint ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... brow had cleared. You saw that it was beautiful. Miss Levering stood at the door with an anxious eye on the stair, as if fearful of the home-coming of 'her fellow-coward,' or, direr catastrophe—old Mr. Fox-Moore's discovering the damning fact of this outlaw's presence under his roof! Yet, even so, torn thus between dread and desire to pluck out the heart of the new mystery, 'the militant woman,' Miss Levering did not speed the parting guest. As though recognizing fully now that the prophesied use was not going ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... but we have higher teaching. Our Lord, who knew temptation's mighty power, Yet was himself without sin's damning stain, Did pass upon a case like this. "Let him Who hath no sin first cast a stone at her." And then He said, "Go, woman, sin no more." Oh! wondrous grace that pardoned frailty Which had ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... suspicions grew, the more they were incredible. That Captain Branscome, of all men in the world, should be guilty of such a crime! And yet, with this damning evidence in my hand, I could not but recall a dozen trifles—mere straws, to be sure—all pointing towards him. He had been here in my father's garden: that I might take as proven. With what object? ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... to the library. He related how his wife had heard Anne threaten to kill Daisy, produced the anonymous letter, detailed Daisy's accusation that the governess was in love with Ware, and finally pointed out the damning fact of the flight. The rector was quite convinced by this reasoning ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... time the story opens he was a figure of note among those who spent their time in criticizing the government and damning the Irish Parliament. He even became a friend of some young hare-brained rebels of the time; yet no one suspected him of anything except irresponsibility. His record was clean; Dublin Castle ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Tennison, that you need have nothing further to fear from him," said the Superintendent with satisfaction. "He has no doubt, very powerful friends, and if the evidence were not so damning and direct as that collected after so much patience and perseverance by Mr. Garfield, he might perhaps wriggle out of it. But once we have him he can hope for no escape," he added. "And we shall arrest him before an hour is out. Fortunately he is still quite unsuspicious, though his chief ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... him. At the damning words he turned and dashed out of the room, thus confirming the worst suspicions against him. The rage and indignation of the injured family were boundless. Such an outrage could only be wiped out with blood, and within an hour ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... letter from Dr Jardine to Mr Robert Lemon, attached to the Gunpowder Plot Book, states that Mr Lemon's father had "often observed to me that 'those fellows the Jesuits, in the time of the Powder Plot (not the Gunpowder Plot) had stolen away some of the most damning proofs against Garnet.' That thievery of some kind abstracted such documents as the Treatise of Equivocation, with Garnet's handwriting on it—the most important of the interlocutions between Garnet and Hall in the Tower—and all the ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... not lose faith, and went on shouting for Hayes and damning Tilden till the final vote was cast. In later life he changed his mind about Tilden (as did many others) through sympathy. Sympathy could make—Mark Twain change his mind any time. He stood for the right, but, above all, for justice. He stood for the wronged, regardless ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... was accomplished. The sham wreck had passed muster; they were clear of her, they were safe away; and the water widened between them and her damning evidences. On the other hand, they were drawing nearer to the ship of war, which might very well prove to be their prison and a hangman's cart to bear them to the gallows—of which they had not yet learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... element: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been half demented in his condition, many a sailor would have been taciturn and surly, on the look-out for sails, and alternately damning his soul and praying to his ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... boisterous and merry and perceiving Mings and his fellows inclined for slumber, roared them to wakefulness, bidding them drink with him and damning them for sleepy dogs. Yet in a while he fell silent also and presently takes out his dagger and begins fondling it. Then all at once he was on his feet, the dagger glittering evilly in his hand the while he glared from me to Resolution ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... therefore, through the good spirits, all the elements of saving goodness flow sweetly down and are appropriated by the freedom of the good man; while from hell, through the bad spirits, all the elements of damning evil flow foully up and are appropriated by the freedom of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... them home and drawing the conclusion in triumph; or he is recounting his experiences, proving, perhaps, beyond the shadow of a doubt, how much he has been injured, but bringing the clearest and most damning evidence to show that his opponents were foolish and obstinate people who would not be convinced; or else he is telling of the splendid plan he laid, and how he carried it to a successful issue, or perhaps failed because the luck was against him; or, it may be, he is ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... summed up the general impression and put it into a form they all felt conclusively damning. Winks was the master of the upper third, a weak-kneed man with drooping eye-lids, He was too tall for his strength, and his movements were slow and languid. He gave an impression of lassitude, and his nickname ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... against you," he said at last; "and damning evidence, too!" he added with a glance at his son that seemed to pulverise him. "Terrible evidence! Consider, Charles: the magistrates have decided, as a result of their investigations, that no one got into the chateau on the fatal night; you were the only man who slept there; ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... outside the household of faith, an organised undervaluation of heretical goodness and lovableness, follows, necessarily. Every petty difference is exaggerated to the quality of a saving grace or a damning defect. Elaborate precautions are taken to shield the believer's mind against broad or amiable suggestions; the faithful are deterred by dark allusions, by sinister warnings, from books, from theatres, from worldly conversation, from all the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... believed to be an accessory to the murder of Amy Robsart. But in carefully following her words and actions at that critical time, as reported by de Quadra, my reading of the transaction is as given here. The most damning fact against Elizabeth was held to be her own statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's murder to the effect that Lady Robert was "already dead, or very nearly so." This foreknowledge of the fate of that unfortunate lady has been accepted as ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... if my comrade sees how it could be done to oblige a laady like yo'sen, I'm nut t' man to hod back, tho' it's a bad business I'm thinkin', an' three hundred rupees is a poor set-off again t' chance of them Damning ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... is excusably despised by plutocracy. Socialism is not merely a cry of pain; if it were only that its plaints might have proved more effectual. It is a cry of avarice, of jealousy, and very often of extreme laziness as well. Every socialistic theory that we have yet heard of is self-damning. Each real thinker, whether he be Croesus or pauper, comprehends that to empower the executive with greater responsibility than it already possesses would mean to tempt national ruin, and that until ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... demonstrate. He grew peevish and irritable. He took to abusing the old masters, and cried out at the neglect of living men. Examining a modern work, he would say: 'Ay, it's a noble picture, but it has one damning defect—it's a thing of to-day. Prove it to be but two hundred years old, and from the brush of a famous man, and here's two thousand guineas for it.' Northcote tells of him: 'I once went with him to the hustings, to vote for Home Tooke, and when they asked me what I was, I said, "A painter." ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... This damning list might be continued for the Central and South American Indians. We should find that the Mosquito Indians often did not wait for puberty (Bancroft, I., 729); that, according to Martius, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... towards her. "Don't be afraid!" he said. "There is nothing so damning as fear. Shall we go up to her now? I promised ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... and Spottsylvania a campaign of glory, let us not forget that negro troops in that army, and in other armies in the same campaign, have borne their part faithfully, and deserve well of the republic. Nor let us forget the damning atrocities at Fort Pillow, where black men in United States uniform were massacred in cold blood, because they were willing rather to die freemen with their white comrades of the United States army, than live slaves to rebel masters:[D] thus vindicating ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... delightfully wicked past upon which he can pretend to look back in horror? It is the only past he will ever have, so why spoil it for him? On the contrary, I am prepared to lend a hand and to start him off with a list of damning disclosures which it will require ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... subtle poison had been instilled. Howbeit, to-day she found nothing. She was sadly hiding her pick and shovel, as was her custom, when she discovered the fresh track of an alien foot in the sand. Robinson Crusoe was not more astounded at the savage footprint than Jenny Miller at this damning proof of the invasion of her sacred territory. The footprints came from and returned to the copse of shrubs. Some one might have ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... reject in the case of whites; and on the other hand they will frequently reject, or at least discredit, testimony of the Negro against the white man, however well supported it may be. But to compound for sins we are inclined to by damning those we have no mind to, in case of any difficulty between white and black, and the former is injured or loses his life, lucky is the latter if the homicide is not declared murder—when courts of justice, ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... a further confirmation of her perfidy that ever since his father's flight she had made a point of being down to breakfast before him, so that he could never see what letters she received. That was damning evidence against her—damnable evidence, in fact, for it argued a degree both of intelligence and energy for which he had not given her credit. Like his father before him, he was discovering that there was more up this sparkling lady's sleeve ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... she said, Christian anxiety roused by the paroxysm which rescued him from the damning alternative. "You oughtn't to stand here perhaps, ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... the Spanish accounts,—the self-damning testimony of the author and abettors of the crime. A picture of lurid and awful coloring; and yet there is reason to believe that the truth was more hideous still. Among those spared was one Christophe le Breton, who was carried to Spain, escaped to France, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... watched Strong every minute for signs of special devotion, and before the day was over he had satisfied himself that these two cared deeply for each other. The way Strong's eyes followed her every movement, the way he anticipated her wants, understood her before she spoke—they were all damning evidences of the situation. That Bambi showed herself grateful, as vividly as she did everything else, entirely escaped Jarvis. She loved him, that was the truth, and he alone stood between her ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... evidence that our great grandfathers looked upon mountains with aversion and horror. The poets of even the seventeenth century never tire of damning them in good, set terms. If they had had the unhappiness to read the opening lines of "The Pleasures of Hope," they would assuredly have thought Master Campbell had gone funny and should be shut up lest he ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Saint John, when he was upwards of fourscore years, continually taught this by his constant text, 'Little children, love one another?' Let us allow men to judge us by our works. The labour of Protestantism will not be accomplished by the pharisaical mode of priding ourselves on our faith, and damning that of every one else! Our mission is to preach the Gospel pure and simple. Too much time, too much money, too much of true religion is wasted, in our common custom of trying to proselytise others! We should ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... events, she never again used the coat; and having nothing to conceal, didn't conceal it, which is the most damning evidence you can offer to a tortuous mind. She hung the coat in the apartment off the big living room. Then, the despatch came out about the two bodies found in the Desert. The same mail brought a letter from her father asking her to meet him at Smelter ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... argument; caricatures in the same medium, some of them trenchantly like, of the customers as well as of certain artistic celebrities, whose laurels Brodonowski's had not approved, varied here and there by an epigram or a doggerel couplet, damning the Philistine. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... bless you, no, mum. This here's our schoolmarm. Didn't you never hear tell about her?" This damning proof of his companion's aloofness from village gossip seemed to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... damning document for Austria can be imagined than Prince Lichnowsky's Memorandum. He denounces Austria's hypocritical support of the independence of Albania. In this respect he holds similar views to those expressed in the Austrian ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... we said," they chuckled. "He had but to see her beauty and find her a bigger devil than he, and 'twas done. The mettle of her—damning and flogging him! Never was there a finer sight! She feared him no more than if he had been a spaniel—and he roaring and laughing till he was like ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... looked after him, scarcely able to believe his ears. If Theo had arrived at damning the Regiment, Frank's fear might not prove to be chimerical after all; and yet the flash of temper, the renewed energy of speech and movement ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... a damning peep of sense—damning, I say; for sense in a seeming madman is scoundrelism. I take him for a cunning vagabond, who picks up a vagabond living by adroitly playing the madman. Did you not remark how he flinched ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... around are free, From 'farthest Ind' to each blue crag That beetles o'er the Western Sea? And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, When Freedom's fire is dim with us, And round our country's altar clings The damning shade of ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... odor of blood which offended the nostrils of tenants, it is, I believe, certain that the city annals have not shaken off the mystery: which yet to certain people in Knutsford, as I have said, and to us the spectators of the skeleton, immediately upon hearing one damning fact from the lips of Mr. White, seemed to melt away and evaporate as convincingly as if we had heard the explanation issuing in the terms of a confession from the mouth of the skeleton itself. What, then, was the fact? With pain, and reluctantly, we felt its force, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Service and brought to the Landhofmeisterin's office, where the long chain of evidence was being linked together by the Graevenitz and Schuetz. She intended Forstner to be condemned, not only by the Duke's orders, but publicly, and on a charge so damning as to alienate all from him. Incidentally, the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Blanch Boies, started for Mahan's wholesale liquor store. Three men were on the watch for us, we asked to go in to hold gospel services as was our intention before destroying this den of vice, for we wanted God to save their souls, and to give us ability and opportunity to destroy this soul damning business. They refused to let us come near the door. I said, "Women, we will have to use our hatchets," with this I threw a rock through the front, then we were all seized, and a call for the police was made. There was of course, a big crowd. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... and clashing against each other in a complexity and agglomeration of horrors, was shooting her darts of fire and venom all around him. Even such was Milton; yea, and such, in spite of all that has been babbled by his critics in pretended excuse for his damning, because for them too profound, excellencies,—such was Shakspeare. But alas! the exceptions prove the rule. For who will dare to force his way out of the crowd,—not of the mere vulgar,—but of the vain and banded aristocracy of intellect, and presume to join the almost ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... with them along old and approved lines. He had heard of Drew's religious views and he took this occasion to include a warning of the damning influence that was about to enter the vicinity ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... point of that case now. Being a lawyer, I followed it closely. It struck me as one of purely damned, damning circumstantial evidence and it ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... blood at the door of the Suffolk Arms, crushing, burning, damning and ratting himself at Crispin's magnificence, they rolled away through the night in the direction ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... than I thought was necessary, considering that there were only ten of them; and cautiously examined each separate one, as though he feared that I might be trying to pay for my passage in bad money. His show of distrust set my back up, and I came near to damning him right out for his impudence—until I reflected that a West Coast trader must pretty well divide his time between cheating people and seeing to it that he isn't cheated, ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... not call for it, deserved to pay the piper. For that reason, perhaps, the German Government withheld Herr KAUTSKY'S revelations. Now he has published them on his own account, under the title, The Guilt of William Hohenzollern (SKEFFINGTON). A more damning indictment has never been drawn. From the moment of the ARCHDUKE'S assassination the KAISER and his advisers determined to make it the pretext for destroying Serbia, and crushing Russia and France if they dared to interfere. BISMARCK ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... Philip Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (a knurly) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's shop. I like dealers in out-of-the-way things,—traders in bigotry ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... well as I what he has to do: the concentration, the finish, the independence he must strive for from the moment he begins to wish his work really decent. Ah my young friend, his relation to women, and especially to the one he's most intimately concerned with, is at the mercy of the damning fact that whereas he can in the nature of things have but one standard, they have about fifty. That's what makes them so superior," St. George amusingly added. "Fancy an artist with a change of standards as you'd have a change of shirts or of dinner-plates. To do it—to do it ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... justice and humanitarianism. Still we are not altogether surprised, because the Democratic newspaper organs have openly defended and justified the atrocities committed by German soldiers, and whenever any particularly damning evidence has been produced their parole has consistently been: "At any rate, now is not the time to discuss it." According to their comprehension the only time for discussion is when Europe is under the German heel. They are willing ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... aggressive on the smallest provocation: at their head was a man of a cold sort of purity, rather childish and wilful, maintaining the integrity of his doctrine, religious, moral, and artistic, explaining in abstract terms the Gospel of music to the small number of the Elect, and calmly damning Pride and Heresy. To these two states of mind he attributed every defect in art and every vice of humanity: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and present-day Judaism, which he lumped together in one category. The Jews ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... and not by his matter, that he affected Wordsworth and the world. There is, indeed, only one merit worth considering in a man of letters—that he should write well; and only one damning fault—that he should write ill. We are little the better for the reflections of the sailor's parrot in the story. And so, if Burns helped to change the course of literary history, it was by his frank, direct, and masterly utterance, and not by his homely choice of subjects. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... period demands a new manner of jest, after the current fashion . . . . The reigning favourites of the day are Frank R. Stockton, Joel Chandler Harris, the various newspaper jokers, and 'Mark Twain.' [Note the damning position!] But the creators of 'Pomona' and 'Rudder Grange,' of 'Uncle Remus and his Folk-lore Stories,' and 'Innocents Abroad,' clever as they are, must make hay while the sun shines. Twenty years hence, unless they chance to enshrine their wit in some higher literary achievement, their unknown ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... faculty of discriminating between what was right or wrong to be practised towards them. And if acts, savouring of sheer revenge, were done by them, they should be regarded as but the ebullitions of men, under the excitement of great and damning wrongs, and which, in their dispassionate moments, they would condemn, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... generation, the writer recognises to the full those transcendent qualities which place him next to Sir Walter Scott as the second greatest figure in a century of great fiction. In defiance of the terrible, and to some critics damning, fact that Dickens entirely changed the plan of Martin Chuzzlewit in deference to the popular criticism expressed by the sudden fall in the circulation of that serial, he shows in what a fundamental sense the author was 'a literary artist if ever there was one,' and ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... thunderbolts of your energy and the mountains of difficulty will be cast into the sea. Take your place in the sun. Stop reviling God by saying you are a worm of the dust, a miserable sinner, and that there is no good within you. Quit damning yourself. Nothing is impossible. You hold the key to the Universe. Mind is Supreme. Thought limitless. Weave your Spirit out of sunbeams. Seize the glittering stars and they will become your chariots. You and the Universe of God are one. To-day is ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... that so strangely excited Prince Stratimojeff, and shook his very bones as with an ague? It was the memory of former days; it was the painful and damning voice of Conscience which tormented him. What reason had he to inquire after Gotzkowsky the banker, and his daughter? How! Had the heart of Count Feodor von Brenda become so hardened, that when he returned to Berlin he should not long to ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... their situations. The extent and accuracy of the information possessed by them was almost incredible. Indeed, we regard the system of espionage, by which this information was procured, as the most complete and damning proof of the general selfishness and immorality of the French people, of which we have received any account. It was not merely that a number of persons were employed by the police as spies; but that no man could put any ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... It was a damning arraignment, and Wiley's men listened grimly, but he only twisted his lip and nodded his head ironically. With one eye on his accuser, who was becoming hysterical, he hustled the ore into the empty trucks and started them off down the road; and then, ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... verse must have had merit, or why should Lord Brougham, in the great "Edinburgh Review," go after it with a slashing, crashing, damning criticism? ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... foolish reprehension Of faulty men, which danger to thee threat; But freely dost, of what thee list, entreat, Like a great lord of peerless liberty; Lifting the good up to high honour's seat, And the evil damning over more to die; For life and death is in thy doomful writing; So thy renown lives ever ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... an explanation of his presence in the gambling-house were necessary, "and I thought I'd drop around and get a little excitement out of the game if I could. Burton was there and had just been cleaned out; he was in an impatient sort of humor and was damning things at a tolerable speed. Nothing vicious, you know, but just enough ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... committee. I wish that you knew, sir, how salt is the bread Of another—(what is it that Dante has said?) And the trouble of other men's stairs. In a word, I wish fate had some real affliction conferr'd On your whimsical self, that, at least, you had cause For neglecting life's duties, and damning its laws! This pressure against all the purpose of life, This self-ebullition, and ferment, and strife, Betoken'd, I grant that it may be in truth, The richness and strength of the new wine of youth. But if, when the wine ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... Adam's descendants through hundreds of generations dreadful penalties for a small transgression which they did not commit; the damning of all men who do not avail themselves of an alleged mode of obtaining forgiveness, which most men have never heard of; and the effecting a reconciliation by sacrificing a son who was perfectly innocent, to satisfy the assumed necessity for a propitiatory victim; are modes of action which, ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... anger when she asked it. "There should not have been a moment," he said, "before she came to me and told me all." Poor Lady Mary's position was certainly uncomfortable enough. The great sin,—the sin which was so great that to have known it for a day without revealing it was in itself a damning sin on the part of Mrs. Finn,—was Lady Mary's sin. And she differed so entirely from her father as to think that this sin of her own was a virtue, and that to have spoken of it to him would have been, on the part of Mrs. Finn, a treachery so deep that ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... instant, the damning facts stormed up at her—the verdict of the court-martial, the details Elisabeth had supplied, above all, Garth's own inability to deny the charge—and the light of momentary ecstasy flared and went ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... your philosophy, your philanthropy, and your competition? National prejudices revive as national prosperity decreases. If the Consols were at 60 we should be again bellowing, God save the King! eating roast beef, and damning the French." ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... towards virtue, Yet ever falling in the snares of vice! Now do I loathe the amorous Serafina, Who sacrifices all—her fame—her honour, At Passion's shrine. How do I adore The chaste, the innocent, sweet Isidora! Yet in my love, so ardent and so pure, There's guilt—deep damning guilt—and more, There's cruelty and baseness! I plant a dagger In the fond breast that cherishes the wound; Nor will she feel the pain until withdrawn, And happiness—nay, life—will issue with it. How inconsistent, selfish, treacherous! ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... fretfulness and scepticism that, only occasional and transient as they were, told nevertheless with disturbing effect upon his temper. In the same unfortunate direction was the tendency of a habit grown insidiously upon him,—a habit against the damning control of which (as no one better than the writer of this article knows) he wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, resorting to all the remedial expedients which professional skill or his own experience could suggest, but never entirely delivering himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... a short while ago, at the commencement of the indictment, you heard them say, 'He, whom we accuse in your court, is a philosopher of the most elegant appearance and a master of eloquence not merely in Latin but also in Greek!' What a damning insinuation! Unless I am mistaken, those were the very words with which Tannonius Pudens, whom no one could accuse of being a master of eloquence, began the indictment. I wish that these serious reproaches of beauty and eloquence had been true. It would have been easy to answer in the words, ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... theater in a professional capacity, so I will leave them all alone for the present. I had better confess at once that I don't remember this great event, and my sister Kate is unkind enough to say that it never happened—to me! The story, she asserts, was told of her. But without damning proofs she is not going to make me believe it! Shall I be robbed of the only experience of my first ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... shop in the Rue de la Boucherie, seldom went out except at night, and was recognised at Mass by a woman who had attended Miss Walkinshaw's daughter. Finally, the Prince went to Brest in disguise, 'damning the Marshal's old boots,' the boots of the Marechal de Belleisle, which, it seems, 'were always stuffed full of projects.' Barbier supposes, in his 'Memoires,' that Charles was to go with Thurot, who was to attack Scotland, while Conflans invaded England. But Charles ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... Jonathan, "why do you keep damning him up and down all the time? And why did you slug him ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... fire. There were other things against me: my known friendship for the leaders of the strike, my discharge, my absence from home at the time the fire must have been started, and other small but damning evidence. I was convicted, and sentenced to transportation. I saw my old mother fall as if dead! I saw Barbara's white face bending over her; plainer than all, I saw that man who had been my friend, and the look he gave the woman who was to have been my wife! Something ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... and suddenly he realized that he had been trapped by that villain, Sicto. Not Sicto, but Alverez had filched the order for the confinement of a leper, had erased the name, and substituted Piang's. He flung the damning paper from him. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... by his impressive manner, "however presumptuous, as far as social considerations are concerned, it might be, by which you affect to be inspired, is utterly inconsistent with the cruel, dastardly crime of which such damning evidence has an hour since ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren |
