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Libellous

adjective
1.
(used of statements) harmful and often untrue; tending to discredit or malign.  Synonyms: calumniatory, calumnious, defamatory, denigrating, denigrative, denigratory, libelous, slanderous.






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"Libellous" Quotes from Famous Books



... could not forgive, and the accusation that he favoured Spain was one of these. Shut up among his creatures in his house in the Strand, and refused all communication with Elizabeth, Essex thought no accusation too libellous to spread against the trio who held the royal ear, against Raleigh, Cecil, and Cobham, whose daggers, he said, were ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... Wilkes obtained Weymouth's letter of April 17, and published it with libellous comments, charging him with having deliberately planned "the massacre" of St. George's Fields. These comments were voted a seditious libel by the commons. Wilkes's petition for redress of grievances was rejected; ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... she said. "Do wait a moment. Yes, that's right. And how can you say that my nose went in the air? I'm sure Mr. Taynton will agree with me that that is really libellous. And as for your being afraid to tell me you had bought a motor-car yourself, why, that is sillier than cracking nuts ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... after which they were again ejected. From this time on they became violent opponents of the Assembly and the Court, seemingly determined that if they could not rule, nobody else should. Their newspaper, the Tamayo, was a powerful organ in the capital, and proved itself as unsparing as it was libellous in its attacks. ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... for every kind of ridicule and abuse. Nast drew a grotesque cartoon of me, distorting my suggestion for the assembling of 100,000 citizens, which was both offensive and libellous. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... efficacy through the interdict; and she entreated Renard to procure her a fresh supply from Flanders, blessed by the excellent hands of the Bishop of Arras. But the oil was not the gravest difficulty. As the rumour spread of the intended Spanish marriage, libellous handbills were scattered about London; the people said it should not be till they had fought for it. A disturbance at Greenwich, on the 25th of September, extended to Southwark, {p.060} where Gardiner's ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... jokes about him were brought out and oiled and given a trial spin down the road a piece before appearing in funny columns and vaudeville skits, and the sporting writers, frenzied by the task of filling their space with nothing but tables of batting averages, had become positively libellous. ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... temperature of the season," &c. Another against "departure out of the realm without license." One to erect an office "for the suppression of cursing and swearing," to receive the forfeitures; against "libellous and seditious pamphlets and discourses from Scotland," framed by factious spirits, and republished in London—this was in 1640; and Charles, at the crisis of that great insurrection in which he was to be at once ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... nostrum speculator, it is not to be wondered at that the infamous name of the Comtesse de Lamotte, and others of the same stamp, should have thus fallen into an association of the Prince-Cardinal or that her libellous stories of the Queen of France should have found eager promulgators, where the real diamonds of the famous necklace being taken apart were divided piecemeal among a horde of the most depraved sharpers that ever existed to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... foregoing order, and printed and published libellous and seditious works. They refused to appear before the court where such offences were tried. The authorities found them guilty, and fined each man L500, and ordered them to be whipped from Fleet Prison to the pillory at Westminster. The sentence was carried ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... well-behaved and reputable citizen could have been denounced as a "moral parricide," because he attacked some of the doctrines in which he was supposed to have been brought up? A single thought should have prevented the masked theologian who abused his incognito from using such libellous language. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient provocation for Lady Wilde's libellous letter. The plea went on to state that Miss Travers had applied to Sir William Wilde for money again and again, and accompanied these applications with threats of worse pen-pricks if the requests were not acceded ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... conspiracy may be libellous) to defend the worst atrocities of the French, and to cry down every author to whom England was dear and venerable. A better spirit now prevails in the Edinburgh Review from the generosity and genius of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... they that write of poisons, and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruin of man, do as well mention the flea as the viper[170], because the flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can; so even these libellous and licentious jesters utter the venom they have, though sometimes virtue, and always power, be a good pigeon to draw this vapour from the head and from doing any ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... misty. It is true that Eden had taken advantage of her friendless position, and had lied to her, and worn a mask, and deliberately planned to make her his mistress; but he would no more have taken another man's name in order to see her than he would have picked a pocket or sent a libellous post-card. Being ignorant of these fine distinctions, she went down to the little sitting-room on the ground floor greatly fearing. Her visitor was standing at the window on the opposite side of the room, and turned round as she entered; a natty- looking man, middle-aged, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... refuse a man who possessed a goodly number of slaves, though they were sure his affections would be shared by some of the best-looking of the females amongst them, and his conduct towards the remainder that of a very demon." These sentiments I very soon ascertained to be in no way libellous. A southern wife, if she is prodigally furnished with dollars to "go shopping," apparently considers it no drawback to her happiness if some brilliant mulatto or quadroon woman ensnares her husband. Of ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... "Libellous as usual, Nora," Dartrey murmured, without turning his head. "Mr. Tallente is providing me with a few minutes of intense enjoyment. He has assured me that his time is ours. Soon I shall finish my tea, light a cigarette and talk. Just ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of the sum of..., I agree to perpetual silence—to restrain from libellous...never to molest the said Frederick Elliot ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... produced a chapter called 'A Glimpse of the Hellish Panorama,' in which he deals with the evidence at the Spoelstra trial. Spoelstra was a Hollander who, having sworn an oath of neutrality, afterwards despatched a letter to a Dutch newspaper without submitting it to a censor, in which he made libellous attacks upon the British Army. He was tried for the offence and sentenced to a fine of 100l., his imprisonment being remitted. In the course of the trial he called a number of witnesses for the purpose of supporting his charges against the troops, and ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... MOTE BOLTON BRIEFLESS—I selected his Christian names in anticipated recognition of possible professional favours to be conferred on him in after-life) the words "imbecile from his birth," as frivolous, untrue, and even libellous. We had but one untoward incident. In the early morning of Monday we found in our area a person who had evidently passed the night there in a condition of helpless intoxication. As she could offer no satisfactory explanation of her presence, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various

... Plenipotentiary of France has enclosed to me a copy of a letter of the 16th instant, which he addressed to you, stating that some libellous publications had been made against him by Mr. Jay, Chief Justice of the United States, and Mr. King, one of the Senators for the State of New York, and desiring that they might be prosecuted. This letter has been laid before the President, according to the request of the Minister; and the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... imprisoned by virtue of a warrant from the Governor and Council; and a concurrence of the House of Representatives in the prosecution was requested. The House, however, declined. The Governor and Council then ordered the libellous papers to be burned by the common hangman, or whipper, near the pillory. But both the common whipper and the common hangman were officers of the corporation, not of the Crown, and they declined officiating at the illumination. The papers were therefore burned ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... spent in waiting for her. Wearily she followed him out of the window. From what her mother had told her about men, she had always known that even Richard, since he was male, might forget his habit of worship towards her and turn libellous as husbands are, and pretend that she was being tiresome when she was not. But she would never have believed that it could come so soon. And it was spoiling her. She no longer felt possessed of the perfect ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... thing," he went on, "and I suppose I must be suffering from hallucinations, but I could swear that just now I saw looking through that door the same improper young woman clothed in a few flowers and nothing else, whose photograph in that abominable and libellous book was indirectly the cause of our ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... also they make no impression—though even a dog will howl at a great aurora. Of course we know all about them; any schoolboy can pick up a primer of physical geography and explain the laws of refraction, and the ugly and most libellous diagram of circles and angles that shows just how these lustrous splendours happen; but the mystery beyond is not by one hair's breadth impaired nor their influence upon the spectator diminished. In Alaska perhaps more than any other country it is the heavens that declare ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... was broken—not even the pot of guava-jelly. They included a superannuated watch in a loose silver case, a medal (in bronze) struck to commemorate Lord Howe's famous victory of the First of June, two pieces-of-eight and a spade guinea (much clipped); a small china mug painted with libellous portraits of King George III. and his consort; a printed pamphlet on Admiral Byng; two strings of shells; a mourning-ring with a lock of hair set between two pearls under glass; another ring with a tiny picture of a fountain ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... Mr. Harley and Prior; but Mr. St. John did not come, though he promised: he chid me for not seeing him oftener. Here is a damned, libellous pamphlet come out against Lord Wharton, giving the character first, and then telling some of his actions: the character is very well, but the facts indifferent.(29) It has been sent by dozens to ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... press;"—and a mysterious and curiosity-provoking hint was further thrown out, that "it was the custom of the trade, that, until a work was published, the MS. should not be parted with by the publisher, as it might turn out that some part of it was libellous, and in such case the publisher must produce the MS." In the end the gallant colonel (whom the newspaper reports described as "very much excited,") took nothing by his motion in regard to the recovery of the MS.; but though in this respect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... representations, where they are not deliberate falsehoods, point to a fact which is not uncommon; from the limited number of our nobility, and consequently the rare opportunities for really studying their habits, it is easy to see that in sketches of this order, (whether libellous amongst mob-orators, or serious in novels,) the pretended portrait has been founded on a vague romantic abstraction of what may be supposed peculiar to the condition of a patrician order under all political circumstances. Haughtiness, exclusiveness, indolence, and luxury, compose the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... That this note of Aaron Vail Brown, while it so effectually demolishes Jackson's fable of Erving's treaty with Spain for the boundary of the Rio del Norte, and his libellous charge against our government for surrendering the territory which they had the option to retain, is, with this exception, as wide and as wilful a departure from the truth as the calumny of Jackson itself, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... miserable society papers. Do you know there's a man in this town who makes his living by sending such things to New York? Something scandalous, if possible; if not scandalous, then libellous; if not actually libellous, then ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... extravagance betrays the denunciator. One would be interested to have this past-master of overstatement mention the names of these distinguished crooks that head the prominent agencies. Their exposure, if true, would not be libellous, and it would seem that he had performed but half his duty to the public in refraining from giving this important, if ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little black breeches, with the rusty little bunches ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... sense of humour, and was not so much ashamed of it as he ought to have been, wrote—very occasionally—for Punch, and more often for Fun, was dramatic critic of a lively society paper, and "did" the books—in a sarcastic vein—for a very unmuzzled "weekly," that was libellous by profession and truthful by oversight. Trenchard, on the other hand, wrote a good deal of very condensed fiction, and generally placed it; contributed brilliant fugitive articles to various papers and magazines, and was generally spoken of by the inner circle of the craft ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... is the worst, father (or mother rather) the expression on our virgin queen, as falsely as other things have been charged upon her. Some have not sticked to say 'that David hath been as much persecuted by bungling translators as by Saul himself.' Some have made libellous verses in abuse of them, and no wonder if songs were made on the translators of the Psalms, seeing drunkards made them on ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... begged Bok to begin proceedings against the New York Evening Sun because of the libellous (?) articles written about him by "The Woman About Town," the editor admired the style rather than the contents, made her acquaintance, and secured her as a regular writer: she contributed to the magazine some of the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... one of those literary lions who are merely histrionic creatures of society. It is a privilege not to have to reproduce the common small-talk of ball-rooms and garden-parties, nor to be obliged to make the most, after a semi-libellous fashion, of after-dinner scandals, or gossip in the smoking-room. Not having heard them he cannot well report racy anecdotes, whereof sundry memoirs have been too full. In the happier condition ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... bearing Holbach's name as a title, one is a piece of libellous fiction by Mme. de Genlis, Les Diners du baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1822, 8vo), the other a romance pure and simple by F. T. Claudon (Paris, 1835, 2 vols., 8vo) called Le Baron d'Holbach, the events of which take place largely at his house and ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing

... performed to celebrate the event. The people repeat a set of verses containing advice which the bride's mother is supposed to give her on this occasion, in which the desire imputed to the caste to make money out of their daughters is satirised. They are no doubt libellous as being a gross exaggeration, but may contain some substratum of truth. The gist of them is as follows: "Girl, if you are my daughter, heed what I say. I will make you many sweetmeats and speak words of wisdom. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... journal, written with some pleasantry, and great audacity and impudence, had a considerable number of readers. Forty-four numbers had been published when Bute resigned; and, though almost every number had contained matter grossly libellous, no prosecution had been instituted. The forty-fifth number was innocent when compared with the majority of those which had preceded it, and indeed contained nothing so strong as may in our time be found daily in the leading articles ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... back a careless reverberation of his first German character, from those who have far too much to read for declining aid from vicarious criticism when it will spare that effort to themselves. Thus it is that German critics become audacious and libellous. Kohl, Von Raumer, Dr. Carus, physician to the King of Saxony, by means of introductory letters floating them into circles far above any they had seen in homely Germany, are qualified by our own negligence and indulgence for mounting a European tribunal, from ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... acknowledge that when I see a jolly young Waterman representing a cherubim, or a Barclay and Perkins's Drayman depicted as an Evangelist, I see nothing to commend or admire in the performance, however great its reputed Painter. Neither am I partial to libellous Angels, who play on fiddles and bassoons, for the edification of sprawling monks apparently in liquor. Nor to those Monsieur Tonsons of galleries, Saint Francis and Saint Sebastian; both of whom I submit should have very uncommon ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... meets. I believe I never mentioned to you an anecdote of Sir James Mackintosh, which bears directly on this subject. It was at a dinner given by Sir ——, that some one inquired if he (Sir James Mackintosh) had ever discovered the author of a certain libellous attack on himself. "Not absolutely, though I have no doubt that —— was the person. I suspected him at once; but meeting him in Pall Mall, soon after the article appeared, he turned round and walked the whole length of the street with me, covering me with protestations ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... and disgrace the House of Commons. For this purpose these gentlemen had found a way to insult the House by several atrocious libels in the form of petitions. In particular they brought up a libel, or rather a complete digest of libellous matter, from the club called the Friends of the People. It is, indeed, at once the most audacious and the most insidious of all the performances of that kind which have yet appeared. It is said to be the penmanship ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... and libel below the level of average gentility and education." But the Rector of Lincoln has not touched, or has touched very lightly, on the fault above noted, the profound lack of humour that these pamphlets display. Others have been as scurrilous, as libellous, as unfair; others have prostituted literary genius to the composition of paid lampoons; but some at least of them have been saved by the all-saving sense of humour. As any one who remembers the dreadful passage about the guns in Paradise Lost must know, the book of humour was ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... people of England was pitched upon as the foundation of a prosecution. After a short trial in the court of king's bench, he was found guilty of having written the sixth letter to the people of England, adjudged a libellous pamphlet, sentenced to stand in the pillory, to pay a small fine, to be imprisoned three years, and give security for his future good behaviour; so that, in effect, this good man suffered more for having given vent to the unguarded effusions of mistaken zeal, couched ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... passion; threepit at the elders that they had no proof whatever of his having had any trafficking in the business, which was the case; for it was only a notion, the poor deceased lassie never having made a disclosure: called them libellous conspirators against his character, which was his only fortune, and concluded by threatening to punish them, though he exempted me from the injury which their slanderous insinuations had done to his prospects in life. We were all terrified, and allowed him to go away ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... have had no licensers. Every book should bear the printer's name, and 'mischievous and libellous books' were to be burnt by the common hangman, not as an effectual remedy, but as the 'most effectual ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... sarcastic, clever, and very ugly. The world called him morose and ill-natured; but the world only judged from his face, and most certainly he should have indicted it for bringing false witness against him. It was a libellous face, which turned the worst aspect to the world; its harsh lines and exaggerated features magnifying mental defects, while they concealed the good qualities of the warm, generous heart that shone like some precious gem within that ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... country is so desolate and arid that at some of these purely nitrate towns school-children's knowledge of trees and other plants is derived solely from painted representations on boardings erected for the purpose. This may seem libellous, but is not so. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... shall now attend with such a homily, as shall lay before ye, first the inventors of it to be those whom ye will be loath to own; next what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; and that this Order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed. Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... satire of Juvenal is found the most severe delineation of woman that ever mortal penned. Doubtless he is libellous and extravagant, for only infamous women can stoop to such arts and degradations as would seem to have been common in his time. But with all his probable exaggeration, we are forced to feel that but few women, even in the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... the legal gentleman, "that you are rendering gross and offensive, malicious and libellous, scandalous and burglarious language to this gentleman, in his own domicile, with malice prepense ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... author as Tom Hearne has written, is a little curious. The word "Arminian," in DR. RIMBAULT'S Query, requires a remark. On reading the Memoir which Dr. Wordsworth has edited, he will find (Appendix, p. 247.) that the Ferrars complained of "a libellous pamphlet, entitled the Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire," and that they repudiated "Arminianism and other fopperies." This suggests a further Query: Is DR. RIMBAULT possessed of that pamphlet? The attachment to books manifested by the Ferrars family entitles ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various

... like a ravenous vulture on the soul. Woe to the man or woman whose days are passed in watching the hour-glass through which the sands run too slowly for longings that are like a skulking procession of bloodless murders! Without affirming such horrors of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, it would not be libellous to say that his fancy was tampering with future possibilities, as it constantly happens with those who are getting themselves into training for some act of folly, or some crime, it may be, which will in its own time evolve itself as an idea in the consciousness, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... libellous gossip least patiently of all with birds. If a ninny have some stories about a wonderful goose, let him out with them, and then waddle away with his fat friend into the stackyard—where they may take sweet counsel together in the "fause-house." Let him, with open ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... (Thecodactylus loevis), a nocturnal animal in its chief activity, but always to be seen in these places or in hollow trees even by day. Its appearance is repulsive, I allow, but its reputation for venom is libellous ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various

... Had I been born early enough I must have known and loved him: for I have been assured, not only by yourself, but by Mr. Congreve and Sir William Trumbul, that his personal qualities were as amiable as his poetical, notwithstanding the many libellous misrepresentations of them, against which the former of these gentlemen has told me he will one day vindicate him. I suppose those injuries were begun by the violence of party, but it is no doubt they were ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... removal to Islington when Jasper Milvain heard for the first time of what had happened. He was coming down from the office of the Will-o'-the-Wisp one afternoon, after a talk with the editor concerning a paragraph in his last week's causerie which had been complained of as libellous, and which would probably lead to the 'case' so much desired by everyone connected with the paper, when someone descending from a higher storey of the building overtook him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... the field of English portraiture. We begin with the king himself. Here is Holbein's famous picture of him; a picture that represents a man so gross, so sensual, so disgusting in appearance, that one recognizes its truth, and wonders that the court-painter did not lose his head for such a libellous sincerity. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... travelled beyond the pale of justice. For three people to come forward and declare that at the time of Mr. Halliday's death they had suspected Mr. Sheldon of poisoning him, would be to prove nothing to the minds of a British jury, except that the three people in question were libellous and ill-disposed persons. The greater the issue, the wider the chances of escape given to the accused; and a petty offender will be condemned for picking a pocket upon much lighter grounds than will be considered sufficient to prove a man guilty of blowing ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... 'Seems pretty solid,—libellous, too, I should say. You've more stuff in you than I thought. All right: go ahead.—Come and dine with me to-morrow, to meet a man who may ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... sent for Cheetham, on the evening of his arrival. The journalist obeyed the summons immediately. This was the first interview between Paine and the man who was to hang, draw, and quarter his memory in a biography. This libellous performance was written shortly after Paine's death. It was intended as a peace-offering to the English government. The ex-hatter had made up his mind to return home, and he wished to prove the sincerity of his conversion from radicalism by trampling on the remains of its high-priest. So ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... paid him homage. And at the side of the triumphal car, which was drawn by four horses, walked a fool, whose business it was to dim the splendour of his triumph by shouting insults, and casting suspicion on the hero's character by singing libellous songs. This was a good old custom, for there is nothing so fatal to a man than to believe that he is a god, and there is nothing the gods dislike so much as the pride of men. My dear young friends! The success which we, who have just returned home, have achieved, has perhaps been overrated, ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... himself the poetic exaltation in which the old bard must be read, if we would really see the divinities, and grasp the spirit of their dealings with man. Speak not, then, of epical machinery in Homer, the word is misleading to the last degree, is indeed libellous, belieing the poet in the very soul ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... that Williams had ever divulged these letters; but it was held that the concealment of a libellous letter was a high misdemeanor. Williams was therefore adjudged to pay five thousand pounds to the King and three thousand to the Archbishop, to be imprisoned during pleasure, and to make a submission; Osbaldiston to pay a still heavier fine, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... United States, and which is of all species the most irritating and offensive. Lord Brougham observed, that no one who had lived so long as he had in Parliament had ever taken notice so seldom of any libellous matter published, or of any breach of privilege committed against him. He might also add, that no person had ever been more the object of the most indiscriminate, and he might say the most absurd and the most unfounded abuse. Nevertheless, in all such cases he ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... science, art, literature, commerce, law, and social forms were developed, but moral idealism reached a height that compares well even with that of modern times. The recovery in our time of the actual remains of Egypt and Babylon has corrected much of the libellous legend, which found its way into Greek and European literature, concerning those ancient civilisations. But, as culture advances, human development becomes so complex that we must refrain from attempting to pursue, even in summary, its many outgrowths. ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... dark front hall from which, to right and left respectively, opened parlor and sitting rooms. Emmeline ushered the visitor into the latter apartment. It was high studded, furnished in black walnut and haircloth, a pair of tall walnut cases filled with books against one wall, on the opposite wall a libellous oil portrait of the judge's wife, who died twenty years before, and a pair of steel engravings depicting "Sperm Whale Fishing in the Arctic"; No. 1, portraying "The Chase," No. 2, "the Capture." Beneath these stood a marble-topped table upon ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... in the revolutionary era, in France and England, deserve more adequate study than they have received. While Paine maintained freedom of discussion, Burke first proposed criminal prosecution for sentiments by no means libellous (such as Paine's Part First). While Paine was endeavoring to make the movement in France peaceful, Burke fomented the league of monarchs against France which maddened its people, and brought on the Reign of Terror. While Paine was endeavoring ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... fact that various gross, and I think I may say libellous and fictitious misrepresentations of me have been freely and unwarrantably circulated throughout Great Britain, the Colonies, and America, by certain "lower" sections of the pictorial press, which, with a zeal worthy of a better ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... Boer War," Dr. Conan Doyle has, on the whole, gained the admiration of the Afrikanders by his moderate language. But here and there, where he has been carried away by his English sympathies to use bitter and libellous language with respect to the Boers, that admiration has been changed into contempt. Dr. Conan Doyle attempts to defend the British Army by abusing the Boers. Abuse is not argument. To prove that Van der Merwe is a thief does not exonerate Brown from the crime of theft ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... and grief of Mrs. Dumbledon at that calamity was movingly shadowed forth as having weakened the parlour-boarder's mind. This production was received with great favour, and was twice performed with closed doors in the dining- room. But, it got wind, and was seized as libellous, and brought the unlucky poet into severe affliction. Some two years afterwards, all of a sudden one day, Dumbledon vanished. It was whispered that the Chief himself had taken him down to the Docks, and re-shipped ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... she was stopped at the doors. "Lef me card at 'ome," was her majestic reply. Before they had recovered she was in the aisle. Having regard to her appearance, I am of opinion that such conduct is libellous. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... uncalled-for generosity, and he had exclaimed, "Well, that does take the cake! I wish I'd known this before. Still, I don't think Miss Pigchalke will forget in a hurry what I said to her. I warned her that some of the things she said, or half-said, were libellous, and that it might end very badly for her if she said them again. She took the line that I, being a doctor, was privileged—but I assured her that I was nothing of the kind! Still, she's a venomous old woman, and if I were you I'd write her ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... by one word that was said. If the scholars within were told to say A, the blackguards without were bellowing B; or if the usher asked how many three times three made, the answer from the outside would be "ten," or else that "it depended upon circumstances." Every week some ribald and libellous paragraph would appear in the county newspaper, headed "Advertisement," in such terms as the following:—"We have just learned from the best authority, that the usher of a school not a hundred miles off from Hogs-Norton, has lately been detected in various acts of forgery, petty larceny, sedition, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... words, alluded to the Doctor's personal admiration for the lady. These, or the rumours created by them, had reached one of the funniest and lightest-handed of the contributors to 'Everybody's Business,' and he had concocted an amusing article,—which he had not intended to be at all libellous, which he had thought to be only funny. He had not appreciated, probably, the tragedy of the lady's position, or the sanctity of that of the gentleman. There was comedy in the idea of the Doctor having sent one ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... the tone of her daily conversation with friends of her own sex may be readily imagined, though it might not be pleasant to describe. Suffice it to say, that she sees no shame in addressing them, or in allowing herself to be addressed by a name which a Court of law has held to be libellous when applied to a burlesque actress. She is always at Hurlingham or the Ranelagh, and has seen pigeons killed without a qualm. She never misses a Sandown or a Kempton meeting; she dazzles the eyes of the throng at Ascot every year, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various

... disposed to administer it in such a way as to favor the crown. If the government promoted a prosecution, there was little hope for the defendant, except from the jury. The courts held that on criminal proceedings for publishing a libel it was for them to say whether the paper was libellous, and for the jury to decide only as to its publication by the accused. This was the occasion of the Charles James Fox Libel Act of 1792, and of many constitutional provisions to the same effect in this country, under which juries, even in libel cases, ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... course of the proceeding, that the whole of the libel had been read at length, as appears from p. 655 to p. 666.[10] So that Dr. Sacheverell had substantially the same benefit of anything which could be alleged in the extenuation or exculpation as if his libellous sermons had been entered verbatim upon the recorded impeachment. It was adjudged sufficient to state the crime generally in the impeachment. The libels were given in evidence; and it was not then thought of, that nothing should be given in evidence which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the Governor. That is he seated at the table, the soldiers showing him the libellous representations of the Croats found in Brown's portfolio. The latter expects to be ordered for instant execution; but Jones assumes an air of great dignity, ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle

... it is methodically spun and interwoven with every other part, in such a way as to make it one seamless tissue of libel from beginning to end. This I say in full consciousness of the interspersed occasional compliments, since these have only the effect of disguising the libellous intent of the whole from a simple-minded or careless reader, and since they subserve the purpose of furnishing to the writer a plausible and ready-made defence of his libel against a foreseen protest. Compliments to eke out a libel are merely insults in masquerade. The libellous ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... have musicians, too, among us. True, merry beggars, indeed, that, being within the reach of the lash for singing libellous songs at London, were fain to fly into one cover, and here they sing all our poets' ditties. They can sing anything, most tunably, sir, but psalms. What they may do hereafter, under a triple tree, is much expected; but they live very ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth



Words linked to "Libellous" :   libel, harmful



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