"Damning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of which he was the present head, and who judged perhaps that the return of the queen as the wife of an English protestant nobleman would afford the best prospect of safety to himself and his party, readily acceded to the proposal, and consented still to withhold the "damning proofs" of Mary's guilt which he held in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... orthodox Bengali Hindu was first invited to attend the coronation, and was "unable to accept." Had that gentleman accepted and gone, his example might at once have emancipated his countrymen. But he did not know his hour. "There is a venial as well as a damning sin," we may note, in regard to this crossing of the sea. "A man may cross the Indian Ocean to Africa and still remain an orthodox Hindu. The sanctity of caste is not affected. But let him go to Europe, and his caste as well ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... make the sin the less; but among her fellow-mortals—" And then he stopped himself, wanting words to express his meaning. The sin, till it was repented, was damning; but now that it was repented, he could almost love the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... instance of a wicked old man, who, within that very hour, replied to the urgent admonitions by which a religious neighbor felt it a painful duty to make a last effort to alarm him, "What! do you believe that God can think of damning me because I may have been as bad as other folk? I am sure he will do no such thing: he is far ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Vanslyperken, at which the corporal raised his huge shoulders, as much as to say, "He is even worse than you think him," was very violent against Snarleyyow, whom the corporal, aware that it was no mutiny, made no ceremony in "damning in heaps," ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... has there been a denial of Whiston's charge that the reading of messianic prophecy in a typical or allegorical or secondary sense is "weak and enthusiastical." On the contrary, the reader finds only the damning innuendo that the two methods—the allegorical and the literal—differ from one another not in kind but in degree of absurdity. After being protected for a long time by all the twists and turns of his creator's irony, the persona finally reveals himself for what he is, a ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... entirely by Belgians, and it would have been almost impossible to find a pleasanter set of men. Tilkins, the captain, especially, won Adams's regard. He was a huge man, with a wife and family in Antwerp, and he was eternally damning the Congo and ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... excusably despised by plutocracy. Socialism is not merely a cry of pain; if it were only that its plaints might have proved more effectual. It is a cry of avarice, of jealousy, and very often of extreme laziness as well. Every socialistic theory that we have yet heard of is self-damning. Each real thinker, whether he be Croesus or pauper, comprehends that to empower the executive with greater responsibility than it already possesses would mean to tempt national ruin, and that until mankind ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... flushed, pointed down at the wet sphagnum. Smith's foot-prints were there in damning contrast to her own. Worse than that, Smith's pipe lay on an embedded log, and a rubber tobacco pouch ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... minister's son, after a long preparation by story and other gradual approach, and a Socratic questioning cleverly winning damning admissions from Pep, he looked up ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... the offense, and, revealing the fatal secret to a few, within a month it was known in every clubroom in London. From there it got into the newspapers, and they, under a thinly disguised alias of a "distinguished member of the Bar," gave more or less accurate details of the damning truth. His former client eventually said he would not prosecute the forgery if the criminal left England; if not, he would immediately go before the Grand Jury, procure an indictment, and have this man, who had moved a prince among men, arraigned ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... against him was morally damning, if not legally conclusive. The unhappy man heard all in the silence of despair. Crushed and bewildered, he attempted no defence. He asked but an hour to sum up the losses of the bank and his own; they ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to confront a profound—aye! a sacred responsibility! Those hymn-books and holy writings handed to the jury were NOT, as his Honor had surmised, for the purpose of enabling the jury to indulge in—er—preliminary choral exercise! He might, indeed, say, "Alas, not!" They were the damning, incontrovertible proofs of the perfidy of the defendant. And they would prove as terrible a warning to him as the fatal characters upon Belshazzar's wall. There was a strong sensation. Hotchkiss turned a sallow green. His lawyers assumed ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... comin' round—just comin'—only no gettin' those dam boots on!" And then becomes convulsively involved in an apology for swearing before a young lady. She, for her part, has no objection to his damning his boots if he will take them off, and not go out. This she partly conveys, and then, after a too favourable brief report of the patient's state—inevitable ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... and also the amounts of which they had robbed the city. Last came those who were directors in corporations which had bought from the State-boss injustices and licenses to rob, the specifications given in damning detail. ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... counsellors, and first imprisoned and then sacrificed the fortunes of her poor secretary, Davison, one of her most virtuous servants, as a victim to her own fame, and the resentment of the King of Scots. These damning facts in the character of Elizabeth are too well known to require to be dilated on; they have eclipsed the few noble actions of her life, and remain indelible spots on her reputation as a woman and a sovereign. But we learn from this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... the advance-party of the Signal Company. Divisional Headquarters were established at the House of the Spy. The owner of the house had been well treated by the Germans when they had passed through a month before. Upon his door had been written this damning legend— ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... unawakened soul does not see sin; that is, in its true character, in its heinousness, in its consequences. He admits that all people are sinners. Oh! yes; but he does not see the deadly, damning character of sin. He does not see what an evil and bitter thing sin is in itself. Now, the Holy Ghost alone can open the soul's eyes to see this. Without Him, all my preaching, or any other preaching, ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... like heresy, made much and notable progress in the land of late; and although our reverend brother views the former abomination with more lenient eye than ourselves, we think that fagot and stake are but too slight a punishment for such black and damning sin. But still, of late, thy denunciations against this crime have much multiplied; and sometimes, it has seemed to our justice, upon but small and vague proof—although popular voice demanded the condemnation of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... fulminated on the subject; women with their vast experience have looked upon the Breed with great clarity of vision and have written as their eyes have seen; even boys themselves who doubtless must be right, as the question concerns them most, have contributed to current literature one or two damning indictments. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... religious life and created a multitude of religious societies. Even to-day Hinduism has no one creed or code and those who take a serious interest in religion are not merely Hindus but follow some sect which, without damning what it does not adopt, selects its own dogmas and observances. This is not sectarianism in the sense of schism. It is merely the desire to have for oneself some personal, intimate religious life. Even in so uncompromising ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... ill life." Hales openly professed that he would quit the Church to-morrow if it required him to believe that all that dissented from it must be damned. Chillingworth denounced persecution in words of fire. "Take away this persecution, burning, cursing, damning of men for not subscribing the words of men as the words of God; require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but Him; let them leave claiming infallibility that have no title to it, and let them that in their ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... pocket. Oh, my friends and fellow- countrymen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow- brothers and fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellowmen, what a to-do was there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called 'that damning document,' and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man community! 'Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in the camp of those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and of Union, is appropriately capable! Oh, my ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... room with a soft, bluish light which seemed, somehow, a bit spooky, though I dare say it had no uncommon quality; all moonlight is that way if you will observe it. Imagine my surprise and indignation when I saw the floor occupied by at least a dozen other lodgers! I sat up, earnestly damning the management of that unthinkable hotel, and was about to spring from the bed to go and make trouble for the night- clerk—him of the apologetic manner and the tallow candle—when something in the situation affected me with a strange indisposition to move. I suppose I was ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... said, "I may possibly be detained in bed tomorrow morning. In case that should happen"—she never betrayed even a flicker of the eye, although she could, an she would, tell Suzanne some damning tales of late rising during her absence—please send this telegram off before breakfast; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... nothing of the sort," Blake laughed. "Who am I to rob him of a delightfully wicked past upon which he can pretend to look back in horror? It is the only past he will ever have, so why spoil it for him? On the contrary, I am prepared to lend a hand and to start him off with a list of damning disclosures which it will require ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... For that reason, perhaps, the German Government withheld Herr KAUTSKY'S revelations. Now he has published them on his own account, under the title, The Guilt of William Hohenzollern (SKEFFINGTON). A more damning indictment has never been drawn. From the moment of the ARCHDUKE'S assassination the KAISER and his advisers determined to make it the pretext for destroying Serbia, and crushing Russia and France if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... it. And how difficult and almost impossible it was to cope with it and how it seemed sometimes as if the whole fabric of society and custom combined to draw attention to mere trifles which in the end proved damning evidence. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... I am got out at last, and (which is a Miracle) without a Clue— and now to Damning and Cursing,— but if that would ease me, where shall I begin? with my Fortune, my self, or the Quean that cozen'd me— What a dog was I to believe in Women! Oh Coxcomb— ignorant conceited Coxcomb! to fancy she cou'd be enamour'd with my Person, at the first sight enamour'd— Oh, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... convincingly explain the events. Elizabeth, as I show, was widely believed to be an accessory to the murder of Amy Robsart. But in carefully following her words and actions at that critical time, as reported by de Quadra, my reading of the transaction is as given here. The most damning fact against Elizabeth was held to be her own statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's murder to the effect that Lady Robert was "already dead, or very nearly so." This foreknowledge of the fate of that unfortunate lady has been accepted ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... several places to which I should be glad to accompany him, but India is not one of them. Kipling ruined India for me, as I suspect he did for many other of his readers. I picture India as full of intriguing, snobbish Anglo-Indians, who are always damning the Home Government for ruining the country. It is an odd thing that, although I have lived between thirty and forty years in England, nobody believes that I know how to govern England, and yet the stupidest Anglo-Indian, who claims ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... say,' remarked Mrs Pansey, who was an adept at damning with faint praise, 'that the bishop works as hard as his capacity of brain will ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... and walked to the furthermost corner of the apartment. For his daughter's sake, and for the sake of his own strong liking for this man, he had resolutely shut his eyes upon the damning chain of evidence against him. Now he felt that that he could do so no longer. Nothing but guilt could account for this strange reticence. He was forced to admit it at last. His compassion was still strong, but it was mingled with a great horror. He felt that he must ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is not merely to wish that one well, but also to invoke good fortune upon his head, to recommend him to the Giver of all goods. So, too, cursing, damning, imprecation, malediction—synonymous terms— is stronger than evil wishing and desiring. He who acts thus invokes a spirit of evil, asks God to visit His wrath upon the object cursed, to inflict death, damnation, or other ills. There is consequently in such language at least ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... be pardoned, I'm secure; Death has no sting beside; The law gives sin its damning power, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... it be a sin that draws down vengeance from heaven; much more for a man to enter into covenant with the great Jehovah, and to break such a religious engagement: this must needs be a destroying and soul-damning sin. And of such religious covenants ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... and opened the lid, when the cakes and wine stood revealed in all their damning profusion. The Doctor stepped back dramatically. "Hardbake!" he gasped; "wine, pots of strawberry jam! Oh, Bultitude, this is a revelation indeed! So I have nourished one more viper in my bosom, have I? A crawling reptile which curries favour ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... That no neglect may check us at the start, Or mar our swift advance. And, for our cause, As we believe it just in sight of God, So should it triumph in the sight of man, Whose generous temper, at the first, assigns Right to the weaker side, yet coldly draws Damning conclusions from its failure. Now Betake you to your tasks with double zeal; And, meanwhile, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... decide which was to be released, but none to settle the fate of Jesus. To put that in their hands was an unconditional surrender by Pilate, and the sneer in 'whom ye call the King of the Jews' is a poor attempt to hide from them and himself that he is afraid of them. Mark puts his finger on the damning blot in Pilate's conduct when he says that his motive for condemning Jesus was his wish to content the people. The life of one poor Jew was a small price to pay for popularity. So he let policy outweigh righteousness, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... mind the savage and exulting eye of Thornton, when it read the damning record of Glanville's guilt; and in spite of my horror at the crime of my former friend, I trembled for his safety: nor was I satisfied with myself at my prevarication as a witness. It is true, that I had told the truth, but I had concealed all the truth; and my heart swelled ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... day [he writes] I am dining with a knot of honest, furious Federalists, who are damning all their opponents as a set of consummate scoundrels, panders of Bonaparte, etc. The next day I dine, perhaps, with some of the very men I have heard thus anathematized, and find them equally honest, warm, and indignant; and if I take their word for it, I had been dining the ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... agree with you there," he replied; "you are getting your own infinitesimal world confused with the real overwhelming majority; you haven't an idea how it feels and, in particular, of what it thinks of you, smoking and gambling and damning your fate. It may be largely envy—personally I am convinced it is—but they have you ticketed straight for ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... But I do not think that Thomas Brown the Younger meant it, or at least wholly meant it, as satire, and this is perhaps the best proof of his unpractical way of looking at politics. For Phelim Connor is a much more damning sketch than any of the Fudges. Vanity, gluttony, the scheming intrigues of eld, may not be nice things, but they are common to the whole human race. The hollow rant which enjoys the advantages of liberty and declaims against the excesses ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... which was to supply the place of the ancient stone, the coronation seat of the Scottish kings—no longer there, its absence felt by one and all within that church as the closing seal to Edward's infamy—the damning proof that as his slave, not as his sister kingdom, he sought to render Scotland. From the throne to the high altar, where the king was to receive the eucharist, a carpet of richly-brocaded Genoa velvet was laid down; a cushion of the same elegantly-wrought ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... closed his ears, and, hoping to stifle the remorseful pangs that seized upon his very vitals with the sharpness of serpents' teeth, he strove to dwell upon the frequent and severe acts of penance he had performed. But he now found that his penitence had never been sincere and efficacious. This one damning sin obscured all his good actions; and he felt if he died unconfessed, and with the weight of guilt upon his soul, he should perish everlastingly. Again he fled from the torment of retrospection, and again heard ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... another piece of damning evidence. When we searched the men we found a pocketbook on Shifflet with a hundred and fifteen dollars and some odd cents. It was Daniel Coopman's pocketbook, because there was an old tax receipt in it that had slipped down between the leather ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... at the rear in the wagon line, I waited around the station just long enough to lend plausibility to my search before reporting to the O.C. The Major was in a towering rage over our losses, and, damning the cook, he dismissed me. The officers that night had to look to another cookhouse for ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... began to write against rent and interest there were plenty of critics ready to cite this and other investments as a damning inconsistency. He was not the man to offer explanations at any time. It was no defence to say that he took less and did more than other landlords. And so he was glad to part with the whole to Miss Hill; nor did he care to spend upon himself the L3,500, which ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... the door of the Suffolk Arms, crushing, burning, damning and ratting himself at Crispin's magnificence, they rolled away through the night in ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... and mere habitual virtues, and gives the upper hand to the savage over the moral man. This tyranny of the blood over the will betrays itself even in the expression of his desire of revenge upon Cassio. In his repentance, a genuine tenderness for his murdered wife, and in the presence of the damning evidence of his deed, the painful feeling of annihilated honour at last bursts forth; and in the midst of these painful emotions he assails himself with the rage wherewith a despot punishes a runaway slave. He suffers as a double man; at once in the higher ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... prostrated her for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone of all the world she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it all. And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. Then, too, there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard Peters's voice accosting her all her old repugnance resurged. It flashed upon her that this man—Roxdal's boon companion—must know far more than he had told ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... It's a damnably foul lie, showing the moral rottenness of the man! (He extends his portfolio) We have here damning evidence, the corpus delicti, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Those damning words of his father's had been a shock—how little or great he could not tell. Was it only a day since he had met Ellen Jorth? What had made all the difference? Suddenly like a breath the fragrance ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... "Love and murder are next of kin"; true, indeed, was this what time Eleanora and Cammilla were fresh young girls in Florence. They were each made for love, and love they had; but that love was the embrace of a living death, selfish, cruel, and damning. Better, perhaps, had they died right out by sword or poison than suffer, as they did, the extremity of pathos—the shame ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... The others watched Bemmon as Lake was doing and no one spoke. The silence deepened and Bemmon began to sweat as he tried to avoid their eyes. He looked again at the damning evidence and his ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... "The damning brand of the magnate is on me, and employers are warned against me. And all because I possess a conscience that would not stoop to crime. I have stood out against retaliating as long as I can. Now my vow is given to be avenged on Steel and ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... within your gates. Above all look before as well as after and think not to leave it to time, godere li benefici del tempo, but, as did the Romans, strike and strike at once. For illustration he criticises, in a final and damning analysis, the career of Louis XII. in Italy. There was no canon of statecraft so absolute that the King did not ignore it, and in inevitable Nemesis, there was no ultimate disaster so crowning as not ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... means to be frank, much as they wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has the full responsibility of his freedom, cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without rudeness, must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom left face to face with a damning choice, between the more or less dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright woodenness of ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... jeopardised by his diatribes; while Lord Montague, the head of the family, was on very close terms of friendship with Exeter. Exeter's own conduct on the occasion of the Pilgrimage of Grace had been suspicious. Out of these materials there was no difficulty in constructing a damning case against as many members of these Plantagenet houses as might be considered advisable: since there was no need to prove that rebellion was actually organised. It was enough to have a record of the use of disloyal expressions, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... in the creed of more than three thousand churches in the United States. So far as it is believed by those who profess it, it conveys the idea of a God who is pure will—a God, in short, who does as he pleases, saving some of his creatures and damning others, without reason or justice. He does not reward virtue nor punish sin, but scatters the joys of heaven and the torments of hell out of a mere caprice, as an Eastern despot gives a man a purse of gold, or inflicts the bastinado, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... matters were hastening to a crisis. These absences of Katharine's, moreover, left them exposed to interruptions which almost destroyed their pleasure in being alone together. The rainy evening made it impossible to go out; and, indeed, according to William's code, it was considerably more damning to be seen out of doors than surprised within. They were so much at the mercy of bells and doors that they could hardly talk of Macaulay with any conviction, and William preferred to defer the second act of his tragedy ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... in England, "to which country they were attached, not only by the ties of birth and early habit, but also by those of indisputable public duties," as though these facts did not constitute in themselves a damning satire on the system of Irish Government. They were to be "fined" for living in England, as though that fine were not the most just and politic which could be conceived, if it went even an inch towards establishing the principle that Ireland's affairs were the business of responsible resident ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... be a devil, take a damning oath For shedding native blood? Can there be sin, In merciful repentance? Oh, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... panic, leaving behind, in their haste, various damaging documents which compromised them hopelessly. With these proofs of conspiracy in their hands, aided further by a small brown diary taken from the pocket of the dead man which had contained a full and damning resume of the whole plot, the Government had called an eleventh-hour conference. The Labour leaders were forced to recognize that they had been used as a cat's paw. Certain concessions were made by the Government, and were eagerly accepted. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... guidance. A man conversant with affairs expressed to Pepys his opinion that nothing could be done with 'a lazy Prince, no Council, no money, no reputation at home or abroad,' and Pepys also gives the damning statement which is in harmony with all we know of the king, that he 'took ten times more care and pains in making friends between my Lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Stewart, when they have fallen out, than ever he did ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... first he spent his Saturday evenings at the King of Bells, dropping this habit when he found that every soul there disliked him. Perhaps some discharged veteran of the 4th, tramping through Gantick in search of work, had recognised him and let fall a damning hint. Long before I can remember the story had grown up uncontradicted, believed in by everyone. Beneath it the man lived on and deteriorated; but his workmanship never deteriorated, and ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... deemed him culpable; the detective had been sure of it. Would Miss Dalrymple think more leniently of him than mere unprejudiced people, those who knew less of him than she? His very presence on the yacht, although somewhat inexplicably complicated in recent occurrences, was per se a primal damning circumstance. But she spared him the necessity of answering. She divined now from his blackened features what his position on the yacht must be. He was only ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... perfectly fitted for their situations. The extent and accuracy of the information possessed by them was almost incredible. Indeed, we regard the system of espionage, by which this information was procured, as the most complete and damning proof of the general selfishness and immorality of the French people, of which we have received any account. It was not merely that a number of persons were employed by the police as spies; but that no man could put any ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... suddenly in Lady Holme, and the longing to lash her husband. Yet even this anger did not take away the anxiety that beset her, the wish that she had not done the crazy thing. The fact of her husband's return before Leo's arrival seemed to have altered her action, made it far more damning. To have been found with Leo would have been compromising, would have roused Fritz's anger. She wanted to rouse his anger. She had meant to rouse it. But when she looked at Fritz she did not like the thought of Leo walking in at this hour holding the latch-key in his hand. What had Fritz ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... because of his reformations, never yet had the true knowledge of his sin: But the poor Publican he had it, he had it in truth, as is manifest, because it drives him to the only sovereign remedy. For indeed, the right knowledge of sin, in the filth, and guilt, and damning power thereof, makes a man to understand, that not any thing but grace and mercy by Christ can secure him from the ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... remained the damning and incontrovertible evidences of the guilt of the habituees of that sinister room—dish after dish heaped high with ice cream, and surrounded by stacks of empty ones, scraped to the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... harassed condition, the sophistry illuded her; she was sensible only of the menace his words distilled. She saw herself tricked and trapped, meshed in a web of damning circumstance; everything was against her—appearances, the hands of all men, the cruel accident that had placed the necklace in her keeping, even her parentage. For she was the daughter of a notorious ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... an inside view of the Second Empire, he could not help seeing its hollowness, and he revolted against the selfishness of its servants; no single chapter of M. Zola's splendid and terrible "Downfall" contains a more damning indictment of the leaders of the imperial army than is to be read ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... papers seized in his rooms are pretty damning proofs, and besides he was caught, they say, swindling the Public Food Committee. He drew rations for fifty, how, I don't know. He claims to be an American artist here, and we have been obliged to take notice of it at the Legation. It's ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... that? What preys so on my heart? What said the unhappy one? Still, O heaven, the dreadful, damning words ring in my ears! "Take him! Take him!" What should I take, unfortunate? the bequest of your dying groan—the fearful legacy of your despair? Gracious heaven! am I then fallen so low? Am I so suddenly hurled from the towering throne of my pride that I greedily await ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... better fit syphilis than any other disease. But, on the whole, they furnish no proof at all, and no syphilologist, he concludes, has ever succeeded in demonstrating that syphilis was known in antiquity. That belief is a legend. The most damning argument against it, Notthaft points out, is the fact that, although in antiquity there were great physicians who were keen observers, not one of them gives any description of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and congenital forms of this disease. China is frequently mentioned as the original ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... bless you, no, mum. This here's our schoolmarm. Didn't you never hear tell about her?" This damning proof of his companion's aloofness from village gossip ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... in Marchmont; if the tendency became his master, farewell to the high career to which he had appeared to be destined. Plain men would call him finicking, and practical men would think it impossible to work with him. No impression is more damning about a man engaged in public life; the Whips have to put a query to his name, and he cannot be trusted to confine his revolts to such occasions as those on which Mr. Foster of Henstead thought an exhibition of independence a venial sin, or ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... Mr. Pope took the liberty of damning Homer, to whom he was under great obligations—'And Homer (damn him) calls'—it may be presumed that any body or any thing may be damned in verse by poetical license; and in case of accident, I beg leave to plead ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... might read them. (Applause). I have in my drawer numerous other extracts from the writings of the gentleman from Posey, but am not allowed to read them; and, indeed, sir, under the circumstances, decency forbids their use. But if I were permitted to read them, and show their worse than damning influence upon society, in conjunction with this system of separate interests, I venture to aver that gentlemen would turn from them with disgust; aye, sir, they would shun them as they would shun man's worst enemy, and flee from them as from a poisonous ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that before I have done you will find that I make as sad work of it as they do,—jumbling things together pell-mell, spoiling the whole point sometimes by inadequate expression; and you will end by damning the play instead of the actor. I could put up with my own share of the disgrace; but it would vex me indeed, that my subject should be involved in my downfall; I cannot have it discredited for my shortcomings. Remember, then: whatever the imperfections in my speech, the author is not to be ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... these! What seeking after carnal things by some, and what grief in others for the loss of them! If they so much labour after, and shied so many tears for the things of this present life, how am I to be bemoaned, pitied, and prayed for! My soul is dying, my soul is damning. Were my soul but in a good condition, and were I but sure of it, ah! how rich would I esteem myself, though blessed but with bread and water! I should count those but small afflictions, and bear them as little burdens. A wounded spirit who ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... A better, Madam, for he's the leudest Hector in the Town; he has all the Vices of Youth, Whoring, Swearing, Drinking, Damning, Fighting,—and a thousand ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... twice a day for half a year—even now, as I see them waving me adieu with their red silk and "yaller" cotton "hand-kerchers," I know how many rocks of misunderstanding and criticism and how many shoals of damning faint praise are before them, and my heart is ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... full of evidence that our great grandfathers looked upon mountains with aversion and horror. The poets of even the seventeenth century never tire of damning them in good, set terms. If they had had the unhappiness to read the opening lines of "The Pleasures of Hope," they would assuredly have thought Master Campbell had gone funny and should be shut up lest he do himself ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... huntsmen retired from the inhospitable gate of Wolf's Crag, execrating, as they descended the steep pathway, the niggard and unworthy disposition of the proprietor, and damning, with more than silvan license, both the castle and its inhabitants. Bucklaw, with many qualities which would have made him a man of worth and judgment in more favourable circumstances, had been so utterly neglected in point of education, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... leaders of that party, who put Mr. Strong up for Governor, have attained it. These things I gather from the papers, and from the history of the day, as I have collected them since my return home. And to all this must be added the damning fact of Te Deums, orations, toasts, and processions of the clergy, and the judges, with all the leaders of the federal, or opposition party, in celebration of the success of the Spaniards in restoring the Inquisition, and recalling the reign of superstition and terror; ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Governor Taft's inauguration as governor, the whole attitude of the army in the Philippines, from the commanding general down was 'I told you so.' They did not say this where Governor Taft could hear it, but it was common knowledge that they were much addicted to damning 'politics' as the cause of all ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... outside, that everything was going smoothly and he could go back to the station. Returning to his chair, Morgan took up the subject of the clues he had discovered in the apartment. After recounting his discovery of the cuff button, he added, "and that was one of the most damning pieces of evidence which I had against you, Marsh—the letter—"M" ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... grace of imperial youth,—the Greeks would have said a god descended,—and in words that touched the mind and heart and conscience of that vast multitude, as with fire from heaven, recalling Boston to herself, he saved his native city and her Cradle of Liberty from the damning disgrace of stoning the first martyr in the great struggle for personal freedom. "Mr. Chairman," he said, "when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which placed the rioters, incendiaries, and murderers of Alton, side ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... consequences of his apostasy appeared most to come home to Lady Agnes was the loss for the Dormer family of the advantages attached to the possession of Mrs. Dallow. The larger mortification would round itself later; for the hour the damning thing was that Nick had made that lady the gift of an unforgivable grievance. He had clinched their separation by his letter to his electors—and that above all was the wickedness of the letter. Julia would have got over the other woman, but she would never get ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... rhapsody:—"No man of common sense and common integrity can deny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, a worthless contemptible infidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common profligate, a soul-despising, a soul-murdering, a soul-damning, thoughtless wretch as could exist on the face of the earth. Now be astonished, O heavens, to eternity! and wonder, O earth and hell! while time endures. Behold this very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you knew, sir, how salt is the bread Of another—(what is it that Dante has said?) And the trouble of other men's stairs. In a word, I wish fate had some real affliction conferr'd On your whimsical self, that, at least, you had cause For neglecting life's duties, and damning its laws! This pressure against all the purpose of life, This self-ebullition, and ferment, and strife, Betoken'd, I grant that it may be in truth, The richness and strength of the new wine of youth. But if, when the wine ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... the story opens he was a figure of note among those who spent their time in criticizing the government and damning the Irish Parliament. He even became a friend of some young hare-brained rebels of the time; yet no one suspected him of anything except irresponsibility. His record was clean; Dublin Castle was not ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... snatches of his talk that reached us, and they had a damning significance. We, the lords of Silverado, had come face to face with our superior. It is the worst of all quaint and of all cheap ways of life that they bring us at last to the pinch of some humiliation. I liked well enough to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wished, to give them up to be tortured, thinking that this would be the strongest test of his assertions and of the facts. 35. But he would not take them, saying that there was no trusting slaves. It seems to me strange that slaves when tortured make damning statements about themselves, knowing well that it will kill them, but prefer to be tortured than to inform on their masters to whom they are naturally ill-disposed, when by doing so they could free themselves. 36. If Nicomachus had asked for them, and I had refused ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... indeed, a child, in spirit and in memory, dwelling again by the great river, over-against the Enchanted Land! Then with an effort of the will he pulled himself together, picked up his weapon and audibly damning himself for an idiot strode on. Passing an opening that reached into the heart of the little thicket he looked in, and there, supine upon the earth, its arms all abroad, its gray uniform stained with a single spot of blood upon the breast, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Adam's descendants through hundreds of generations dreadful penalties for a small transgression which they did not commit; the damning of all men who do not avail themselves of an alleged mode of obtaining forgiveness, which most men have never heard of; and the effecting a reconciliation by sacrificing a son who was perfectly innocent, to satisfy the assumed necessity for a ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... letteth out water, and I will no tolerate it. Short weights are an abomination to the Lord. I would rather steal outright than be mean. A highway robber has some claims upon respect; but a petty, pilfering, tricky Christian is a damning spot on our civilization. Lord Chesterfield asserts that a man's reputation for generosity does not depend so much on what he spends, as on his giving handsomely when it is proper to give at all; and the gay lord builded higher and struck deeper than he knew, or at least said. If a man ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... they hedge their opinions, like a gambler his bets, and leave an opening to retract, and retreat, and qualify, and neutralise every unguarded expression of delight, until their very praise declines into a faintness that is damning. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... to Melkarth before," the Gilgamesher said. "He and Burrik are friends." He pronounced that like a final and damning judgment of both of them. "The story the locals told our brethren of the Fairdealer was that the Honest Horris was landed beside Burrik's ship for ten days, when two other ships came in. They said one had the blue crescent badge, and the other bore a green monster ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... necessary for you, and would but diminish your real happiness. Abject poverty is and ought to be regarded as the greatest, most terrible of all possible evils. It should be shunned as a most deadly and damning sin. What then are the means by which so dreadful a calamity may be avoided? I will tell you, my friends, in these simple words—hear and ponder on them; write them upon the tablets of your memory; ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... language: "The little, paltry sneers at my youth by your correspondent have long since become pointless. It is the privileged abuse of old age—the hackneyed allegation of a thousand centuries—the damning crime to which all men have been subjected. I leave it to metaphysicians to determine the precise moment when wisdom and experience leap into existence, when, for the first time, the mind distinguishes truth from error, selfishness from patriotism, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... looked in to borrow—well, I forget now precisely what it was, but they looked in to borrow something. A month afterward, as they had not returned it, we sent round to ask. Mrs. Pagram replied that it had already been returned, and Pagram—this was the damning thing—told me at the office in so many words that they had never borrowed it. Now, I hate anything like deception. So does Eliza. For two years or more Eliza and Mrs. Pagram have met in the street without taking the least notice ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... Spottsylvania a campaign of glory, let us not forget that negro troops in that army, and in other armies in the same campaign, have borne their part faithfully, and deserve well of the republic. Nor let us forget the damning atrocities at Fort Pillow, where black men in United States uniform were massacred in cold blood, because they were willing rather to die freemen with their white comrades of the United States army, than live slaves to rebel masters:[D] thus vindicating their claim to freedom, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... will indulge a smile, Why scowls thy brow, O Bookseller! the while? Thy sunk eyes glisten through eclipsing fears, Fill'd, like Cassandra's, with prophetic tears: With such a visage, withering, woe-begone, Shrinks the pale poet from the damning dun. Come, let us teach each others tears to flow, Like fasting bards, in fellowship of woe, When the coy muse puts on coquettish airs, Nor deigns one line to their voracious prayers; Thy spirit, groaning like th'encumber'd block Which bears my works, deplores them ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... medium, some of them trenchantly like, of the customers as well as of certain artistic celebrities, whose laurels Brodonowski's had not approved, varied here and there by an epigram or a doggerel couplet, damning the Philistine. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... one over you to make you work. You belong psychologically to the intellectually dependent classes, the clinging-vine family, the masculine parasites; and as you can't help being married, you are always damning it, holding it ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... promise to a freedman could be of no account, so he gave free rein to his tongue, and answered the questions Caracalla hoarsely put to him without reserve, and—being a man used to the ways of a court—with insinuations that were doubly welcome to a judge so eager for damning evidence. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... behind him, and four sentinels standing over him, two of which were Ellison and Burkitt, the prisoners; that he asked Mr. Christian what he meant to do, and was answered by his ordering him to hoist the boat out, and shook the bayonet, threatening him and damning him if he did not take care; that when he found the captain was to be sent out of the ship, he again went aft with the carpenter to ask for the long-boat; that they asked three or four times before he granted it; ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... question, in Pym's words, resolves itself into how the solemn little devil got to know so much about women. It made the world marvel when they learned his age, but no one was quite so staggered as Pym, who had seen him daily for all those years, and been damning him for his indifference to the sex during the ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... been a rumour going about that some years ago—while the war was on, in fact—you wrote a very wonderful attack upon the trades unions. This attack was so bitter in tone, so damning in some of its facts, and, in short, such a wonderful production, that at the last moment the late Prime Minister used his influence with you to suspend its publication. It was held over, and in the meantime ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... court-room, and swore he had not seen me at all on the night I had spent with him—the night of the fire. There were other things against me: my known friendship for the leaders of the strike, my discharge, my absence from home at the time the fire must have been started, and other small but damning evidence. I was convicted, and sentenced to transportation. I saw my old mother fall as if dead! I saw Barbara's white face bending over her; plainer than all, I saw that man who had been my friend, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... day, all these hours that she had been sitting there, brushed before her in a synthesis of thought, replacing the stream of impressions and images. The crushing accumulation of hostile evidence—witness after witness coming forward to add to the damning weight of it; the awful weakness of the defence—Wharton's irritation under it—the sharpness, the useless, acrid ability of his cross-examinations; yet, contrasting with the legal failure, the personal ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Paris at this time: how he lived over a butcher's shop in the Rue de la Boucherie, seldom went out except at night, and was recognised at Mass by a woman who had attended Miss Walkinshaw's daughter. Finally, the Prince went to Brest in disguise, 'damning the Marshal's old boots,' the boots of the Marechal de Belleisle, which, it seems, 'were always stuffed full of projects.' Barbier supposes, in his 'Memoires,' that Charles was to go with Thurot, who was to attack Scotland, while Conflans ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... difficult for the best of cowboys. But Jack accomplished it and got back home before daylight. And Wade was bound to admit that circumstantial evidence against Wilson Moore, which, of course, Jack Belllounds would soon present, would be damning and apparently irrefutable. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... nodded the Postilion, "not a soul till we opened our mouths; an' then 'twould be easy enough, for my lord, or earl, or gentleman, bein' naked, an' not likin' it (which would only be nat'ral), would fall a-swearin' 'eavens 'ard, damning everybody an' cursin' everything, an' never stop to think, while I—not bein' born to it—should stand there a-shiverin' an' tryin' a curse or two myself, maybe—but Lord! mine wouldn't amount to nothin' at all, me not bein' nat'rally ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... the Talents" vent your venal spleen; [115] Want is your plea, let Pity be your screen. Let Monodies on Fox regale your crew, And Melville's Mantle [116] prove a Blanket too! One common Lethe waits each hapless Bard, And, peace be with you! 'tis your best reward. 750 Such damning fame; as Dunciads only give [liii] Could bid your lines beyond a morning live; But now at once your fleeting labours close, With names of greater note in blest repose. Far be't from me unkindly to upbraid The lovely ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... us the very best scene in the Good-natured Man—the scene, that is, in which young Honeywood, suddenly finding Miss Richland without, is compelled to dress up the two bailiffs in possession of his house and introduce them to her as gentlemen friends—was very nearly damning the play on the first night of its production. The pit was of opinion that it was "low;" and subsequently the critics took up the cry, and professed themselves to be so deeply shocked by the vulgar humours of the bailiffs that Goldsmith ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... Prince James in France. You entered upon a silly, knavish plot to murder him on this mad visit to London, and while engaging me to aid your motions against the Jacobites you gave me no advice of this damning folly. To complete your blunders—but for the chance that I came upon him and took him through your guards you would have been silly enough to plant him on our hands in prison. I do not talk to you about honour, my lord, or your obligations. I advise you, I resent my name being ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... spirit rose on wings out of the shadow), beside John Benham, in the drawing-room after dinner, Vetch had appeared at a disadvantage that was almost ridiculous; and, as Stephen Culpeper had hastened to point out, this was merely a striking illustration of the damning contrast between the Governor's chequered political career and Benham's stainless ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... impressive manner, "however presumptuous, as far as social considerations are concerned, it might be, by which you affect to be inspired, is utterly inconsistent with the cruel, dastardly crime of which such damning evidence has an ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... the burthen of his suspense and wonder grew daily more unbearable, so that he wasted away like a man with a disease. Once, indeed, he broke all bounds of decency, seized an occasion when she was abroad, ransacked her room, and at last, hidden away among her jewels, found the damning evidence. There he stood, holding this thing, which was his life, in the hollow of his hand, and marvelling at her inconsequent behaviour, that she should seek, and keep, and yet not use it; and then the door opened, and behold herself. So, once more, they stood, eye to eye, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... decided that Henry was out of the running, and that Mirabelle had a walkover. The guess itself was wrong, but the deduction from it was correct; and Henry was convulsed to think that Mr. Mix had shown his hand so early. And instead of gritting his teeth, and damning Mr. Mix for a conscienceless scoundrel, Henry put back his head and laughed until ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... of George Sand, She smoked cigars. She wore gentlemen's apparel. She stepped off the bounds of decency. She wrote with a style ardent, eloquent, mighty in its gloom, horrible in its unchastity, glowing in its verbiage, vivid in its portraiture, damning in its effects, transfusing into the libraries and homes of the world an evil that has not even begun to relent, and she has her copyists in all lands. To-day, under the nostrils of your city, there is a fetid, reeking, unwashed literature enough to poison all the fountains of public virtue ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... along old and approved lines. He had heard of Drew's religious views and he took this occasion to include a warning of the damning influence that was about to enter the vicinity ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... It was a damning document. There above the plain signature and seal of the King was the admission, not merely of complicity, but that the thing was done by his express will and command, that the responsibility was his own, and that he would hold the doers scatheless ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... Charlemont, from the office of Governor of the County of Armagh—an office which might be considered as hereditary in his family, and to which his estate in that county gave him a kind of indefeasible right, is one instance of a number. It will ever be remembered as a damning proof of the foolish and wicked malignity of the Irish administration against the friends of ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... only ones who can be saved are the Catholics, and of them only five per cent—as many curates say—and as the Catholics form only a twelfth part of the population of the world—if we believe what statistics show—it would result that after damning millions and millions of men during the countless ages that passed before the Saviour came to the earth, after a Son of God has died for us, it is now possible to save only five in every twelve hundred. That cannot be ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... over three millions of Slaves? Why should not Nebraska be cultivated by Slave labour, as well as Florida or Texas? If men, under the American Constitution, may hold slaves at discretion and without dishonour in one-half of the country, why not in the whole of it? If it would be a damning sin for us to admit another Slave State into the Union, why is it not a damning sin to permit a Slave State to remain in the Union? Would it not be the acme of effrontery for a man, in amicable alliance with fifteen pickpockets, to profess scruples of conscience in regard to admitting another ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... of twelve; the rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands. He was now about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney in hansom cabs and airing the first bloom of six new suits of clothes; and yet the unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his working jeans and with the damning bundle on his shoulder, as he might have ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... art is that it is useless. And if we only knew what was really useful, this would be a damning indictment. But, not being much given to abstract reflection, the philistine is usually at a loss to inform us. However, by talking with him, we can eventually divine what he thinks the useful to be. Useful is what contributes to ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... the uses of this work of yours." Then Tycho showed his tables of the stars, Seven hundred stars, each noted in its place With exquisite precision, the result Of watching heaven for five-and-twenty years. "And is this all?" they said. They sought to invent Some ground for damning him. The truth alone Would serve them, as it seemed. For these were men Who could not understand. "Not all, I hope," Said Tycho, "for I think, before I die, I shall have marked a thousand." "To what end? When shall we reap the fruits of all this toil? Show us its uses." "In the time to come," Said ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... our cause by various burghers who surrendered to the enemy, and who, actuated by the most sordid motives, assisted the British in every possible way against us. Some of these treacherous Boers occasionally fell into our hands, and were tried by court martial for high treason; but however damning the evidence brought against them they usually managed to escape with some light punishment. On some occasions sentence of death was passed on them, but it was invariably commuted to imprisonment for life, ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... conceived a method of getting her out of the way and making it look like an accident of some kind, perhaps persuaded her to stay in the car with the engine running, while he went off and destroyed the aeroplane which was damning evidence now." ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... to ask if this thing were a joke, for Jeb's whole attitude condemned him. But the old gentleman was not the type who easily surrendered the honor of his friends, and when he spoke his words came haltingly, as though he were weighing this damning statement against all that had formerly been good; he was unwilling to pronounce a verdict on the bare face value of such an accusation without throwing into the balance, not only Jeb's character since boyhood, but the affectionate ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... mind you have! Look at the greed of your eyes; they would devour the grass of the fields from this place up to the Devil's Bit. You would lock up the air and sell it in gasping breaths. You are disgusting. But give me the one-and-six and to Connacht with you! I am damning my soul standing beside you and your cart, smelling its contents. How can a man talk with the smell of fat bacon going between him and the wind? One-and-six and the dew that fell at the making hardly dry upon my hands yet. Farewell, a long farewell, ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... thousands of boys and youth who indulge in it. I hear children along the street, but just able to walk, practising this iniquity. They cannot talk straight, but they get enough distinctness to let you know that they are damning their own souls and the souls of others. Oh! it is horrible to see a little child, the first time it lifts its feet to walk, set them down on the burning pavement of hell! Between sixteen and twenty years of age there is apt to ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... room, and if he had been half blind he could not have missed the last and most damning evidence of all. The carpet was of a biscuit colour and covered the room flush to the wainscot. Opposite the fireplace was a big, ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... party to them. For more than three years I remained the victim of a most singular and diabolical illusion. Poor country priest though I was, I led every night in a dream—would to God it had been all a dream!—a most worldly life, a damning life, a life of Sardanapalus. One single look too freely cast upon a woman well-nigh caused me to lose my soul; but finally by the grace of God and the assistance of my patron saint, I succeeded in casting out the evil ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... condition than they were before they took up their cause, although they, in doing so, put "two faces under one hat," blessing and cursing, smiling and frowning, all in one breath, praising their faults and sins, and damning their few virtues. In fact, to such a degree have fiction writers painted the black side of a Gipsy's life, habits, and character in glowing colours that, to take another 20,000 men, women, and children out of our back slums and sink-gutters ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... or to praise him. Luckily, he has tempered his moral sense with his sense of humour, and so comes to the happy conclusion that as a matter of fact, when we read or read about Pope, "some of the proofs which are most damning morally, positively increase one's ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... Capitan," says Guicciardini, "conscio dei sospetti, i quali il re forse non vanamente aveva avuti di lui," etc. (Istoria, tom, iv. p. 30.) This way of damning a character by surmise, is very common with Italian writers of this age, who uniformly resort to the very worst motive as the key of whatever is dubious or inexplicable in conduct. Not a sudden death, for example, occurs, without at least a sospetto of poison ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... the canary to hail the smiling morn with cheerful carol. In a few minutes unaccustomed silence prevailed, and then it was noticed that the frog was distended to a degree which must have caused it infinite satisfaction, while the canary had vanished. The conclusion was obvious and damning. Being accustomed to post mortems, my friend settled the point forthwith, the warm canary being revealed, with ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... knew what he had found. From the first the blue-grey notepaper had had a familiar look. I recognized it now. It was Cynthia's letter, that damning document which I had been mad enough to read to him in London. His prediction that the luck would change ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... mistook me, sir?" replied the steward. "He was so busy damning the sweepers, that he did not hear me right. I said, the midshipmen had paid their ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Paris or in the gloomy streets of Angers wore here its most appalling aspect. Henceforth, whatever choice she made, this home, where even in those troublous times she had known naught but peace, must bear a damning stain! Henceforth this day and this hour must come between her and happiness, must brand her brow, and fix her with a deed of which men and women would tell while she lived! Oh, God—pray? ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... been paralyzed to see the change that came over that crowd, blessing the river one minute and damning the czar and the grand dukes the next. The shot went into the Winter palace and tore the furniture and ripped up the ceiling of the room the czar was in, and in a moment all was chaos, as though every Russian knew the czar was to be assassinated at that particular ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... reason of some gross transgression, there are twenty who have fallen into the same condition by reason of the multitude of small ones. 'He that despiseth little things shall fall by little and little'; and whilst the deeds which the Ten Commandments rebuke are damning to a Christian character, still more perilous, because unseen, and permitted to grow without check or restraint, are these unconscious sins. 'Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and scattered fours, and one by one, his heavy-breathing troopers followed, cursing the order that had sent them abroad with-out their horses, damning—as none but a dismounted cavalryman can damn—the earth's unevenness, their swords, their luck, their priests, the night, their boots, and Jaimihr. Forewarned, Alwa held on down the pitch-dark side street, into whose steep-sided chasm the moon's rays would not reach for an hour or two to come, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... situations, rather than the expressions of The Custom of the Country, bring it under the ban of a rather unfair condemnation of Dryden's, pronounced when he was quite unsuccessfully trying to free the drama of himself and his contemporaries from Collier's damning charges. But there are many lively traits in it. The Elder Brother is one of those many variations on cedant arma togae which men of letters have always been somewhat prone to overvalue; but the excellent comedy of The Spanish Curate is not impaired by the fact that Dryden chose ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... together. When the pistols were ready he blew out the candle, and, crossing his hands, discharged them at his company; Hands, the master, was shot through the knee and lamed for life, the other pistol did no execution. Being asked the meaning of this, he only answered by damning them, that "if he did not now and then kill one of them, they would forget who ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... in its purity; her womanhood, her motherhood in its degradation! All the holier part of what was once herself; all that was true and noble, womanly and pure, from the deep waters of oblivion to which that damning appetite has consigned them, rise to haunt her now, pale, wan, and spectre-like. Oh! to sit down, side by side with her former self; to see herself as she used to be before the tempter crept into the Eden of her heart; to look despairingly up to the height whence she had ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be precipitate in offering himself, as he wished to find some excuse for breaking off the match; and, above all, he fatally enjoined profound secrecy till the affair was arranged. Here, then, was everything explained. Indeed, before I had read these letters, my mind did not need this damning proof of his ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... before an infant who intimates, after giving you ample time to make your points, that he is not amused. I hoped that when David was able to talk—and not merely to stare at me for five minutes and then say "hat"—his spoken verdict, however damning, would be less expressive than his verdict without words, but I was disillusioned. I remember once in those later years, when he could keep up such spirited conversations with himself that he had little need for any of us, promising him to do something ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... deny. Were those two points allowed the clergy of any country whatsoever, they must necessarily govern that country absolutely; everything being, directly or indirectly, relative to faith or doctrine; and whoever is supposed to have the power of saving and damning souls to all eternity (which power the clergy pretend to), will be much more considered, and better obeyed, than any civil power that forms no pretensions beyond this world. Whereas, in truth, the clergy in every country are, like all other subjects, dependent upon the supreme legislative ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... before. Gregory treated my wife at home, after he saw the damage his office treatments had done. I guess he was capable of making a complete job out of it—covering up his carelessness by getting rid of the woman who was such a damning piece of ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... to think that a specific reference to that all-but-masterpiece, as a picture of earlier fin-de-siecle society, Miss Edgeworth's Belinda, may perhaps be necessary to escape the damning charge of unexplained allusion! ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury |
