"Execrable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passer-by, are draped with cheap lace curtains. The broad expanse of cotton wadding between the double windows is decorated, in middle-class taste, with tufts of dyed grasses, colored paper, and other execrable ornaments. Here, as everywhere else in Moscow, one can never get out of eye-shot of several churches; white with brilliant external frescoes, or the favorite mixture of crushed strawberry and white, all with green roofs and surmounted with domes of ever-varying and original forms and colors, crowned ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... Irish. I also saw some things, which recalled to my mind the observations I had heard at my hotel. I was struck with instances of grand beginnings and lamentable want of finish, with mixture of the magnificent and the paltry; of admirable and execrable taste. Though my understanding was wholly uncultivated, these things struck my eye. Of all the faculties of my mind, my taste had been most exercised, because its exercise had given me ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... shoulder and broke into a cold perspiration at beholding an execrable three-quarters length cut of my darling son superscribed by ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... common little church enough, with a large mortuary chapel, where all the Danvers family reposed; ancient Danvers lying in armor, with their mailed hands joined, beside their wives; more modern Danvers kneeling in bass-relief in colored plaster and execrable taste in recesses. The last generations were there also; some of them anticipating the resurrection and feathered wings, but for the most part still asleep. Charles's mother was there, lying in white marble among her husband's people, with the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... daybreak without having encountered a living creature. Here we knocked up the proprietor of a cabaret, who assured us between yawns that we were going to our doom, and after baiting the grey and dosing ourselves with execrable brandy, pushed forward again. As the sky grew pale about us, I had my ears alert for the sound of artillery. But Paris kept silence. We passed Sceaux, and arrived at length at Montrouge and the barrier. It was open—abandoned—not a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all the excesses and all the aberrations of the human passions; thus it was, in fine, that the national spirit became predisposed to the persecution of the Jews, Mahometans, and Protestants, by means of that execrable ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... senses, he attacked her by sophisms, and at last persuaded her that the union of the sexes is in itself a matter of the most perfect indifference, provided only that decorum of appearance be preserved, and the peace of mind of persons concerned be not disturbed.[42] This execrable lesson, which greater and more unselfish men held and propagated in grave books before the end of the century, took root in her mind. If we accept Rousseau's explanation, it did so the more easily as her temperament was cold, and thus corroborated ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... no necessity for taking this trouble, as they might certainly have done their business without it, since the whole city was so deserted before night, that I believe not a soul remained in it, except those execrable villains, and others of the same stamp. It is possible some of them might have had other motives besides robbing, as one in particular being apprehended—they say he was a Moor, condemned to the galleys—confessed at the gallows that he ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... dramatic situations and touches; but it lacks true unity, and the reason simply is given by Stevenson himself—that the "ending shames, perhaps degrades, the beginning," as it is in the Ebb-Tide, with the cockney Huish, "execrable." "We have great pictures by genius of the—to the prosaic eye—invisible realities, as well as the outward form of the action." True, but the "invisible realities" form that from which true unity is derived, else their partial presence ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... vegetation since we were here last in 1869. We next steamed five miles further on to the town of Suez, and landed opposite the big hotel, which is more uncomfortable than ever. The rooms are dirty, and the cooking execrable. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... such as I have in mind may have all the public and private virtues. One knows the severe probity of Ninon, her generosity, her taste for the arts, her attachment to her friends. Epicharis, the soul of the conspiracy of Piso against the execrable Nero, was a courtesan, and the severe Tacitus, who cannot be taxed with a partiality for gallantry, has borne witness to the constancy with which she resisted the most seductive promises and endured the most terrible tortures, without revealing any of the details of the conspiracy or any ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... holding me by force, that either she might keep me back or go with me, and I feigned that I had a friend whom I could not leave, till he had a fair wind to sail. And I lied to my mother, and such a mother, and escaped: for this also hast Thou mercifully forgiven me, preserving me, thus full of execrable defilements, from the waters of the sea, for the water of Thy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed, the streams of my mother's eyes should be dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground under her face. And yet refusing to return without me, I scarcely persuaded her to stay that night in ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... so elle s'est bromllee avec la justice au pied de la lettre. Nobody doubts of her felony; the only debate in conversation is, whether she can have the benefit of her clergy. Some think she will turn Papist. All expect some untimely death. C'est un execrable personage que celui que (sic) ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... The singing is execrable, being a high, nasal falsetto, and the dancing, or rather swaying on their tiny feet while waving overhead a dirty cloth in their beautifully-shaped hands, is feeble in the extreme. A band of musicians is usually engaged, after protracted haggling, to enliven the proceedings. Two or three native ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... blest, O Lord!" Jean, on the other hand, armed with her "lines," confided her position to the master-mason, her father, and his wife. Burns and his brother were then in a fair way to ruin themselves in their farm; the poet was an execrable match for any well-to-do country lass; and perhaps old Armour had an inkling of a previous attachment on his daughter's part. At least, he was not so much incensed by her slip from virtue as by the marriage which ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who directed or sanctioned the act offered no apology, but maintained its absolute necessity and justice. "That horrible sentence upon the most innocent person in the world; the execution of that sentence by the most execrable murder that was ever committed since that of our blessed Saviour," forms the text which Clarendon gave for the rhapsodies of party during two centuries. On the other hand, the eloquent address of Milton to the people of England has been in the hearts and mouths of many who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... Clarke's manner changed suddenly. Laying down his cigar, he listened with rapt attention, eagerly gazing at her. For, as she sang the last line and tore the hyacinth-blossoms from her hair, there crept into her voice a strangely poignant, pathetic little thrill, that redeemed the execrable faultiness of her singing, and brought the rude audience ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... the first Moment that ever Arimazes was happy. He had it now in his Power to ruin the most virtuous and innocent of Men. Big with his execrable Joy, he flew to his Majesty with this virulent Satyr of Zadig's under his own Hand. Not only Zadig, but his two Friends and the Lady were immediately close confin'd. His Cause was soon over; for the Judges turn'd a deaf Ear to what he had to say. When ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... the same fixed smile of childish expectancy on her oval, painted face. Her dress had left vulgarity behind. It was too much a part of herself—in its way too genuine—to be merely laughable. It was like her execrable dancing, the expression of an exuberant, inexhaustible life. As she walked, with short impatient steps, she swayed the great ostrich-feather fan and twisted her rope of pearls between her slender fingers. The open stare that greeted her seemed ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... a more cruel thing supervened. The sight of Caroline's lifeless form, instead of pity or remorse, roused all the innate furies that belonged to the execrable race of La Corriveau. The blood of generations of poisoners and assassins boiled and rioted in her veins. The spirits of Beatrice Spara and of La Voisin inspired her with new fury. She was at this moment like a pantheress that has brought down her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... we moved was a rough and bad one, and the ford at which we crossed, execrable, making it a tedious affair. A demonstration was made, on the same day, from Carthage, but too late to interfere with our retreat. Morgan's division, during these operations, on account of heavy detachments having been made ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... you slash or when you plaster; when you slash, it is better in general to conclude with: 'After what we have said, it is unnecessary to add that we cannot offend the taste of our readers by any quotation from this execrable trash.' And when you plaster, you may wind up with: 'We regret that our limits will not allow us to give any extracts from this wonderful and unrivalled work. We must refer our readers to the ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from their open doorways there came a pungent odor of beer. Every place had instrumental music of some kind. Mandolins and guitars, in the hands of gentlemen of color, were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with defective complexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville performance was going on within—an invisible dialect comedian doing a German ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... trousers, light-colored stockings, cambric frills, were all here displayed; while upon shirt-fronts, wristbands, and neckties, upon every finger, even upon the very ears, they wore an assortment of rings, shirt-pins, brooches, and trinkets, of which the value only equaled the execrable taste. Women, children, and servants, in equally expensive dress, surrounded their husbands, fathers, or masters, who resembled the patriarchs of tribes in the midst of their ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... dumpling. She values her receipts, not because they secure to her a certain flavour, but because they remind her that her neighbours want it—a feeling laughable in a priestess, shameful in a priest; venial when it withholds the blessings of a ham, tyrannical and execrable when it narrows the ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... Now I will go and prepare his coffee." With a curtsey, after the fashion of Worms gentility, she withdrew. But an under-servant brought me my coffee; and with her I could not exchange a word: she spoke in such an execrable patois. I went to bed early, weary, and depressed. I must have fallen asleep immediately, for I never heard any one come to arrange my bed-side table; yet in the morning I found that every usual want or wish of mine had ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... the list was submitted to him for final approval, substituted, in lieu of the name of Professor Wallot, that of his favorite portrait painter, Madame Palma Parlaghy, whose work is, in the eyes of Germany's leading artists, so execrable that the hanging committee of the Berlin Academy have repeatedly refused to accord places to any of ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... He looked up at the moon, and took it into his confidence to reproach it. "'Twas your white face beglamored me," he told it aloud. "See, how execrable a beginning I've made, and, therefore, how excellent!" And he laughed, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... execrable taste in dress and he knew it. Consequently he enjoyed presenting neckties to his friends. His biographer, Slason Thompson, who worked in the same newspaper office, separated only by a low thin partition, relates that ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... opinion it seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated. The decree of the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked, abominable, and even diabolical, and curses and anathematizes them ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... ten thousand a year: And having daily deserved the gibbet for what he did, Was at last condemned for what he could not do. Oh! indignant reader! Think not his life useless to mankind! Providence connived at his execrable designs, To give to after ages A conspicuous proof and example Of how small estimation is exorbitant wealth In the sight of God, By his bestowing it on the most ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... of her history, was a mere den of execrable thieves, whose feelings were systematically brutalized by the most revolting spectacles, that they might have none of those sympathies with suffering humanity, none of those 'compunctious visitings of conscience', which might be found prejudicial to the interests of the gang, and beneficial ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... question. The prince did not recollect that licentiousness of sentiment and manners takes so much the stronger hold among persons of this rank, inasmuch as they for that reason feel one curb less; and this was the case with the Bucentauro, most of whose members, through an execrable philosophy, and manners worthy of such a guide, were not only a disgrace to their own rank, but even to human nature itself. The society had its secret degrees; and I will believe, for the credit of the prince, that they never thought him worthy of admission into the inmost sanctuary. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... very many others from the list of Canonical Books? Thus whatever does not come out from their shop, by a mad decree, is liable to be, spat upon by all as a rude and barbarous composition. They who have stooped to this dire and execrable way of saving themselves surely are beaten, overthrown, and flung rolling in the dust, for all their fine praises that are in the mouths of their admirers, for all their traffic in priesthoods, for all their bawling in pulpits, for all their sentencing ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... a little longer in the ranks than the four months of his actual service. As it was, however, his military experiences, unlike those of Gibbon, were of no subsequent advantage to him. He was, as he tells us, an execrable rider, a negligent groom of his horse, and, generally, a slack and slovenly trooper; but before drill and discipline had had time to make a smart soldier of him, he chanced to attract the attention of his captain by having written a Latin quotation on the white ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... written in the execrable English Zulannah had picked up in her few years of cosmopolitan intercourse with different nationalities; it was in vile hand-writing and was as despicable a method of revenge as an anonymous letter ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... law in the brain no less than elsewhere, and which may be distinguished in reflection into a technical and a social conservatism. Technical conservatism appears, for instance, in a man's handwriting, which is so seldom improved, even when admitted, perhaps, to be execrable. Every artist has his tricks of execution, every school its hereditary, irrational processes. These refractory habits are to blame for the rare and inimitable quality of genius; they impose excellence ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... around inspecting and find it out. My judgment was right; it is always right, when you axe concerned. For fifteen years, in spite of my prayers and tears, you persistently kept a gas lamp exactly half way between my gates, so that I couldn't find either of them after dark; and then furnished such execrable gas that I had to hang a danger signal on the lamp post to keep teams from running into it, nights. Now I suppose your present idea is, to leave us a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... burst out laughing. "Hark to the bantam!" he exclaimed in French—execrable French, but a proof that he was no newcomer in the Legion. "If you weren't a newspaper spy, my chicken, I'd let you off for your cheek. But we have heard all about you. Lieutenant de la Tour of the Spahis knows. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... he. "Not merely for their escaping all care, and being able to extract enjoyment out of their execrable drink and pipes, but from their being exempt from all contact ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... be anathema together with that Adamantius who set forth these opinions together with his nefarious and execrable doctrine, and whoever there is who thinks thus or defends these opinions, or in any way hereafter at any time shall ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... that is very certain, monsieur; I should think not, indeed; his accent is execrable;" and the good woman lifted her hands ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... corner-stone of the rebel pretension and the constant assumption of the partisans of slavery, or of its lukewarm opponents. Let this idea be trampled out and there will be no sympathy with the rebellion, and there will be no such abomination as slave-hunting, which is beyond question the most execrable feature ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... an impious and execrable maxim that, politically speaking, the people has a right to do whatever it pleases; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I then in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... explained, by the help of my handkerchief displayed, how it was driven forward by the wind. That upon a quarrel among us, I was set on shore on this coast, where I walked forward, without knowing whither, till he delivered me from the persecution of those execrable Yahoos." He asked me, "who made the ship, and how it was possible that the Houyhnhnms of my country would leave it to the management of brutes?" My answer was, "that I durst proceed no further in my relation, unless he would give ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... under the broad verandah of which I stood in full view, watching his approach. As he came within speaking distance he slightly raised his broad-brimmed pugaree-bound Panama hat, for a moment, exclaiming, in execrable Spanish: ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... clergyman, because in his sermon he had said nothing at all of politics. "I charged him to his face," says La Fayette, "with preaching only about Heaven!... But next Sunday," continues the keen young officer, "I heard him again, when his loud invectives against 'the execrable House of Hanover,' showed that he was ready and willing to take ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... make." The Countess rose. "For your sake, Madame, because you have always been kind to me, and because it is impossible not to love you, I have degraded myself. I have pretended to love a man who saw through the artifice and told me so, to save me further shame. O Madame, it is all execrable! ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... justice to the scene which Moses depicts in one word: "Cain rose up against his brother?" Many descriptions of cruelty are to be found on every hand, but could any be painted as more atrocious and execrable than is the case here? "He rose up against his brother," Moses writes. It is as if he had said, Cain rose up against Abel, the only brother he had, with whom he had been brought up and with whom he had lived to that day. But not only the relationship Cain utterly forgot; he forgot ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... that Sarsfield accompanied James. The battle of the Boyne had scarcely been fought when it was made the subject of a drama, the Royal Flight, or the Conquest of Ireland, a Farce, 1690. Nothing more execrable was ever written. But it deserves to be remarked that, in this wretched piece, though the Irish generally are represented as poltroons, an exception is made in favour of Sarsfield. "This fellow," says James, aside, "I will make me valiant, I think, in spite of my teeth." "Curse of my ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to spell Manorbier or recognise it as the birthplace of Gerald of Wales. He remembered his youth, when he translated the bards, with complacent melancholy. He sunned himself in the admiration of his inferiors, talking at great length on subjects with which he was acquainted and repeating his own execrable verse translations. "Nice man"—"civil man"—"clever man . . . has been everywhere," the people said. In the South, too, he had the supreme good fortune to meet Captain Bosvile for the first time for thirty years, and not being recognised, said, "I am the chap what certain folks calls ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... remonstrated with firmness, declared that no deeds so execrable had ever been committed within his memory, and demanded that Menendez and his followers should be chastised as they deserved. The King said that he was sorry that the sufferers chanced to be Frenchmen, but, as they were pirates also, they ought to be treated ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... vnder a fained pro- fer of amite, profered to seeke their owne profite, commoditee and wealthe, though it be with ruine, calamitie, miserie, de- struccion of one, or many, toune, or cite, region and countree, whiche sort of men, are moste detestable and execrable. ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... ascent of the mountains Tuesday morning the 19th, in a cold, driving rain-storm from the north-west. The road, if a wretched foot-path ten inches wide can be said in any metaphorical sense to be a road, was simply execrable. It followed the track of a swollen mountain torrent, which had its rise in the melting snows of the summit, and tumbled in roaring cascades down a narrow, dark, precipitous ravine. The path ran along the edge of this stream, first ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... my trunk contained only clothing and three or four books. Small business this for a Railroad, though it will do in stage transportation. Our passports were scrutinized—mine not very thoroughly—we (the green ones) obtained an execrable dinner for 37 1/2 cents, and changed some sovereigns for French silver at a shave which was not atrocious. Finally, we ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... young couple partook of a slight refreshment of sherry and water—the former the Captain pronounced to be execrable; and, having myself tasted some glasses from the VERY SAME BOTTLE with which the young and noble pair were served, I must say I think the Captain was rather hard upon mine host of the 'Bagpipes Hotel and Posting-House,' whence they instantly ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... excellent prince was forced to submit to before that odious judicatory, his majestic behaviour, the pronouncing that horrible sentence upon the most innocent person in the world, the execution of that sentence by the most execrable murder ever committed since that of our blessed Saviour, and the circumstances thereof, are all so well-known that the farther mentioning it would but afflict and grieve the reader, and make the relation itself odious; and therefore no more shall be said here of that lamentable tragedy, so ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... bolde, hartie, visible, Ide wrastle with him for a deadly fall, Or I would loose my guerdon promised. Ide hang my brother for to wear his coate, That all that saw me might have cause to say, There is a hart more firme then Adamant, To practise execrable butcheries. ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... an acceptable cry for the Anglois, and followed immediately by "un pauvre petit liard, s'il vous plait, Mons." We went to the play last night; the house was filthy beyond description, and the company execrable as far as dress went; few women, and those in their morning dress and Oldenburg Bonnets—the men almost all officers, and a horrid-looking set they were. I would give them credit for military talents; they all looked like ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a colonel who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village was wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music of which was execrable. ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... laborers reported seeing Esteban and some negroes riding into the wood. The overseer took horse within the hour and rode pell-mell to Matanzas. In the city at this time was a certain Colonel Cobo, in command of Spanish Volunteers, those execrable convict troops from the Isle of Pines whose atrocities had already marked them as wolves rather than men, and to him Pancho went ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... must be done. The regimen I am adopting is precisely that in vogue on the Ark, only I didn't have the help I have now, and things got into very bad shape. We were out forty days, and, while the food was poor and the service execrable, ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... company present, thus spoke, 'How shall I enough praise and admire the gentle Mignon for having put in my power to justice on this execrable wretch, and freeing you all from an insufferable slavery, and the whole country from their terror?' Then reaching the monster's own sword, which hung over his couch, his hand yet suspended over the impious tyrant, he thus said, 'Speak, wretch, if yet the power of speech is left thee; and ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... it—I seemed to be dying. I implored Laurent to tell the secretary that I thanked the tribunal for its mercy, but begged it in Heaven's name to leave me where I was. Laurent told me, with a burst of laughter, that I was mad, that my present cell was execrable, and that I was to be transferred ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... heard that even prosperity will cloy when it comes in overdoses; and a schoolboy has been known to be overdone with jam. I myself have always been peculiarly attached to ladies' society, and have avoided bachelor parties as things execrable in their very nature. But on this special occasion I felt myself to be that schoolboy;—I was literally overdone with jam. My tea was all sugar, so that I could not drink it. I was one among twelve. What could I ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... his eighty-three years well, like an old drunkard saturated with liquor, whom the alcohol seemed to preserve. At Plassans he had left a terrible reputation as a do-nothing and a scoundrel, and the old men whispered the execrable story of the corpses that lay between him and the Rougons, an act of treachery in the troublous days of December, 1851, an ambuscade in which he had left comrades with their bellies ripped open, lying on the bloody pavement. Later, when he had returned to France, he had preferred ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... figure which thou must have made, clinging for dear life behind the old fellow's back—thy jaws chattering with fear, thy muscles cramped with anxiety. Thy execrable supper of broiled salmon, which was enough to ensure the nightmare's regular visits for a twelvemonth, may be termed a real affliction; but as for the storm of Thursday last (such, I observe, was the date), it roared, whistled, howled, and bellowed, as fearfully amongst the old chimney-heads ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... neighbor. Been roped in, too?" Inside Information splayed out his legs, and, with a very blase air, put his thumbs in the armholes of his execrable vest. He owned a rangy frame and a loose mouth. He was showing the sights of Gotham to a friend, and was proud of his knowledge. But he secretly feared New York because he ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... for the last time from London; and, what is still more, from St. Catherine's, one of the most execrable holes in all this great city, where I am obliged to stay, because the great ships arrive in the Thames here, and go from hence, and we shall sail as soon as the wind changes. This it has just now done, yet still it seems we shall not sail till to-morrow. To-day therefore ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... again, had been rapidly recounted, what nearly every individual member of every audience in attendance at this Reading was eagerly on the watch for all along, at last, in the fullness of time, arrived,—the execrable Squeers receiving, instead of administering, a frightful beating, in the presence of the whole school; having carefully provided himself beforehand, as all were rejoiced to remember, with "a fearful instrument of flagellation, strong, supple, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people upon whom he obtruded ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... with the regent, when a convenient opportunity offered itself: He first lay in wait for him at Glasgow, and then at Stirling, but both failed him; after which, he thought Linlithgow the most proper place for perpetrating that execrable deed; his uncle had a house near the regent's, in which he concealed himself, that he might be in readiness for the assassination. Of this design the regent got intelligence likewise, but paid not that regard to the danger he was exposed to, which he should; and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... condemned, apparently for his very particular attentions to the Princess Julia. His exile was a piece of ingenious cruelty. He was sent to Tomi, which was far beyond the range of all fashionable bathing-places. The climate was atrocious; the neighbourhood was worse; the wine was execrable and was often hard frozen, and eaten like a lozenge, and his only society was that of the barracks, or a few rich but unpolished corn-factors, who speculated in grain and deals on the shores of the Euxine. To write verses from ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... Subjects; and would they be watchful to entail the Harmony and due Subordination betwixt the several Orders in their Government. Whereas for several Centuries past, they have been labouring to erect an Arbitrary Power; and the two last have taken large Steps towards this execrable End. ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... religion, re-establish Popery, subvert laws, liberties, peace, parliaments—by kindling a civil war in Scotland and all his Majesty's realms; and to poison the King himself, in case he comply not with them in these their execrable designs." ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... too. He was "freezing" to induce the quarry to move and give himself away, because, since the vole was motionless, he had no idea where the little fellow was, although he seemed to be looking straight at him—in that execrable way snakes have of seeming to look straight ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... prospect of pleasure or advantage: why she should endeavour to destroy him by a lie—a lie which could not gain credit, but must vanish of itself at the first moment of examination, and of which only this can be said to make it probable, that it may be observed from her conduct, that the most execrable crimes are ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... his joy that the calamity was not greater. The Spanish priests, who had so often blessed this holy crusade and foretold its infallible success, were somewhat at a loss to account for the victory gained over the Catholic monarch by excommunicated heretics and an execrable usurper: but they at last discovered, that all the calamities of the Spaniards had proceeded from their allowing the infidel Moors ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... against the assassin was execrable—a crime against the memory of the great man whom it professed to avenge. It was decreed that the right hand of Gerard should be burned off with a red-hot iron, that his flesh should be torn from his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... duke, "this is more of Father le Doux's work, that execrable Benedictine! At least I know a treatment which ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... with hot water and tasted it. It shut us up at once to believe the waiter a Calmuck or a Portuguese—anything, in short, but an Irishman. It is an extraordinary fact that, so far, the whisky I have found at Irish hotels has been uniformly quite execrable. I am almost tempted to think that the priests sequestrate all the good whisky in order to discourage the public abuse of it, for the "wine of the country" which they offer one ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... a benignant smile which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that timid and colorless lady embroidered strange tea cloths with stranger flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... hours to live, but, I thank Heaven, I am not in any pain. A man who dies in agony cannot examine himself—cannot survey the past with calmness, or feel convinced of the greatness of his offences. I thank God for that; but, Jack, although I have committed many a foul and execrable murder, for which I am full of remorse—although I feel how detestable has been my life—I tell you candidly, that, although those crimes may appear to others more heavy than the simple one of theft, to me the one that lies most heavy ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... learned about women the farther out of mental reach they seemed to go. Why on earth did she want this execrable daub? "You may have it; but all the same, I'm going to call an oculist and have ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... the tabard spoke louder than the others, and although, from the execrable endeavors he made to express himself in French, his natural voice was much altered, there was yet something in his accents which ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I then, in ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... fast, With horrid strides, Hell trembled as he strode. Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admir'd, Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his Son except, Created thing naught vallu'd he nor shun'd; And with disdainful look thus first began. 680 Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated Front athwart my way To yonder Gates? through them I mean to pass, That be assur'd, without leave askt of thee: Retire, or taste thy folly, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... in journalism, and to show that women have failed in the treatment of them to reach even a moderate standard of competence. Look, for another instance, at the reports of weddings and society entertainments, all done after one execrable model, dull and perfunctory. ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... himself to make enquiries concerning the charges of "unspeakable apostasy against God, detestable idolatry, execrable vice, and many heresies" that had been "secretly intimated" to him. But, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... recorded their opinion that the paper was contrived and adhered to for advancing some private interest against the unity and peace of the Church, and rather unfairly insinuated that Mr Spence was the more hardened therein by the late execrable murder of the Bishop of St. Andrews and the expectation of a Revolution to follow thereupon, and unanimously resolved that this unruly and unreasonable member be deposed. Mr Spence was quite prepared for this, and, "with some ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... conveniences of travelling, even between our main cities, were few, and the roads execrable. The party, therefore, travelled in Virginia style, on horseback, attended by their black servants in livery. [Footnote: We have hitherto treated of Washington in his campaigns in the wilderness, frugal and scanty in his equipments, often, very probably, in little better than hunter's garb. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... badness of the orchestra, as it is conducted by Mr. STOEPEL. Tell me, gentle DALY, tell; why in the name of all that is intelligent, do you let STOEPEL transform each entr' acte at your theatre into a prolonged purgatory, by the villainous way in which he plays the most execrable music, for the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... man tries to escape from a house surrounded by soldiers; he is shot at and killed. At Entrains, eighty prisoners are taken; one of them escapes by the river, he is fired at, struck by a ball, and disappears under the water; the rest are shot. To these execrable deeds, add these infamous ones: at Brioude, in Haute-Loire, a man and woman thrown into prison for having ploughed the field of one of the proscribed; at Loriol, in the Drome, Astier, a forest-keeper, condemned to twenty years' ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... language common to both, he will not flagitiously and foolishly advert to ancient animosities, nor with rash hand attempt to hurl the brand of discord between the nations." In the same connection he attacks Gallic philosophy and the equality of man, the latter of which he styles an "execrable delusion of hair-brained philosophy." Others might speak of "the Republic of letters;" with Dennie it was the Monarchy of letters. Several articles ran through the Port Folio of 1801 on the sentiment and style of the Declaration ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... gone," said one of them, "this imbecile king, this perjured monarch. She is gone, this wretched queen, who, to the lasciviousness of Messalina, unites the insatiable thirst of blood that devoured Medea. Execrable woman, evil genius of France, thou wast the leader, the soul of this conspiracy." The people repeating these words, circulated from street to street these odious accusations, which fomented their ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of the government, and burn the houses of the cardinals. A proclamation from Louis XVIII. to all his subjects, dated Verona. The chiefs of the royalist army solicit succours from the British government. Aug. 1. Motion by La Riviere "to pursue with national "justice all execrable terrorists". Comartin, Jarry, Boisgontier, and eight chiefs of the Chouans, contrary to the faith of the treaty, are seized and brought up to Paris. 2. The convention ratifies the peace with Spain. The laws of divorce suspended. All the departments ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... absurd. Incidentally he wrote some incomprehensible poems and a few pages of harmonious prose, for, you must know, "a magician is nothing else but a great harmonist." Here are some eight lines of the magnificent Invocation. Let me, however, warn you, strictly between ourselves, that my translation is execrable. I am sorry to say I ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... resemble a long neck without a head; others are indented step-fashion, like the houses children build with blocks; others look like conical pavilions; others like country churches; others, again, like puppet-shows. These gables are generally outlined with white lines and ornamented in execrable taste; many have coarse arabesques painted in relief on plaster. The windows, and the doors too, are bordered with broad white lines; there are other white lines between the different stories of the houses; the spaces between the house-and shop-doors are filled in ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... November, but when that date approached, it was prorogued again to the 1st of February. 'Our misery has reached such a climax,' wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is enough to drive us mad. Every faculty of the soul revolts against the ferocious reactionary movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable hypocrisy. We are governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is that respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is constantly employed to asperse honest men. The ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... one another; all filthy and impure embraces, together with all drunkenness, youthful lusts, abominable concupiscences, detestable adultery, and execrable pride. ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... burned down his castle and laid waste his estates. The Parliament of Paris, composed of zealous Catholics, had declared him guilty of high treason, and offered fifty thousand crowns to whoever would deliver him up, dead or alive. The Pope declared to all Europe that he was a "detestable, infamous, execrable man, if, indeed, he even merited the name of man." His army was defeated, his friends cut to pieces, and he himself was grievously wounded, and was lying upon a couch in great anguish. Under these circumstances, thirteen days after ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... liberties and its internal peace. We cannot forget how Lord Howard of Effingham, aided also by the weather, defeated the armada that boasted itself "invincible," sent to strangle freedom in its chosen home by the most execrable and ruthless tyrant that Europe has ever seen, a tyrant whose victory would have meant not simply the usurpation of the English crown but the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition at Westminster Hall. Nor can we forget with what longing eyes the Corsican barbarian who wielded ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... when his eyes rested only on the camp-followers, the baggage trains, the mobs of cattle, the maimed and unfit men; when the fine show of the fighters was out of sight. Plainly if a curse of any real value was to be pronounced it must be by a prophet who saw much that was execrable, little that was ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... be conceded in favour of printers that some authors do write an execrable hand. One sometimes receives a letter which requires about three readings before it can be understood. At the first time of reading the meaning is scarcely intelligible, at the second time some faint glimpse of the writer's object in writing is obtained, and at the third time the ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... and finding it all so fair, it seems hard to believe that the foundation of all its wealth and prosperity rested upon the most cruel, the most execrable, the most inhuman traffic that ever was plied by degraded men—the traffic in slaves. Yet in the old days the trade was far from being held either cruel inhuman—indeed, vessels often set sail for the Bight of Benin to swap rum for slaves, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... (so far) I am not an assassin. Probably it was for love of Sir Walter Scott, and his mention of this truculent treatise, that I purchased it. The full title of it is "The Triumphs of God's Revenge against the Crying and Execrable Sinne of (willful and premeditated) Murther." Or rather there is nearly a column more of title, which I spare you. But the pictures are so bad as to be nearly worth the price. Do not waste your money, ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... he had caught up from a table. "I will run him through the body like that"—Aristide had never handled a foil in his life—"and when he is dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from such an execrable fellow." ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... he had to answer without knowing what they signified. He realized, with a sense of shock, that he was deprived of all interests in life but one; not even his work had any meaning apart from HER. It lit no fire within him to hear Mrs. Ercott praise certain execrable pictures in the Royal Academy, which she had religiously visited the day before leaving home. And as the interminable meal wore on, he began even to feel grief and wonder that Olive could be so smiling, so gay, and calm; so, as it seemed to him, indifferent to this intolerable impossibility ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the "Bugle" was, in fact, execrable; but Mrs. Cat, who served it to the two soldiers, made it so agreeable to them, that they found it a passable, even a pleasant task, to swallow the contents of a second bottle. The miracle had been wrought instantaneously ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... episode, epistolary, epitome, equestrian, equilibrium, equinoctial, equity, equivocate, eradicate, erosion, erotic, erudition, eruptive, eschew, esoteric, espousal, estrange, ethereal, eulogistic, euphonious, evanescent, evangelical, evict, exacerbate, excerpt, excommunicate, excoriate, excruciate, execrable, exegesis, exemplary, exhalation, exhilarate, exigency, exodus, exonerate, exorbitant, exotic, expectorate, expeditious, explicable, explicit, expunge, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... are watched and guarded!" said the footsteps at every moment of every hour. All these small things together produce a prodigious effect upon the minds of honest folk. David saw that the bed was execrable, but the first night in a prison is full of violent agitation, and only on the second night does the prisoner notice that his couch is hard. The jailer was graciously disposed; he naturally suggested that his prisoner should walk in the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... turned away, And all among themselves began to say: "Detested creature! he pollutes the earth and air!" "His eyes are blear!" "His ears are foul!" "His ribs are bare!" "In his torn hide there's not a decent shoestring left, No doubt the execrable cur was hung for theft." Then Jesus spake, and dropped on him the saving wreath: "Even pearls are dark before the whiteness ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... who had once belonged to these lovefeasts, should tell a deliberate falsehood that the Christians perpetrated these abominable vices, and that other persons in France, who had also been connected with these feasts, should falsely state that the Christians were guilty of the very same execrable crimes? There was no collusion or connection whatever between these parties, and in making their statements, they could have no self-interested motive. They lived in different countries, they did not make their statements within twenty years of the same time, and by making ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... end of their struggles. The swamp, the river, the alligator, the man-hunter, and worse than all, the blood-hound, had been met and successfully overcome or evaded; and after three long weeks of travel from the execrable and inhuman people, who had held them as prisoners of war, and treated them worse than dogs, they now found themselves within twenty ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... eighty wells. The water was full of salts. It was bad as water; it was execrable as tea. Many of the wells on the Baghdad-Samarra Railway have these natural salts. Every one who left Sumaikchah next morning was suffering from diarrhoea. Here again one remembers the Anabasis and the troublesome experience which the notes I read at school ascribed ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... Hound! Execrable monster!—Back with him, oh thou infinite spirit! back with the reptile into his dog's shape, in which it was his wont to scamper before me at eventide, to roll before the feet of the harmless wanderer, and to fasten on his shoulders when he fell! Change him again into his favourite shape, that ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... legislator of France for a day, I would make such great lords skip again!' 'Why,' he asked, 'were the people miserable in lower Savoy?' 'Because', was the reply, 'there are seigneurs everywhere'.[42] Misery in Brittany was due 'to the execrable maxims of despotism or the equally detestable prejudices of a feudal nobility.'[43] There was nothing, he said, in the province but 'privileges and poverty,'[44] privileges of the nobles ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... you Gods! By heaven, I would rather Embrue my arms, up to my very shoulders, In the dear entrails of the best of fathers, Than offer at the execrable act Of damned incest: therefore no more ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... whose execrable way Was darkly shadow'd out in Milton's lay, When the sad fiends thro' Hell's sulphureous roads Took the first survey of their new abodes; 10 Or when the fall'n Archangel fierce Dar'd through the realms of Night to pierce, What time the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... The greater part of the music had been performed at concerts of the Oratorio Society on January 4 and 5, 1895. The book of the opera proved to be undramatic in the extreme, a defect which was emphasized by the execrable pronunciation of nearly all the singers at the performance on the stage at the Academy. In the music Mr. Damrosch essayed the style of Wagner, and did it so well, indeed, as to deserve hearty admiration. He was helped, it is true, by factors ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... children, thy innocent children! Did not their wisdom, their modesty, their obedience, their submission to thy will in all things, their virtue; did not these all plead in their behalf—Blind and insensible father! dost thou deserve to live after the execrable crime which thou hast committed? I have brought this abomination on my own head, and Heaven chastises me for not persevering in the aversion to women with which I was born. And, oh ye detestable wives! I will not—no, I will not, as ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... Tripoliza, and are exported in moderate quantities to Russia. Algeria, too, is turning its attention to the production of sparkling wines, but solely for home consumption, and at the Paris Exhibition there was a sparkling wine from Uruguay, but of execrable quality. ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... of Owyn Glyndowr's rebellion, the Monk, speaking of it as "an execrable revolt," says that the Welsh elected Owyn against the principles of peace [contra pacem elegerunt]. The MS. says that the Welsh elected a respectable and venerable gentleman to ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... the most glorious offspring of his hands and the detestably grotesque figures which he happened to put together now and then. At one Salon he exhibited a Sower, admirable in every way, while at another he showed an execrable Reaping Woman, so bad that it seemed like a hoax; but he was no less pleased with the later work, feeling sure that he had turned ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... to Kasvin, halfway to Tehran, over the execrable road which leads from Resht. For the first forty miles the landscape was lovely from wooded slopes, green growth and clear running water. The post-houses are just as they were—ill-provided, and affording the very smallest degree of comfort that it is ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... even for a man so penetrating as De Witt to foresee to what depths of wickedness and infamy this execrable administration would descend. Yet, many signs of the great woe which was coming on Europe, the visit of the Duchess of Orleans to her brother, the unexplained mission of Buckingham to Paris, the sudden occupation of Lorraine by the French, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stemming the execrable concert, but it was overwhelmed. Wilfrid pressed forward to her. They could hear nothing but the din. The booth raged like an insurgent menagerie. Outside it sounded of brazen beasts, and beasts that whistled, beasts that boomed. A whirlwind huddled them, and at last a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... the sources of such pleasure as he may derive from literature or the fine arts? In short, civilization is little else than getting something for nothing. Like other vested interests, it is "the legitimate right to something for nothing".[32] How much execrable reasoning and how many stupid accusations would fall away if this truth were accepted as a basis of discussion! Of course there is no more flagrant example of a systematic endeavor to get something for nothing than the present business system based ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... surprise his wife. Full of joy and confidence, if he thought of giving her a surprise it was an agreeable one. His kindness and tenderness, and his joyous, peaceable air would have softened the most savage hearts. The Chevalier de la Merlus, and the whole execrable brood of Lespoisse saw therein nothing but an additional facility for taking his life, and possessing themselves of his wealth, still further increased ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... had several wives. They were as unfeeling as brutes. If a wife displeased her lord and master, he would mercilessly cut off her nose; and with apparently as little concern as a dog-fancier trims the ears of a terrier. United with these execrable traits of character, there were others, to which we have already alluded, which were alluring. In the summer, the men often went without any clothing, except ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... as an appendage in place of a prefix.) The aforesaid Rali Bey was far the best specimen of a Turkish military doctor whom I ever met. As a rule, they are not an attractive set. Almost invariably Constantinopolitans, they jabber execrable French fluently enough, and affect European manners in a way which is truly disgusting: add to this a natural disregard of cleanliness, and an obtrusive familiarity, and nothing more is wanted to complete the picture. Of their professional ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... himself as a poet, approved of the sentiment; Dr. Steingass, who wrote execrable verses in English which neither rhymed nor scanned, though they were intended to do both, was no less satisfied; Mr. Ashbee, who looked at matters solely from a bibliographical point of view, dissented; ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... was a character in his way. He had the greatest longing to be thought a poet, put execrable couplets together sometimes, and always talked as fine as he could; and his mixture of sentimentality, with a large stock of blackguardism, produced a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... to pay!" he went on in his execrable accent. "Louis came on posthaste, as you know, and he hasn't turned up this morning yet. Ah, I always knew Tom was close, but I never dreamed you knew anything. When I used to see sitting near the door in his office writing in those sacre books I thought you were ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... Gwen to herself, "she's not going to have it sent to her execrable son. Yes, dear, what is it ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... weather—despite the three weeks of unfailing sunshine, Mrs Sudberry maintained her original opinion, that, notwithstanding appearances being against her, the weather in the Highlands of Scotland was, as a rule, execrable. As if to justify this opinion, the weather suddenly changed, and the three weeks of sunshine were followed by six ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... sacrifice was necessary for the public weal. Messieurs, I do not accept that theory. To kill, without the necessity demonstrated a score of times of legitimate defence, to kill women, children, prisoners, unarmed men, was a crime,—a crime, look at it how you will, that was execrable; those who ordered it, those who consented to it, those who executed it are, to my mind, deserving ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... system of education is so excellent, that every person is learned—more or less acquainted with Greek and Latin. There is one thing, however, connected with them, which is a great drawback—the horrid jargon which they speak. However learned they may be in Greek and Latin, their English is execrable; and yet I'm told it is not so bad as it was. I was in company the other day with an Englishman who has resided here many years. We were talking about the country and its people. 'I should like both ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... jackass, nor with constitutions that give the ballot to the representatives, and withhold the suffrage from the people; neither have I much faith in that enthusiasm for the beaux arts, which shows its produce in execrable music, detestable pictures, abominable sculpture, and a droll something that I believe the French call POETRY. Dancing and cookery,—these are the arts the French excel in, I grant it; and excellent things they are; but oh, England! oh, Germany! you need ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of the hostile party: in any case they were now dependent on charity; the Corsican revolt against the Convention was virtually successful, and it was said that in the island the name of Buonaparte was considered as little less execrable than that of Buttafuoco. What must he do to get a decisive share in the surging, rolling tumult about him? The visionary boy was transformed into the practical man. Frenchmen were fighting and winning glory everywhere, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... desk when the colonel went in. He wrote his name on the book, and was served with an execrable dinner. He paid his bill of half a dollar to the taciturn proprietor, and sat down on the shady porch to smoke a cigar. The proprietor, having put the money in his pocket, came out and stepped into his buggy, which was still standing alongside ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... market and where MEN should be bought & sold he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold: execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... was the exact opposite of this, the vocal score erroneously following the affected and abrupt transitions and rapid scaling of the instrumentalists. "What is more nonsensical," I cried, leaping from my chair, running to the piano, and opening it quickly, "what is more nonsensical than such an execrable style as this, which, far from being music, is much more like the noise of peas rolling across the floor?" At the same time I sang several of the modern fermatas, which rush up and down and hum like a well-spun peg-top, striking a few villanous ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... who had broken all laws, who had violated all trusts, who had led the armies of the Commonwealth against Antony, and then joined with him and that sottish traitor Lepidus, to set up a triumvirate more execrable by far than either of the former; who shed the best blood in Rome by an inhuman proscription, murdered even his own guardian, murdered Cicero, to whose confidence, too improvidently given, he owed all his power? Was this the master ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... meads of Enna!' exclaimed the terrified Proserpine, 'shall I never view you again? What an execrable climate!' ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... the people derived from this execrable amusement, induced the candidates for office to gratify, them frequently with this spectacle. The exhibitions were no longer confined to funerals; they formed an integrant part of every election, and were found more powerful than merit in opening a way to office. The utter ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... causes of the rebellion were not to be laid at the door of England at all. They were these, 'the great affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with all other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they persuade themselves that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on Sunday or holyday, they think all the week after they may do what heinous offence ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... day of July, 1776, the draft of a Declaration of Independence was reported to Congress by the committee, and in it the slave trade was characterized as "an execrable commerce," as "a piratical warfare," as the "opprobrium of infidel powers," and as "a cruel war against human nature." [Applause.] All agreed on this except South Carolina and Georgia, and in order to preserve harmony, and from the necessity of the case, these expressions ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Lords was not lively, and the Duke, they say, made a most execrable speech. The fact is that he is not up to a great speech on a great question; he wants the information and preparation, the discipline of mind, that is necessary, and accordingly he exposes himself dreadfully, and entirely lost all the advantages he had gained by the excellent ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... of the finest houses in Arlington Street, a gentleman paced restlessly to and fro, stopping before one of the windows every now and then, to look, with a fretful glance, at the dull sky. "What weather!" he muttered: "what execrable weather!" ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to depreciate his own verses as compared with Lewis', some of which he recited to Ballantyne, in 1799, speaking of their author, says Lockhart, "with rapture." But however fine an ear for rhythm Lewis may have had, his verse is for the most part execrable; and his jaunty, jiggling anapaests and pragmatic manner are ludicrously out of keeping with the horrors of his tale, increasing the air of bathos ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... lady is usually prodigiously careful of her little self: she regards men as her natural enemies. Poor innocent!—This absurdity is the fault of her education. They have made her believe that love is the most abominable, execrable, infernal thing in existence. They have taught her to lie and to dissimulate her most innocent emotions. But the time is not far distant when the natural impulses of her heart will break down the barriers that hypocrisy has placed around her. Woman was formed to love: she must obey ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... church with a large prayer-book; a youth in a cloak was hidden in a niche watching this young woman. The picture was pretty: but the great genius of Percy Popjoy had deserted him, for he had made the most execrable verses which ever were perpetrated by a ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the first glaring instance of the state of the country, and some people may well be astonished it was viewed by the political authorities in so insignificant a light. But I will not too much impose upon the patience of the reader by detailing the execrable reasons which were put forth for the most absurd measures during the twelve months preceding the annihilation ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... cookery and law chicanery. These are amusements wherewith to feed a people that are ill used, to show that they are not totally forgotten. These others do the same, who insist upon stoutly defending the forms of speaking, dances and games to a people totally abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices—it is for the Spartans only to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they are just upon the point of running headlong into some ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... company mustered. The weather was execrable—fog that you might cut with an axe; and the Duke rode out "in a perfect sulkiness." But suddenly, as he looked round, the sun ploughed up the woolly mass, and drove it in all directions, and looking through the courtyard ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... as the Romans do," thought the artist, looking at the table, and beginning to eat,—like a man who had breakfasted at Vierzon, at six o'clock in the morning, on an execrable cup of coffee. When Joseph had eaten up all his bread and asked for more, Monsieur Hochon rose, slowly searched in the pocket of his surtout for a key, unlocked a cupboard behind him, broke off a section of a twelve-pound ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... I bore the same love towards it, that the squirrel bears to the rattlesnake—when it gets fascinated by the burning eyeballs, horrid fangs, and forked tongue of its crawling, slimy, and execrable foe. Mistake me not, sir, or suppose that I mean to insinuate that Miss Snooks was a rattlesnake. No; the reasoning is purely analogical; and I only wish it to be inferred that that nose, humped like a dromedary—prominent as Cape Wrath—nobler than Caesar's, or the great captain's—had precisely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various |
