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Vindictiveness   /vɪndˈɪktɪvnəs/   Listen
Vindictiveness

noun
1.
A malevolent desire for revenge.  Synonym: vengefulness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Vindictiveness" Quotes from Famous Books



... carefully considered scheme. The pamphlet published in 1797, called "The History of the United States for 1796," and edited by a disreputable man named Callender, was the concentrated essence of Jacobinical fury and vindictiveness against Alexander Hamilton. It surpassed any attack yet made on him, while cleverly pretending to be an arraignment of the entire Federalist party; shrieking so loudly at times against Washington, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... Democritus "melancholy." The "Vanity" of which he speaks is not that universal emptiness alluded to by the surfeited author of Ecclesiastes, nor has it even the ordinary signification of personal conceit. No; he implies something more culpable, such immorality as covetousness, deception, vindictiveness, and hypocrisy. He approaches the Roman Satirists in the relentless hand with which he exposes vice. Some of his characters are monstrous, and almost grotesque in selfishness, as that of Becky Sharp, to whom he does not allow one good quality. Cunning ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... read.—"In acknowledgment of your services during the past seven years—and also because I have no wish to pass into the Unseen with the stain of vindictiveness on my Soul—I have obliterated from my mind the remembrance of my brother's ingratitude to our father, and have placed the sum of L500 to your credit in the Cleef branch of the Consolidated Bank. I trust it may assist you to commence an industrious career. For the rest, it may ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... sneering, mocking tongue, he would compliment Challoner upon the courteous manner in which he "addressed the gentlemen for'ard." As for the other two mates, they were equally as brutal as their captain, but lacked his savage, methodical vindictiveness. ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... death of Aurelius, his son, Commodus, hastened to Rome, and was received by both the Senate and army without opposition. His character was the opposite of that of his good father. In ferocity and vindictiveness he was almost unequalled, even among the Emperors of unhappy Rome. By means of informers, who were well paid, he rid himself of the best members of the Senate. His government became so corrupt, he himself so notorious in crime, that he was ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... rationally—that is to say, he does not speak out of his part—so long as he confines himself to denying that reason satisfies our vital hunger for immortality; but, furious at not being able to believe, he soon becomes a prey to the vindictiveness of the odium anti-theologicum, and exclaims with the Pharisees: "This people who knoweth not the law are cursed." There is much truth in these words of Soloviev: "I have a foreboding of the near approach of a time when Christians will gather together again in the Catacombs, because of the ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... Lord Canning grieves to say so to your Majesty—will be the violent rancour of a very large proportion of the English community against every native Indian of every class. There is a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness abroad, even amongst many who ought to set a better example, which it is impossible to contemplate without something like a feeling of shame for one's fellow-countrymen. Not one man in ten seems to think that the hanging ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... soon induced him to transfer his services to the Christinos. He raised a free corps, composed of Carlist deserters, smugglers, and desperadoes of every description, and made war upon his former friends with unbounded vindictiveness and considerable success. At the period now referred to, he had already, by various well-planned and boldly-achieved expeditions, accomplished chiefly in the nighttime, gained a high reputation, and the sobriquet, by which he was generally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the visage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... both extremities of Europe had risen in arms against Napoleon's tyranny, French youth had perished under the imperial eagles in appalling numbers, and throughout the districts of France which were at heart royalist there was a rising tide of bitter vindictiveness. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... the natural desires and affections which are common to the whole human race, published and circulated throughout Europe a volume which stamps his own infamy (as we shall have occasion to show in the course of this reply) in far more ineffaceable characters than that of those whom, in his vindictiveness, he gloatingly ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... retaliation. They were not, it must be confessed, treated formerly with the regard due to persons whose profession was in itself useful and respectable; and the wounds of vanity are not easily cured, nor the vindictiveness of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... Safety, had been a member of the aristocracy of "Pals." His treason had resulted from offended pride; he had been constantly set aside in favor of Trompe-la-Mort's superior intelligence and prodigious strength. Hence his persistent vindictiveness against Jacques Collin. Hence, also, certain compromises between Bibi-Lupin and his old companions, which the magistrates were beginning to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... with it, as you will immediately find. I remained in Badajoz a considerable time after the departure of the army, and was a more frequent visitor than ever at the house of the excellent dame who had so opportunely aided my escape. She was a kind-hearted soul with all her vindictiveness; and now that the French were no longer riding rough-shod over the city, spoke of those who were lurking about in concealment—of whom there were believed to be not a few, with sorrow and compassion. At length the wound I had received at Lieutenant Victor's hands was thoroughly ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... his seat in the House of Commons. To these qualities was added a good-humour which was seldom ruffled,—a peculiar fascination of manner and address,—the most delightful powers of conversation,—a heart perfectly free from vindictiveness, ostentation, and deceit,—a strong sense of justice,—a thorough detestation of tyranny and oppression,—and an almost feminine tenderness of feeling for the sufferings of others. Unfortunately, however, his great talents and delightful qualities in private life rendered his defects ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... offended society or defied its punishments; and the almost masonic mysteries and bond which distinguished the members provided them with a pledge of security which gave an added impetus to their already reckless vindictiveness against man and humanity. In a country, the population of which, few and far between, is spread over a wide, wild, and little-cultivated territory, the chances of punishment for crime, rarely realized, scarcely occasioned a thought among offenders; and invited, by the impunity ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... shrugged a shoulder and looked Bruce up and down—at his coat too tight across the chest, at his sleeves, too short for his length of arm, at his clumsy miner's shoes, as though to emphasize the gulf which lay between Bruce's condition and his own. Then with his eyes bright with vindictiveness and his hateful smile of confidence upon his lips, he stood in his setting of affluence and power waiting for Bruce to go, that he might ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... trickery that, as he believed, had been attempted against him, made no pretense of suavity in this emergency. In his vindictiveness, he spoke with a candor unusual to ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... will throw off vigorously the malaria which must arise from deserted fields of battle. It must be our daily supplication to feel the religious purport of the truths for which we fight. We must disavow vindictiveness, and purge our hearts of it. There must be no vulgar passion illustrated by our glorious arms. And when we say that we are fighting for mankind, to release souls and bodies from bondage, we must understand, without affectation, that we are fighting for the slaveholder himself, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... stopped and turned to him inquiringly. He averted his eyes and went away without remark. But the affair was done for. There was no hatchet, he was frustrated entirely. He felt crushed, nay, humiliated, but a feeling of brutal vindictiveness at his disappointment soon ensued, and he continued down the stairs, smiling maliciously to himself. He stood hesitating at the gate. To walk about the streets or to go back were equally repugnant. "To think that I have ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... knowledge of Indian vindictiveness, however, to adopt the means recommended; but seizing the captive by one arm, while Guert held the other, we ran him up to the abbatis that covered the gate of the "garrison," with very little ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... situation and promoted to the extent of her power the speedy sending of aid and reinforcement from England, thoroughly endorsed the wise and clement policy of the Governor-General. Replying to a letter of Lord Canning's which deplored "the rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness abroad," Her Majesty wrote these words, which we will give ourselves the pleasure ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... at Lawler, his face expressionless except for the slight smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth—which might have been indicative of vindictiveness or triumph. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... tending to a predominance which determines all currents toward itself, and makes the whole life its tributary. And the intensest form of hatred is that rooted in fear, which compels to silence and drives vehemence into a constructive vindictiveness, an imaginary annihilation of the deserted object, something like the hidden rites of vengeance with which the persecuted have made a dark vent for their rage, and soothed their suffering into dumbness. Such ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... lighting, problems of piping and drainage. Contractors and sub-contractors beset him; draughtsmen fairly buried him under tons of drawings and blue-prints. All of which was as nothing compared to the labour squabbles and endless petty entanglements which arose from personal jealousy or political vindictiveness, peppered with dark hints of peonage, threats, demands, and whispers ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... Churches, or voluntarily synodical were forbidden and punishable by penal law, this argument remained irrefragable. The imposition of such trifles under such fearful threats was the very bitterness of spiritual pride and vindictiveness;—after the law passed by which things became as they now are, it was a mere question of expediency for the National Church to determine in relation to its own comparative interests. If the Church chose unluckily, the injury has been ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... rifle" gasped the wounded man, now plainly dying, and his ghastly face more awful by the look of terrible vindictiveness it now wore "shoot ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... of Greece for two years and more. He foresaw clearly enough that its independence would be a constant annoyance to the Austrian government,—and so it has proved down to the present time. Metternich imagined intrigues and revolution in every direction; and besides, there can be no doubt of the vindictiveness of his nature. The cunning of the fox is not often combined with the ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... turning to the foreman coldly. "I forgot that you told me of it before. But that makes little difference. I have no doubt Anton knows where they are. Now," he went on, turning again to Tresler, "I hold no brief for Anton in particular. If I thought for a moment it were so," a sudden storm of vindictiveness leapt into his tone, "I would hound him down, and be near while they hung him slowly to death on one of our own trees. I would willingly stand by while he was put to the worst possible tortures, and revel in his cries of agony. Don't mistake me. If you could prove Anton to be the rascal, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... in a dulled voice that sounded strange and unfamiliar, telling all that the engineer had said of the assault. He had one rage of vindictiveness, when the three men from Denver were identified as the ones who had attacked the engineer, and regretted that they were alive to meet the charge against them. He but vaguely understood the technical phraseology of Doctor Mills when he stated that Bells Park died from the shock of the blows and kicks ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... be long remembered, that which was presented in the Green-street court-house on that Thursday morning. The dogged vindictiveness of the crown officials, in persisting with this second prosecution, seemed to have excited intense feeling throughout the city, and long before the proceedings opened the court was crowded in every part with anxious ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... was marred by the ambitious vindictiveness of his wife, Kiachi, who murdered the principal minister and imprisoned the widow of the Emperor Vouti. The only good service she rendered the state was to discern in one of the palace eunuchs named Mongkwan a great general, and his achievements ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... suffrage. Political prejudices and the blind zeal and opportunism of those who have discovered some "sure cure," for the Negro's ills have aided much in the work of discrediting Negro suffrage. Some have ignored the facts to such an extent as to assert that Negro suffrage was the result of vindictiveness on the part of the Northerners, who wished both to humiliate the South and to perpetuate the power of the Republican Party. The trouble with this assertion is that it imputes too much to Northern sagacity. What the ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love

... which the man's acquaintances would purposely bring up, knowing his evil humor. But Felix, despite his vigorous and sanguine constitution, was by no means quick to anger, nor immediately responsive to injury; on the contrary he was exceedingly patient in his vindictiveness. For the longest time he would ruminate upon his vengeance, most astutely, and he would carry it out at the moment when he believed himself perfectly secure. Oh! His ruses were not of very great finesse and required very ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... suspected his existence could he not readily find means to effect his destruction forever? Who could tell what mysterious allies this man might have? Cigole had tracked and followed him with the patience and vindictiveness of a blood-hound. There might be many such as he. He saw plainly that if he ever escaped his first and highest necessity would be to work in secret, to conceal his true name, and to let it be supposed that Louis Brandon had been drowned, while another ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... "reprisals by spiteful Boers, who, they said, will be more vindictive if Natives dared to appeal to the King, over the heads of the Boer Government." But the meeting would not be bluffed. One speaker especially remarked that the Act embodied the very worst form of vindictiveness, and the sooner the whole world understood the Union Parliament's attitude towards the blacks the better it would be. The meeting agreed that no slavery could be worse than to be outlawed in your own homes, and the motion was carried against ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... concentrated vindictiveness in her words that even Bernard, who had looked upon many bitter things, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... utterance her father's lips had been guilty of flashed through her, filling her with mastering vindictiveness, now that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was assailed by sudden misgiving. Was it all a ruse? She did not trust Major Hunt-Goring. She believed him fully capable of vindictiveness, and yet, so subtle had been his strategy, he had not seemed vindictive. He had repeated the story idly in the first place, and, finding she took it seriously, he had advised her to hold her peace. No, she would do him justice at least. She was ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... of all the virtues to cultivate is the forgiving spirit. Revenge seems to be natural with man; it is human to want to get even with an enemy. It has even been popular to boast of vindictiveness; it was once inscribed on a man's monument that he had repaid both friends and enemies more than he had received. This was not the spirit of Christ. He taught forgiveness and in that incomparable prayer ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... for lost time in close pursuit of the main chance. Others can forgive anything sooner than their own exploded ideal, and the ghost of their dead enthusiasm haunts them with an embittering presence. Pattison drops a good many expressions about his Anglo-Catholic days that betray something like vindictiveness—which is certainly not philosophical, whatever else it was. But his intellectual faculties were too strong to let him feed on the poison of a reactionary antipathy to a deserted faith. Puseyism, as he ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley

... passionate speech, your speech of fire. That was what the principle of vindictiveness said when it was you, when it mastered you, and called itself by your name. Ay, it has many names, and many lips; but it is always one. That was what it said an hour ago; and now it is shrunk away you know not where, you cannot rally it, and you are there confounded, self-abandoned, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... Washington, and Nannie Waugh opened a school there, in 1861, that became as large as that which had preceded it in the same place. This school was broken up in 1862 by the destruction of the building at the hands of the incendiaries, who, even at that time, were inspired with all their accustomed vindictiveness toward the Colored people. But this was their last heathenish jubilee, and from the ashes of many burnings imperishable liberty ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... 1,000 soldiers, less than a year before, they had taken part in the slaughter of Tecumseh's half-armed band of 600 men and women on the banks of the Tippecanoe River, during that chief's absence with many of his warriors, and had laid waste his village. With a perhaps pardonable spirit of vindictiveness, such as is shared by both redskin and white man, the human-being in him thirsted ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... chill abominations into the bath-tub, pleased by the vindictiveness of that desolate flapping sound; and in the midst his wife serenely trotted in, observed serenely, "Why Georgie dear, what are you doing? Are you going to wash out the towels? Why, you needn't wash out the towels. Oh, Georgie, you ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... troubles increased. Frank's dislike had grown to an impish vindictiveness, and if the old man Meeker had any knowledge of his son's deviltries, he gave no sign. Mrs. Meeker, however, openly reproved ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... repress all excess in others, and commit none themselves. They will commit abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done. The reason for the excesses of the old governing classes lies in the vices and passions of human nature—cupidity, lust, vindictiveness, ambition, and vanity. These vices are confined to no nation, class, or age. They appear in the church, the academy, the workshop, and the hovel, as well as in the army or the palace. They have appeared in autocracies, ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... pleasanter sentiments; especially when we notice the return compliment (in the same Quarterly, but twenty-seven years later than Croker's attack) of the statesman's generous tribute. "Macaulay," says Gladstone, "was singularly free of vices ... one point only we reserve, a certain tinge of occasional vindictiveness. Was he envious? Never. Was he servile? No. Was he insolent? No.... Was he idle? The question is ridiculous. Was he false? No; but true as steel and transparent as crystal. Was he vain? We hold that he was not. At every point in the ugly list ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... he possessed no virtues. He was neither lustful nor intemperate; but his professed eulogists admitted his enormous avarice, while the world has agreed that such an amount of stealth and ferocity, of patient vindictiveness and universal blood-thirstiness, were never found in a savage beast of the forest, and but rarely ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... greeted with dismay in the United States. It outraged the Mexicans, and excited the vindictiveness of the Liberal party. At the time such men as General Riva-Palacio and General Diaz were still in the field, and some of Mexico's most illustrious patriots were thus placed under a ban ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... family had built a pretentious new home in the center of Kalamba on a lot which Francisco Mercado had inherited from his brother. The house was destroyed before its usefulness had ceased, by the vindictiveness of those who hated the man-child that was born there. And later on the gratitude of a free people held the same spot sacred because there began that life consecrated to the Philippines and finally given for it, after preparing the way for the union of the various disunited Chinese mestizos, ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... enemies, nevertheless O'Reilly felt a sudden impulse to make himself known to the Spaniard and to appeal directly for news of Rosa's fate. But Don Mario, he remembered in time, had a reputation for vindictiveness, so he smothered the desire. One other encounter O'Reilly had reason ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... calm reply. "I'd like to wring old Smeardon's neck too!" but the broad good humour of the rosy face, the twinkling eyes, belied these truculent words. In spite of infinite powers of mischief, there was not an ounce of vindictiveness in Carnaby de Tracy, though there might be other qualities ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... that of prophetic Judaism. Observed as mediaeval Jews observed it, Purim was a thoroughly innocent festivity. The unpleasant taste left by the closing scenes of the book was washed off by the geniality of temper which saw the humours of Haman's fall and never for a moment rested in a feeling of vindictiveness. But the whole book breathes so nationalistic a spirit, so uncompromising a belief that the enemy of Israel must be the enemy of God, that it has become difficult for modern Judaism to retain any affection for it. It makes its appeal to the persecuted, no doubt: it conveys ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams

... question put itself in his mind, halted before a shop-window full of soft-hued silk fabrics, to muse upon an answer. The delicate tints and surfaces of what was before his eyes seemed somehow to connect themselves with the subject. Plowden himself was delicately-tinted and refined of texture. Vindictiveness was too plain and coarse an emotion to sway such a complicated and polished organism. He reasoned it out, as he stood with lack-lustre gaze before the plate-glass front, aloof among a throng of eager and talkative women who pressed around ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... son, who should have helped him in the administration of his new estate, and who was but a listless, useless member of the little confederacy, a living protest against all the schemes of the good man's past life. The catastrophe in the City again brought father and son together somewhat, and the vindictiveness of both was roused by Barnes's treason. Time was when the Colonel himself would have viewed his kinsman more charitably, but fate and circumstance had angered that originally friendly and gentle disposition; hate and suspicion ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... bravado in accompanying him when he asked me. I might have known I wasn't a match for him. But I'll be even with him yet," he said, his nervous hands fumbling at his collar, "I'll be even with him yet; I'll bide my time," and never was vindictiveness ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West

... at my not having told him how I mean to get away, notwithstanding his stupidity about it," I said to myself, as we passed him. But no, there was no look of vindictiveness, of malice, of even annoyance on his dark face. Nay, more, I could almost have fancied there was the shadow of a smile as Reggie tugged at his Tam o' Shanter by way of a final salute. That landlord was really one of the most incomprehensible ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... he was accustomed, when the world did not seem just and right to him, to show it plainly—an attitude not conducive to popularity; and it often made him seem surly when as a matter of fact he was only puzzled or depressed. He could not feign an amiability to hide hatred and vindictiveness as did the Tolmans, and it was a constant shock to him to note how the hypocrisy of Tom and his brothers deluded their friends into a deep-seated belief in their integrity. Even after such depravity as chasing the Allan girl's pet cat, stealing a neighbor's ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... as low-minded people are apt to call "smart"—for the higher human feelings. He was one of those ugly customers who crush, without a twinge of compunction, whatever comes in their way. The slightest opposition made him furious, and his vindictiveness was insatiable. This dexterous and pushing Fonseca held one after another the bishoprics of Badajoz, Cordova, Palencia, and Conde, the archbishopric of Rosano in Italy, together with the bishopric of Burgos, and he was also principal chaplain to Isabella and afterwards to Ferdinand. As Sir Arthur ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... no vindictiveness, but said in effect, 'You have done, sir, much damage to our arms, and without stretching a point I might have you hanged for a spy. I shall, however, treat you leniently, and send you to France into safe keeping, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... administration by Secretary van Tienhoven in his Answer, the document immediately following this. Stuyvesant, whatever his faults of temper— love of autocratic power, lack of sympathy with the life of a community already far from austere, vindictiveness even— conceived of his province as a political community, not solely as a commercial possession, and honestly tried to govern it with an eye to its own best interest. The directors, moreover, could truthfully say that many of their narrowest actions were prescribed by their instructions from ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... speaker, the young man recognized Pat M'Cabe, whom he also associated with his evil fortunes, and toward whom he now felt a strong vindictiveness, the sudden and unreasoning anger of intoxication. In reply, therefore, he threw the contents of his glass into Pat's face, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... There was no vindictiveness now in Adah's face, nothing save a calm, gentle expression such as it was used to wear, and the soft brown eyes drooped mournfully beneath the heavy lashes as she told ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... my timidity, we've gotten along very well. When I go away to school he always slips me a bill or two for spending money. I could feel that he resented my buying a car, yet he pays for my gasoline without complaint. His bias, prejudice, and vindictiveness doesn't apply to the members of his immediate family, but it does apply intensely and vigorously to others. It's this peculiarity that might wreck the works at ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... too!" said Mrs. Peck, with the same subdued fierceness as when she first took Mr. Dempster up about the Melvilles. "Member of Parliament! Ungrateful dog!" she said, under her breath; but her expression of vindictiveness was not altogether lost on Mr. Dempster. "Oh yes! I know him; or at least I know all about him. Nobody did know anything of him till he came into the property, you know; but I really know more about him than most folks. There are some people that would give ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... you!' said the Major, straining with vindictiveness, and swelling every already swollen vein in his head. 'Would you give Joey B. the go-by, Ma'am? Not yet, Ma'am, not yet! Damme, not yet, Sir. Joe is awake, Ma'am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J. B. knows a move or two, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... caught my eye, and held me as in a vice, not this time by the force of its beauty, but by the power of fascinated terror. The beauty was still there, indeed, but the agony, the blind passion, and the awful vindictiveness displayed upon those quivering features, and in the tortured look of the upturned eyes, were such as surpass ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... spent. Profoundly simple in his modes of feeling, he was yet dominated by the habits of slyness and trickery which seem to be inherent in the truly savage breast. He had the savage's love of secrecy and instinctive suspicion of his fellow-creatures, the savage's swift passions and vindictiveness, the savage's innate difficulty in comprehending the laws of honour and morality. It is possible to believe that, with good training from his infancy, Hugo Luttrell might have developed into a trustworthy and straightforward man, shrinking from dishonesty ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... THE INDIANS. In which are enumerated the most remarkable incidents of the early Indian Wars, which abound in dangers, vindictiveness, endurance, heroism, gratitude, treachery, stoicism, and revenge, and in which there is much to fascinate the reader, and store the inquiring mind. By JOHN FROST, LL. D. With more than ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... a confused, broken, and fragmentary, manner; fourthly, a dread of vulgar ridicule, as distinct from a high sense of honour, or a mistaken sense of duty; and lastly, and immediately, consequent on this, a spirit of selfish vindictiveness. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... naturally gained him many enemies; nor was his character one to conciliate his less fortunate rivals. He was choleric and sensitive, prompt to resent an insult, though quite free from malice or vindictiveness. He had not yet reached that high sense of his position when he could afford to treat the envious crowd with contempt. [24] He records in the satires which he now wrote, painting with inimitable humour each incident that ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... of a once powerful intellect. Strajevsky, Miskievitch, and the others were enduring a life of captivity and suffering for offences which, in any country but Russia, would scarcely have subjected them to a fine, and yet they never in my hearing showed vindictiveness towards those who had sent them into exile. And it is a significant fact that, although the higher officials of State were sometimes execrated, I never once heard a member of the Imperial family spoken of with the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... Their great effort had failed. Bravery had availed nothing. Their frightful losses had been suffered in vain. The generals blamed one another. Floyd favored the surrender of the army, but fancying that the Union troops hated him with special vindictiveness, and that he would not be safe as a prisoner, decided ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sovereign that for both the quarrel and its result Tom Elliot had been alone answerable. Probability leads us to suspect that Charles had his own reasons for the readiness with which he accepted the governor's arguments. Among all the young king's heavy faults, vindictiveness was not, at that time, in the faintest degree traceable; but, besides that, he had learned, in the intercourse of the last day or two before the fatal encounter, too much of Elliot's nefarious designs upon Marguerite de St. Martin to suppose that he would with decency punish ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... behind the stout form of Mr. Small. It was Klein. The two men's eyes met. It was only for a fraction of a moment, but it was long enough. In the concentrated gaze of the Alsatian there was neither hatred nor vindictiveness, but only determination. The two wills were in conflict, and this time Sir Matthew knew he had met his master. In that instant he made ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... weakness, his tottering and trembling, and other features of his latest behaviour. If I was right, then I had reason to be thankful to Almighty God for this unparalleled and most happy dispensation, for now I should have nothing to fear from the old rogue's vindictiveness and horrid greed. Supposing him to be no more than a hundred, the infirmities of five score years would stand between him and me, and protect me as effectually as his death. I had nothing to dread from ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... reign in his stead, the way of all success and blessing. It, however, contains what has been designated as "the greatest blot on David's character"-His charge to Solomon to put to death Shimei and Joab. Such vindictiveness does not seem to comport with his spirit manifested in the sparing of Saul in the days of his jealous hatred and in his kindness to the house of Saul (2 Sam. Ch. 9). Nor does it comport with this patience formerly shown ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... the monstrous crime which was contemplated; and when we remember that Nicholas was by nature the very incarnation of unrestrained authority, the punishment seems comparatively light. There was no vindictiveness, no wholesale slaughter. Five leaders were deliberately and ignominiously hanged, and hundreds of their misguided followers and sympathizers went into perpetual exile in Siberia—there to expiate ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... native Indian cunning with the strategy and finesse needed to make a great general, and his ability as a leader was conceded alike by red and white man. A dangerous man at best, the wrongs his people had suffered roused all his Indian cruelty, vindictiveness, ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... shown such an amount of desperate vindictiveness, in the way of kicking, hitting, biting, scratching, and pinching, when the savages were securing him, that they gave him five or six extra coils of the rope of cocoanut fiber with which they bound him. Consequently he could not move any of his limbs; and now he lay on his side between ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... propagandists of the Cross (to which I object as I object to all gibbets) becomes deep indeed. Forgiveness, absolution, atonement, are figments: punishment is only a pretence of cancelling one crime by another; and you can no more have forgiveness without vindictiveness than you can have a cure without a disease. You will never get a high morality from people who conceive that their misdeeds are revocable and pardonable, or in a society where absolution and expiation are officially ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... accomplices: this great fault, as he said himself, had been repaired in part; neither of his accomplices could betray him without betraying themselves; nor could any advantage be derived from their denouncing the notary and themselves to public vindictiveness. He was therefore on this head ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... life and surroundings, but of the character and instincts and manner of thought of his countrymen. And yet it is from his lips that flows the delightful stream of naive confession and mordant sarcasm that never seems either ill-natured or artificial, that lashes without vindictiveness, and excoriates without malice. In strict ratio, however, to the verisimilitude of the performance, must be esteemed the talents of the non-Oriental writer, who was responsible for so lifelike a creation. No man could, have written or could now write such ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... exposed herself to stripes, and her seducer to the penalty of a sheep.—Levit. xix: 20 to 22, inclusive. Again, there was a law which guarded his people, whether free or bond, from personal violence. If in vindictiveness, a man with an unlawful weapon, maimed his own slave by knocking out his eye, or his tooth, the slave was to be free for this wanton act of personal violence, as a penalty upon the master.—Exod. xxi: 26 to 27, inclusive. But for the same offense, committed ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... impulse of a moment more to be relied upon than the prudent forethought of a month. He had to combat, in the newly-acquired territory, the cunning of tribes whose natural ferocity was sharpened into vindictiveness by the encroachments upon their soil of a new and strange people; and every association with the intruders, who were for the most part men of little reputation and less principle, had developed in the Indians only the fiercest ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... early boyhood. He was a rough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard-headed simplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities—"business" was the word, with him. He had all a sailor's vindictiveness against the quips and quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed that the first and last aim and object of the law and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... "it can not be denied that the writers of the Old Testament breathed a spirit of vindictiveness, and imprecated curses on their enemies, utterly at variance with the precepts of the gospel, which command us to bless and curse not; and even in their solemn devotions uttered sentiments unfit for the mouth of any Christian; nor that their views of the character of God were stern ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... man sank back in his chair. The gray immobility of his face had broken up. The features worked curiously, forming themselves for a second to a pattern of mean vindictiveness. His right hand still numbed by the blow, he took his handkerchief with the left and flicked from his neck, close to the ear, ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... surrender of principle, our task must be undertaken wisely and without heedless vindictiveness. Our mission is not punishment, but the rectification of wrong. If in lifting burdens from the daily life of our people we reduce inordinate and unequal advantages too long enjoyed, this is but a necessary incident of our return to right ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... youth he had lived amidst slaughter. Life and death were cheap things to him. He struck savagely at all who stood up to him, and when they hit back, he struck more savagely still. His giant shadow lay black across the Empire from Britain to Syria. A strange subtle vindictiveness became also apparent in him. Omnipotence ripened every fault and swelled it into crime. In the old days he had been rebuked for his roughness. Now a sullen dangerous anger arose against those who had rebuked him. He sat by the hour with his craggy chin between his hands, and his ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... show a desire to describe what they had seen or suffered. The lawyers who took the depositions were surprised to find how little vindictiveness, or indeed passion they showed, and how generally free from emotional excitement their narratives were. Many hesitated to speak lest what they said, if it should ever be published, might involve their friends or relatives at home ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Journal," poured out upon me an incredible deliverance of vituperation and venom for scattering my heresies outside of my Congressional district, declaring that I had "the temper of a hedgehog, the adhesiveness of a barnacle, the vanity of a peacock, the vindictiveness of a Corsican, the hypocrisy of Aminadab Sleek and the duplicity of the devil." I rather enjoyed these paroxysms of malignity, which broke out all over the State among the Governor's conservative satellites, since my only offense ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... present system, as practised at Sing Sing, the state prison of New York, as tending to reform the offenders; it punishes them severely, but that is all. Where corporal punishment is resorted to, there always will be feelings of vindictiveness; and all the bad passions must be allowed to repose before the better ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... maid's vindictiveness, which success seemed to have somewhat mollified, was aggravated by this disappointment of her hopes. Lisbeth went, crying with rage, to Madame Marneffe; for she was homeless, the Marshal having agreed that his lease was at any time to terminate with his life. Crevel, to console ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... even really suffering a little persecution, if it be possible to find such an opportunity." In this extract is at once seen the animus by which Pitt was actuated in this contest; and the light in which the house and the public were disposed to look upon the object of his unseeming vindictiveness. A generous conqueror never persecutes, or exults ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... crusading leaders of Abolitionism at the East.[84] Equally marked was the difference between him and them in the matters of temper and of the attitude taken towards opponents. The absence of any sense of personal hostility towards those who assailed him with unsparing vindictiveness was a trait often illustrated in his after life, and which was now noted with surprise, for it was rare in the excited politics of those days. In this especial campaign both contestants honestly intended to refrain from ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... over the lofty solitudes of Salvator Rosa and the brigand—I have experienced the frivolity of France, the dissipation of Florence, the profligacy of the Venetian, the degeneracy of the Roman, and vindictiveness of the Neapolitan, the insincerity of the impoverished noble, and the truth of honest poverty—I have wondered in the gaudy sanctuary of the Papist, teeming with devotees, or pondered amid the nobler simplicity of the Heathen's Temple in ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.

... Jones felt no vindictiveness towards Voles now; disgust, such as he might have felt towards a vulture or a cormorant, ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... Silent, Prince of Orange; and Macaulay's hero was William III, King of England, Prince of Orange. Motley will bear being ranked as a great historian. He hates Philip II, as I suppose good folks ought who despise egotism, intolerance, vindictiveness, and horrible cruelty. He lauds William the Silent as soldier and statesman, Prince Maurice as a soldier, and John of Barneveld as statesman. Motley marches across old battle-fields like a soldier clad in steel. He gives portraits of Queen Elizabeth, of Leicester, of Granvelle, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... she might have doubted his meaning, deceived by the lazy drawl in his soft voice, the glimmer of grim humor in his eyes. But she did know him; she comprehended fully the slumbering tiger within, the lurking spirit of vindictiveness of his real nature, and that knowledge overcame her, left her weak and trembling like a frightened child. For an instant she could not articulate, staring at him with ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... plunged at the congress of balls with a vindictiveness which was infinitely contenting to me. He scored a failure—and began to undress. I knew it would come to that, for he was in the condition now that Mr. Dooley will be in at about that stage of the contest on Friday afternoon. A clothes-rack will be provided for Mr. Dooley to hang his things on as ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... was in the hands of a mob. Charles, still sought for and still defending himself, had killed four policemen, and everybody knew that he intended to die fighting. Unable to vent its vindictiveness and bloodthirsty vengeance upon Charles, the mob turned its attention to other colored men who happened to get in the path of its fury. Even colored women, as has happened many times before, were assaulted and beaten and killed by the brutal hoodlums ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... oppressing the tenantry under him. The class most hateful to the people are those low wretches who spring up from nothing into wealth, accumulated by dishonesty and rapacity. They are proud, overbearing, and jealous, even to vindictiveness, of the least want of respect. It is to such upstarts that the poorer classes are externally most civil; but it is also such persons whom they most hate and abhor. They flatter them to their faces, 'tis true even to nausea; but they seldom spare them in ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... repeated about Armstrong much the same story as had convicted Norris: Armstrong had led a reprehensible career, and the deliberate onslaught with a weapon after the fight could hardly have been made by an intoxicated man. It was vindictiveness from being worsted by the unhappy Metzgar in a fair fight. In vain was it cited that he and Metzgar had been friends and that the accuser was a personal ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... platform, there was an inspiration in his presence and in his speeches, and for his associates and friends there was a generous companionship which none could resist—which none wished to resist. In his private life there was no malice in his intercourse with men; in the strife of war there was no vindictiveness in spirit nor in ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... well-deserved reputation of being the cleanest fighters in the world. There have never been finer examples of this than during the present war. But in justice to ourselves and to the French during the Napoleonic wars, I think it was grossly impolitic to engender vindictiveness by unjustifiable acrimony. Up to the time that Nelson left the Mediterranean for England, except for the brilliant successes of the Nile and the equally brilliant capture of the balance of the French Mediterranean fleet, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... person, who was moving him to this worthy measure, possibly sought to gratify a view of his own, and that while endeavouring to save, to outward appearance, a virtue in danger, he was, in reality, only helping another to a wife, at the hazard of exposing himself to the vindictiveness of a violent temper, and a rich neighbour, who had power as well as will to resent; for such was his apprehension, entirely groundless as it was, though not improbable, as it ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... off eighteen knots for a gait, or you can use my head for a rivet nut!" He yanked the cord and the freighter howled angrily. The other replied with bellowing roar—autocratic, domineering. With irony, with vindictiveness, Captain Wass pitched his voice in sarcastic nasal tone and recited another rule—thereby trying to express his irate opinion of the lawlessness ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... him odd. La Tour d'Azyr was Chabrillane's cousin and closest friend. Surely he should have been among the first to-day. The fact was that La Tour d'Azyr was too deeply overcome by amazement and grief at the utterly unexpected event. Also his vindictiveness was held curiously in leash. Perhaps he, too, remembered the part played by Chabrillane in the affair at Gavrillac, and saw in this obscure Andre-Louis Moreau, who had so persistently persecuted him ever since, an ordained avenger. The repugnance he felt to come ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... now over a week ago, that he had been allowed to sit up in bed, and more or less distinct thought had come back to him, he had been a prey to hideous anxiety and grief. Halcyone was gone from him—had been snatched away by Fate, who, with relentless vindictiveness, had filled his cup. For the first letters that he opened, marked from his lawyers so urgently that they had been given to him before the bandages were off his head, contained the gravest news of his financial position. ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... half-way up the hill, and as they flew hastily and in close company they scolded each other in unmannerly terms. The language must have been vexing, for as they sped along far above the passionless sea one jostled the other. It was just the sort of action to provoke hungry, peevish birds to vindictiveness. That which had been jostled turned on the offender with angry shrieking, and instantly a clamorous fight was in progress. Claws became interlocked, and they fell each with distended crest, like a gilt-edged ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is crime committed on such trifling grounds, or with such general impunity, though when it is punished the punishment is atrocious. Among themselves the Afghans are quarrelsome, intriguing and distrustful; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... making cordage and clothing, preparing food. On the march it was she who bore the burden; for, in the words of Champlain, "their women were their mules." The natural effect followed. In every Huron town were shrivelled hags, hideous and despised, who, in vindictiveness, ferocity, and cruelty, far ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... Agnes, Queen of Hungary, "a woman unacquainted with the milder feelings of piety, but addicted to a certain sort of devotional habits and practices by no means inconsistent with implacable vindictiveness," fearfully avenged his murder. This woman appears to have been seized with a perfectly demoniacal mania for blood and revenge. Aided by those in authority, who feared lest a widespread conspiracy had been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... girl sobbing that again and again I stopped in the tangled path to listen. There were green bladder-mosses which swam about the surface of the still pools like gigantic frog-broods. There were on the ridges warrior trees burning in the vindictiveness of a long forgotten cause—a blaze of crimson scimitar thorns from root to topmost twig; and down again in the cool hollows were lady-bushes making twilight of the green gloom with their cloudy ivory blossoms and filling the shadows with such a heavy scent that head and heart ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... there's any spot on the face of the earth worse than this, I'd like to know where it is. The idea of expecting people to live in such a country! It looks for all the world like magnified pictures of the moon's surface. And," she added with a dreary kind of vindictiveness, "it's here, and I'm here. I can't get away from it—that's the dickens of it." Then, because Helen May had a certain impish sense of humor, she sat down and laughed at the incongruity of it all. "Me—me, here in the desert trying to raise ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... conduct of Julia in jilting him after she had given him every assurance of affection. And then to be jilted for a Dutchman, you know! In this last regard his feeling was not all affectation. In his soul, cupidity, vanity, and vindictiveness divided the narrow territory between them. He inwardly swore that he'd get satisfaction somehow. Debts which were due to his pride should be ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... I'll cry now! and whichever one of us is seated nearer the switch will turn on all the lights. I think," Miss Coates added with, in her voice, a thrill of triumph not altogether free from a touch of vindictiveness, "when my uncle sees her caught in the middle of the room, disguised as his ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis

... from calling her by harsh names, speaking to himself as he walked through the streets of Barchester. When he said his prayers, he could not bring himself to forgive her. When he strove to do so, his mind recoiled from the attempt, and in lieu of forgiving ran off in a double spirit of vindictiveness, dwelling on the extent of the injury he had received. And so his prayers dropped ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... large and an intense disappointment to Cecil Rhodes. He had all along nourished a bitter animosity against Kruger, and in regard to him, as well as Messrs. Schreiner, Merriman, Hofmeyr, Sauer and other one-time colleagues, he carried his vindictiveness to an extent so terrible that more than once it led him into some of the most ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... jealousy is not likely to have been the cause of so dreadful a murder, you cannot revert to the robbery theory without admitting a motive much weaker in all its utter needlessness and vagueness. The prominent feature of the murder, indeed the only feature, is its ruthless, unrelenting, determined vindictiveness. Every blow seemed to say, 'You shall die you shall ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... them, is merely a bid for a slice of the cake. I’m disappointed in my grandfather. He was a splendid old man, though God knows he had his queer ways. I’ll bet a thousand dollars, if I have so much money in the world, that this scheme is yours, Pickering, and not his. It smacks of your ancient vindictiveness, and John Marshall Glenarm had none of that in his blood. That stipulation about my residence out there is fantastic. I don’t have to be a lawyer to know that; and no doubt I could break the will; I’ve a good ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... to the days of Nehemiah Adams, Congregational preacher of Boston, who says, "It is to be feared the forty two children that mocked Elisha are now in hell." 4 There is an unmerciful animus in them, a vindictiveness of thought and feeling, far oh, how far! removed from the meek ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... cannot explain or excuse the coarse brutality and savage joy with which he sent his victims to the scaffold. It is impossible not to feel that many of these executions were dictated, not by motives of policy or loyalty, but by vindictiveness. ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... must see that I am in the agonies of childbirth," she said, sitting up and gazing at him with a terrible, hysterical vindictiveness that distorted her whole face. "I curse him before he is ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... it was such as to send a warm glow into his cheeks; the cold bite of the air made his blood sparkle like new wine and urged him on to fresh efforts. It affected Mr. Bradby in another and a worse way. He became sullen, and there was a certain marked vindictiveness in the way he spurred his lame horse on to exertions that were plainly too much for it. Once or twice Abel was on the point of remonstrating with him, but for the sake of peace he held his tongue and ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... Bible was torn into shreds of texts, and—the letter so re-patched as to destroy the pattern wrought by its great principles of mercy and love. The grand words—righteousness, grace, law, were clashed, and wildly rung, like sweet bells jangled out of tune, and the court of souls resembled the vindictiveness of Miltonic demons rather than the seat of those who claimed to represent Him who said: 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' When the vote was taken the door was shut ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... repeated Calhoun Bennett, with quiet vindictiveness, "lawlessness, disrespect foh law and order, mob rule. Since this strangler business, no man can predict what the lawless ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... the rubbish of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning of her own intimacy with the singer. They certainly must have formed an extraordinary friendship, for Nora's subsequent vindictiveness could not possibly have arisen out of the ruins of an indifferent acquaintance. Nora could not be moved from the belief that Courtlandt had abducted her; but Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did not impress her as a man ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... a vice in a mind like his can be protected by no madness of the passions or vindictiveness of misanthropy from the healing influence of time; and if the leisure of his tedious incarcerations gave us four or five books in the worst of services, they gave us also those extensive studies of history and its ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... this book because it has always suited his purposes. It has suited his purposes because, according to his abruptly varying moods, he has never been at a loss to discover therein exactly what he wanted—authority for every grade of emotional conduct, from savage vindictiveness to the most abject self-abasement. One thing he would never have found, had he cared to look for it—an incitement to live the life of reason, to strive after intellectual honesty and self-respect, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... Jewish movement. He and I differed on the subject of Bolshevism. I have never seen any signs either of constructive ability or sound principles in any Bolshevik leader; nothing but enterprise, driving-power, vindictiveness, Hebrew cunning, and a criminal ruthlessness. They're not statesmen. And Bolshevism, as so far manifested, isn't a statesmanlike system; it holds the reins too tight. I don't condemn it for the cruelties committed in its name, because whenever Russians get excited ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... part of the light-headedness, thought Maggard, but instinctively he continued to simulate unconsciousness. This man had been his steadfast and self-forgetful friend. So the wounded man fought back the sense of clear and persistent reality, which had altered kindly features into a gargoyle of vindictiveness, and lay unmoving until Rowlett ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... pure and simple. If they thought him best suited to pursue a policy of vindictiveness, then their choice was perfect, though it was a violation of all moral law. If, on the other hand, they were not aware of his unsuitableness, they showed either carelessness or incapacity which will rank them beneath mediocrity, and by their act they stamped the English name ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... had been convinced that she was not at Little Lost, that she had started for Laramie. But now that he was away from that evil spot his doubts returned. What if she were still in the neighborhood—what if they found her? Memory of Honey's vindictiveness made him shiver, Honey was the kind of ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... car back, anyhow," Banks muttered, and I guessed that young Frank's vindictiveness had not been overestimated by Anne. No doubt, he would have been glad enough to complicate the issue by alleging Banks's theft of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... down was utter, and effectually destroyed all sympathy. His present weakness was compared with his late vindictiveness, and he who had just refused mercy to others could hardly gain pity on himself. He only succeeded in utterly disgracing himself, without inspiring a particle of commiseration. Still Florian was not cruel, and contented himself with keeping ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... Hardesty and reached for a cigarette which she puffed delicately while Rimrock gloomed. It was painfully clear now—the cause of Mary's going and the embittered vindictiveness of her smile. Not only had he sat up to talk with Mrs. Hardesty, but he had brought her to where Mary had been waiting. He had actually talked love, without really meaning it, with this fascinating woman of the world; and, having an appointment to meet him right there, how could Mary ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... me say a word in behalf of these Southern women. There is a disposition on the part of the Northern public, forming their opinion from the instances of fierce spite and vindictiveness, of furious scorn and hatred, which have been chronicled in the reports of army correspondents and in the sensation items of the newspapers, to regard them as little short of demons in female shape. All this is naturally working a corresponding dislike and ill-feeling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and sorry for himself. He knew what was in store for him and her. When he looked over this Hogarthian gathering, and saw, despite its festive, convivial mood, hidden lusts of every description, crippled passions, secreted envy, and mysterious vindictiveness spread about like the stench of foul blood, he felt it was quite futile to cherish delusions of any kind as to what was before him. To spare Eleanore and to defend her, to leave her rather than be guilty of causing the child-like smile on her ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... have heard at least the half of Farallone's speech, stopped suddenly and waited for us to come up. His face was red and white—blotchy with rage and vindictiveness. When we were within ten feet of him he suddenly drew a revolver and fired it point-blank at Farallone. He had no time for a second shot. Farallone caught his wrist and shook it till the revolver spun through the air and fell at a distance. Then Farallone ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... process. And all this—elaborately effective and seductive as long as one should happen to think so, elaborately nauseous when one had ceased so to think—had long been familiar to Helen to the point of satiety. She turned wicked, satiety transmuting itself into active vindictiveness. How gladly would she have torn this emasculated creature limb from limb, and flung the lot of it among the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... was mashed by a log, and he lay between life and death, there was no hint of a reconciliation; and when Pettybone appeared again on Coldriver's streets, hobbling on a peg leg of his own fashioning, the fires of vindictiveness burned ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... Marsilly professed that he did not know his own secret. The charge of a rape, long ago, at Nismes, was obviously trumped up to cover the real reason for the extraordinary vindictiveness with which he was pursued, illegally taken, and barbarously slain. Mere Protestant restlessness on his part is hardly an explanation. There was clearly no evidence for the charge of a plot to murder Louis XIV., in which Colbert, in England, seems to have believed. Even if the French Government ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... nothing. He was not asked to the funeral, but he had not expected that, and, when Fulkerson brought him notice that Lindau was also to be buried from Dryfoos's house, it was without his usual sullen vindictiveness that he kept away. In his sort, and as much as a man could who was necessarily so much taken up with himself, he was sorry for Conrad's father; Beaton had a peculiar tenderness for his own father, and he imagined how his father would ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... flag; and these, upon coming up, were made prisoners. A second deputation of five were pursued by some twenty of our mounted militia, and two of them killed, while the other three escaped. One of the party that bore the white flag was, out of the most cowardly vindictiveness, shot down while standing a prisoner in camp. The whole detachment, after these atrocities, now bore down upon the camp of Black Hawk, whose braves, with the exception of some forty or fifty, were away ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... sin. They are here called the "deeds of the body." Of this nature are thoughts of unbelief and distrust, carnal security and presumption instead of the fear of God, coldness and indolence with respect to God's Word and prayer, impatience and murmurings under suffering, anger and vindictiveness or envy and hatred against our neighbor, avarice, unchastity and the like. Such inclinations as these dwell in flesh and blood and cease not to move and tempt man. Yea, because of human infirmity they at times overtake him when ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... BEFORE CONGRESS CAME TOGETHER IN DECEMBER. This he thought important. We could do better, accomplish more without than with them. There were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. Each House of Congress, he said, had the undoubted right to receive or reject members, the Executive had no control in this matter. But Congress had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STATE GOVERNMENTS, which the President could ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... to be relegated to the theatrical lumber-room is that of patient, inveterate revenge. This form of vindictiveness is, from a dramatic point of view, an outworn passion. It is too obviously irrational and anti-social to pass muster in modern costume. The actual vendetta may possibly survive in some semi-barbarous regions, and Grangerfords and Shepherdsons (as in Mark Twain's immortal romance) may still be ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... see that a man with this attitude of mind would regard as sheer vindictiveness the adverse criticism of a book that he had written with such care, and so earnest an endeavour to maintain if not improve upon the standard created in a former work. It never for a moment struck him that the men who had ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... its perfect security. In a few severely unadorned words she gave me to understand that she had ventured to hope for some really helpful suggestion from me. To this almost chiding declaration—because my vindictiveness seldom goes further than a bit of teasing—I said that I was really doing my best. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad



Words linked to "Vindictiveness" :   malevolence, vindictive, malignity



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