"Imprecation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Twinkham, thou art as subtle as the wind. Prod the villain Christopher to haste and enjoin upon him secrecy in the name of His Most Catholic Majesty, the Pope,—and do not thou be hindered by some scullion wench.' These things I heard, well-seasoned with imprecation against the king. I hastened from the rendezvous to my chamber and thought upon it, and—and there is naught can be done, unless thou wed Mistress ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... in the annals of the great, has such a dreadful imprecation been uttered? It was more awful than the doom pronounced on Belshazzar. The blood of Ahab and his wife was to be licked up by dogs, their dynasty to be overthrown, and their whole house destroyed. This dire punishment was inflicted probably not only on account of the crime pertaining ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... down here!" or "Come off of that quick, and line up alongside!" and the immediate obedience of all concerned, and the sharp "keep them hands up, gentlemen, or somebody'll be gettin' hurt," or perhaps a fierce imprecation, if the bandit was less of the "Gentleman George" type than ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... on my heel with an imprecation which "Ingleese-spikers" understand. But he still waits there, smiling, and expecting to be tipped, Let him wait. So much for the Omnibus-Porter—at once the Gamp and Undertaker of my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... sound had faded quite away, the Lord of Ivarsdale breathed out the rest of his resentment in a hearty imprecation, and, turning, came on to his patient. His voice was as gentle as a woman's as he dropped on his knee beside the ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... alive!" and thus did he toss upon his bed till toward evening, when a change for the worse came over him. Sampson saw that the seal of death was stamped upon his features, and at set of sun, with an imprecation upon his dying lips, he had breathed his last. O, how fearful to enter that spirit land thus unprepared! to come before our Judge with a soul stained in the deepest sins, trembling with its burden of guilt. Lord, grant that we be not thus found when ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... Jesus, because of the dead literalism of their teachings, and the absence of the spirit of righteousness and virile morality therefrom; and in such denunciations the Pharisees are often coupled with the scribes. The judgment of the Christ upon them is sufficiently expressed by His withering imprecation: "Woe unto ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... for Philip to finish the imprecation. The doctor had hastened away with such alarm, that he fell down half the steps of the staircase, and was limping away across the bridge. He almost wished that the relic had not been in his possession; but his sudden retreat had prevented him, even if so ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... into a fist, smote the air, and his outburst was a fierce imprecation. In the midst of it Groner said, "Listen!" and a moment later a man, walking rapidly up the track from the direction of Little Butte station, came into the small circle of lantern-light. Groner threw the ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... sudden exclamation of horror; a fearful imprecation escaped the lips of the ruffian, and then the wonderful spell, which had bound me for I know not how long, was dissipated, and weak and trembling, I staggered back, and sank upon the floor, too much exhausted to escape from the building, and too much overcome with horror, at the struggle ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... interposed, till, finding his remonstrances vain, he denounced a curse upon his son-in-law, in consequence of which he remained childless and became affected by consumption. The wives of Chandra having interceded in his behalf with their father, Daksha modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the Moon. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... imprecation and a vow to "do for" "eyes, liver, and lights" of the "clodhopper," he rushed at him blindly. With a mocking laugh, the man assailed thrust forth a leg, and Lonegon, stumbling across it, measured ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... he, addressing himself to Gonzaga, as the aide-de-camp resumed his plumed beaver, and galloped off with an imprecation between his lips, at having so rustic a duty on his hands, instead of accompanying the parade of his royal master. "It goes against my conscience to decree the chastisement of these fellows. For i' faith, they that fight, must feed; and hunger, that eats through stone walls, is apt to have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the board with as much intelligence as it was possible for him to summon to his aid. But luck, so called, was against him. His three last pieces, kings, were swept from the board by a single play of his adversary, at a moment when he believed himself sure of the game. A bitter imprecation fell from his lips, as he turned from the table, and thrusting his hands nearly to his elbows in his pockets, stalked into the bar-room, leaving the man who had won from him the remnant of his day's earnings for the twentieth ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... all their possessions to perfect strangers. Cativolcus, king of one-half of the Eburones, who had entered into the design together with Ambiorix, since, being now worn out by age, he was unable to endure the fatigue either of war or flight, having cursed Ambiorix with every imprecation, as the person who had been the contriver of that measure, destroyed himself with the juice of the yew tree, of which there is a great abundance in ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... Hippolito; a crypt-like moral stillness, haunted by strange evil murmurs, broken only by the hysterical sobs and laughs of Marston's Antonios and Pandulphos. At the most there issues out of the blood-reeking depth a mighty yell of pain, a tremendous imprecation not only at sinful man but at unsympathizing nature, like that of Marston's old Doge, dethroned, hunted down, crying aloud into the grey dawn-mists of the desolate ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... that mounted to his forehead and with a half-suppressed imprecation, Colonel Le Noir went and unlocked the door and admitted ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... those of the ladies conventional where not rudely condescending. If Mistress Conal was an exception to the rest of the clan, even she would be more civil to a stranger than to her chief whom she loved—until the stranger gave her offence. And if then she passed to imprecation, she would not curse like an ordinary woman, but like a poetess, gaining rather than losing dignity. She would rise to the evil occasion, no hag, but a largely-offended sibyl, whom nothing thereafter should ever appease. To forgive was a virtue unknown ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the Executive Committee of the Civil Service Reform Association. George William Curtis was presiding, and Roosevelt's old friend, George Haven Putnam, who tells the story, was also present. Roosevelt began by hurling a solemn but hearty imprecation at the head of the Postmaster General. He went on to explain that his explosive wrath was due to the fact that that particular gentleman was the most pernicious of all the enemies of the merit system. It was one of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... Attorney-General under Franklin Pierce. In its ranks were Henry B. Payne of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and James A. Bayard of Delaware. These men were towers of strength in the North. They were the men to whom Robert Toombs had appealed in the Senate, when he turned from his fiery imprecation and, lowering his great voice, declared, with tenderness and pride, "I have no word of invocation to those who stand to-day in the ranks of Northern Democracy, but to remember and emulate their past history. From the beginning of this controversy they have stood firmly by ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... up one clenched hand towards heaven, laden with imprecation. And why did not that power, whose vengeance he visibly defied, launch a bolt against the impious?—Why not reader him, in that very act, a monument of just and righteous retribution?—"Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?" ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... present discomfort to hear it, he seemed to stiffen all over with the shock of horror, and then hung a dead weight on Stephen's arm. It would have dragged him down, but there was no room to fall, and the wretchedness of the lad against whom he staggered found vent in a surly imprecation, which was lost among the cries and the entreaties of some of the others. The London magistracy were some of them in tears, but the indictment for high treason removed the poor lads from their jurisdiction to that of the Earl Marshal, and thus they could do nothing to save the fourteen ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... looked at us. His countenance bore an expression of rage and hatred. It was that, I felt sure, of Captain Hansleig. Before, however, we could reach him, shaking his fist at us, and uttering a fearful imprecation, he let go of the spar, and throwing himself back, sank beneath the waves. Horrified as I was, there was no time to lose in thinking of the circumstance, as I had to look round to see if there was anybody else to whom we could render assistance. I caught sight ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... way with Ulupi, the daughter of a Naga (serpent); it then relates his visits to several sacred spots; the birth of Vabhruvahana; the deliverance by Arjuna of the five celestial damsels who had been turned into alligators by the imprecation of a Brahmana, the meeting of Madhava and Arjuna on the holy spot called Prabhasa; the carrying away of Subhadra by Arjuna, incited thereto by her brother Krishna, in the wonderful car moving on land and water, and through mid-air, according to the wish of the rider; ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... plundered people?—no life and animation in the picture which might be drawn of the woes of hundreds of impoverished and ruined families? of the wealthy of yesterday become the beggars of to-day? of the powerful and influential changed into exiles and outcasts, and the voice of self-reproach and imprecation resounding from every corner of the land? Is it a dull or uninstructive picture to see a whole people shaking suddenly off the trammels of reason, and running wild after a golden vision, refusing obstinately to believe that it is not real, till, like ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... cannon-ball shot among a battalion of foot, in case so many times I do not boult my future wife the first night of our marriage! Of that, forsooth, I make no doubt at all, quoth Pantagruel. You needed not to have rapped forth such a horrid imprecation, the sooner to procure credit for the performance of so small a business, seeing possibly the first bout will be amiss, and that you know is usually at tennis called fifteen. At the next justling turn you may readily amend that fault, and so complete your ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... snarled out an imprecation when old Toby had replied as above. "Ef you know which side of your bread the butter's on, you'll side with me," ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... Republic, to-day a scavenger. He has sworn, he still swears: but the tone has changed. The oath has become an imprecation. Yesterday he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to yourself Joan of Arc confessing herself to be Messalina. Such is the Second ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... echoing down the court room and Barbara, much perturbed, found herself standing with Helen before the clerk's desk. There was a moment's wait and the deputy marshal, who had motioned to one of the prisoners sitting in the "cage" to step outside, emphasized his order with a muttered imprecation to hurry. A slouching figure finally shambled past him and stopped some little distance from the group in front of ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... among the soft pillows, looking very picturesque in the rich showy costume he still wore. He did not remain there long. Only a short time had elapsed when he suddenly started up, with a smothered imprecation, and bidding his friend an abrupt good-night, retired to his own chamber, without touching the dainty little supper that had just been brought in. Vidalinc sat down and enjoyed it by himself, with perfect good humour, thinking meanwhile of Serafina's remarkable beauty and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... at this run of mishaps. Were the people really so annoyed? Everybody seemed angry with him. No one seemed interested or amused by his arrival. A disproportionate amount of the outcry had the flavour of imprecation—had, indeed a strong flavour of riot. Several greatly uniformed officials in cocked hats struggled in vain to control the crowd. Fists and sticks were shaken. And when Bert saw a man on the outskirts of the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the picturesque costume she had abandoned, attacking measures contemplated by Government for the protection of the health of the army in India. This was reported in full in the local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to Duff Lindsay, who received it, I regret to say, with an unmistakable imprecation. But Laura rejoiced. Deprived of her ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... with the sort of resolute determination, with which, to do him justice, he was accustomed to meet pain. At last the aching became so intolerable that it was scarcely to be endured; and after ringing twenty times to inquire whether Randall was come home, and uttering a heavy imprecation each time he was answered in the negative; what between pain and impatience he became so fevered that he really seemed quite ill, and his sufferings were evidently more than he could well endure. Poor Mrs. Melwyn, helpless and feeble, dared not propose ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... your exultation and your tears, Over a city saved, the while its lords, Twin leaders of the fight, have parcelled out With forged arbitrament of Scythian steel The full division of their fatherland, And, as their father's imprecation bade, Shall have their due of land, a twofold grave. So is the city saved; the earth has drunk Blood of twin princes, by each ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... these forms are occasionally employed in English, particularly by the poets. Such imitations must be referred to this mood, unless by ellipsis and transposition we make them out to be something else; and against this there are strong objections. Again, as imprecation on one's self is not impossible, the first person singular may be added; so that this mood may possibly have all the persons and numbers. Examples: "Come we now to his translation of the Iliad."—Pope's Pref. to Dunciad. "Proceed we therefore in our subject."—Ib. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... The elder, with an imprecation, thrust Desmond into the open, hauled him some distance down the path, and then beat him heavily about the shoulders. He stood a foot higher, his arm was strong, his grip firm as a vise; resistance would have been vain; but Desmond knew better than to resist. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... John? We'll take our oath that the trench was newly dug, and sure no such devil's battery as opened on us was planted there before this night! 'Twas a traitor or a spy that wrought us deadly harm!" He ended with a fearful imprecation, and an echo of his oath came ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... on the verge of the precipice, from which he wrenched a mass of rock, and, shouting defiance, hurled it back, with a fearful imprecation, at his enemies. The rock fell into the midst of them, and fractured the skull of a young man, who fell with a groan to the earth. Smith, who paused a moment to witness the result of his throw, uttered a yell of exultation, and darted into the mountains, whither, ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... revolver leaped—the finger pulled. With a shrill screech of hopeless, hideous imprecation, a shriek that died still-born, the bullet pierced flesh and bone and brain; and that which had been a man that should have been a boy, lurched drunkenly and lay a crumpled nothing upon the deck. There was blood upon the deck—beside the hem of the crimson gown, near to ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... Accordingly the Caudine peace was not ratified by settled treaty, as is commonly believed, and even asserted by Claudius, but by conventional sureties. For what occasion would these be either for sureties or hostages in the former case, where the ratification is performed by the imprecation, "that whichever nation shall give occasion to the said terms being violated, may Jupiter strike that nation in like manner as the swine is struck by the heralds." The consuls, lieutenants-general, quaestors, and military tribunes, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... A fresh imprecation of Schilsky's called forth more laughter. On its subsidence, Krafft awoke to his surroundings again. "What has the old woman given you?" he asked, with his strange precision of speech and his ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... oss pianoforte-case,' as he called a Clarence, he could stand it no longer, and, chucking the nether garments into the fire, he rushed frantically up the area-steps, mounted his box, and quilted the old crocodile of a horse all the way home, accompanying each cut with an imprecation such as 'me make a guy of myself!' (whip) 'me put on sich things!' (whip, whip) 'me drive down Sin Jimses-street!' (whip, whip, whip), 'I'd see her —— fust!' (whip, whip, whip), cutting at the old horse just as if he was ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Then a fearful imprecation burst from the lips of Macgregor, as, with a face convulsed with passion, he rushed into the fort, shouting: "To horse! to horse, men! and see that your horns and pouches are ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... redeem the pledge—Then all the joy of life that once again, May be aroused within her youthful heart When shadows deepen and the end is near, Will be transformed into one dreadful curse, One final imprecation upon thee! ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... lost property with smouldering eyes, and he uttered a ghastly imprecation. "Yes, that's it," he said simply, "beggar's boned the bills and chucked this away for fear of incriminating evidence—in case he was nabbed again, I suppose. The bills were mostly in fives and tens—Standard ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... delicacy at my birth I owe that deformity; and yet, as long as I can remember, she has never ceased to taunt and reproach me with it. Even a few days before we parted, for the last time, on my leaving England, she, in one of her fits of passion, uttered an imprecation upon me, praying that I might prove as ill formed in mind as I am in body!" His look and manner, in relating this frightful circumstance, can be conceived only by those who have ever seen him in a ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... an imprecation that must have made his ancestors, asleep behind the old Quaker meeting-house down in Buck Creek, gasp ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... at first. Another Chief, followed by the voices of the assembly, repeated, in a low deep tone, which fell on our ears as distinctly as the loudest trumpet-note in the midst of absolute silence, the solemn imprecation— ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... barely in time to avoid disaster as the car shot past and hurtled on into the dusk. He turned in his saddle and watched its unlighted shape swerve drunkenly from side to side of the road, until a further turn hid it from view. With a muttered imprecation, he gave the sure-footed pinto its head, and as it floundered out of the ditch the white, jeering face of the man at the wheel, as he had seen it in that flashing glimpse, rose again before his consciousness. It seemed for a startling instant to be grimly, portentously familiar, ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... the faith; but all in vain. He listened patiently, even reverently, although I was much the younger; at intervals he replied, "Oui, mon pere," and the next day he said his prayers to the dead Emperor as usual. And this was not the worst; in place of an amen, there came a fierce imprecation against the whole English nation. After some months I succeeded in persuading him to abandon this termination; but I always suspected that it was but a verbal abandonment, and that, mentally, the curse was as ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... morning? P'r'aps you aint took notice of the money I'm takin' in? No, I guess not." The latter remark was followed by a rough laugh, in which I thought there was distinguishable a little more than mere merriment, especially when I heard a mumbled imprecation. He continued aloud: "I aint seen any yet myself." Soon the bell rang, and a ticket was passed up. "Well," said he, "he's goin' it strong, to be sure; this here's the fourteenth ticket I've had on this trip." An explanation being solicited, the fact was revealed that there was a man inside ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... extreme tenderness and unfailing attention. He was an earnest Christian (a Methodist, I believe), but upon one occasion I saw him so excited and distressed that he "fell from grace," and gave vent to a fearful imprecation. He had brought to me a boy of seventeen very ill of dysentery. For days it seemed that he must die. Dr. Gore and I watched him and nursed him as if he had been very near and dear. A slight improvement showed ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... have taught that Shimon Happikoli had arranged the eighteen benedictions before Rabbon Gamliel at Javneh. Rabbon Gamliel appealed to the sages, "Is there not a man who knows how to compose an imprecation against the Sadducees?" Then Samuel the Little stood ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Boss City hereaway on this end of the lake," said the captain of the little boat; and though he spoke with much labour of imprecation, both needless then and now, taking what might be termed a cursory view of the situation, he summed up the prospects of Duluth conclusively ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... not less gruffly than of yore, but without the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with thim ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... at that moment that the recluse caught sight, from the window of her bole, of the gypsy on the pillory, and hurled at her her sinister imprecation,— ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived; Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, I regarded myself ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... intercourse with these people, we declined his invitation, upon which he returned to the hill, and struck the earth three times with his gun, a great oath among the Indians, who consider swearing by the earth as one of the most solemn forms of imprecation. At the distance of six miles we stopped on a bleak sand-bar, where we thought ourselves secure from any attack during the night, and also safe from the mosquitoes. We had made but twenty-two miles, but in the course of the day had killed a mule-deer, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... need of a conflict, for the eyes of the Magyars shot death and contempt at their unworthy adversaries. The signal of attack sounded; and at the same instant, as if seized by one common thought, the Hungarian Hussars clattered their heavy sabres back into the scabbard, and with a fearful imprecation, such as no German tongue could echo, charged weaponless and at full speed their mimic caricatures whom fate had thrown in their way. The shock was so irresistible, that the poor Croats could make no use of their sabers against the furious onset of their ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... first outcry, Nicolas, with a muttered imprecation, had dashed for the exit. He fell upon his knees and was about to crawl outside when Nikol, more wide awake than the others, flung himself forward and clasped his long ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... is used in a strange sort of imprecation. If one say, 'Go to the d——l!' the other often replies, 'Go you to Hecklebirnie!' which is said to be a place ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... door. The process of unbarring the gate was nearly accomplished. As it swung open, John Wilkes put his whistle to his lips and blew a loud, shrill call, and the three rushed forward. There was a shout of alarm, a fierce imprecation, and three of the four figures at the gate sprang at them. Scarce a blow had been struck when the two constables ran up and joined in the fray. Two men fought stoutly, but were soon overpowered. Robert Ashford, knife ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... and the muddied oaf at the goal" might be trusted to hug his island security and stick to his idle sports; and the most windy and patriotic of popular British weeklies was at the end of July placarding the streets of London with the imprecation "To hell with Servia." ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... itself at once and without possibility of mistake may justly hope for a better reception than what from the first moment annoys the reader with a sense of ill-treatment. It is no wonder, he said, if such a manuscript be at once tossed aside with an imprecation. Legibility is the first and intelligibility the only other thing rendered due by the submission of a manuscript ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... she stole away through the garden, and a negro man-servant brought his horse around to the rear grounds and showed him a bridle-path to the river; but these things were hazy. The vivid thing was an imprecation that by and by took awful form, like a monster of the mist, hissingly, ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... forward, shouting down the forecastle-scuttle, and commanding his instant presence on deck. But the sailors answered for their new comrade; giving the mate to understand that Miguel was still fast locked in his trance, and could not obey him; when, muttering his usual imprecation, the mate retired to ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... us well enough," said the ex-foreigner, with an awful imprecation on all Leander's salient features; "but you shall have it all in black and white. We're the party that invented and carried out that little ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... the table towards which he looked was bare. He dropped Vine heavily upon the floor, and stood there rooted to the spot, gazing at the place where only a few moments before he had seen that roll of paper. A hoarse imprecation broke from his lips, and Norris Vine, who was still conscious though badly winded, seeing what was amiss, sat up on the carpet and gazed too, bewildered, at the empty table. The papers were gone! There was no sign of them there. There was no sign of any one else in the apartment. ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... beautiful hands, and slightly Spanish accent, could only belong to one person, I thought, but I could hardly believe it, and I turned my eyes away, and tried the more diligently to teach my poor ignorant patient the meaning of his Pater and Ave, when suddenly there was a burst of scolding and imprecation from the other bed. The essence had gone into the man's eye, and he, a great rough bucheron, was reviling the awkwardness and meddling of ladies in no measured terms, while his nurse stood helplessly wringing her ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I say a thing it's got to be, and I mean to make him know it, too," asserted the young Amazon. "I'll have him driven out of town, and if there ain't any one here that's man enough to do it, I'll do it myself." This declaration she framed with an imprecation sufficiently strong if an oath could make ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... female vanity, and made derisive comments on the coiffing and the like, which they imagined was the cause of the delay; eventually one of their number, tired of strutting before a mirror, happened to go to look out of the window toward the Rhine. Suddenly he uttered a loud imprecation, and his companions, thronging to the window, were all fiercely incensed at the sight which greeted their eyes. For the famous seven sisters were perpetrating something of a practical joke; they were leaving the castle in a boat, and on perceiving the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... half-without the carriage, and had there stuck firmly, become jammed, as it were, a position which roused the wrath of the old gentleman still higher, which set him snarling at his lady companion, and caused him to throw a fiery imprecation at his attendant. It caused the officious station-master to hasten forward, and then, at the sight of this arrogant and somewhat important old gentleman, to bow obsequiously and assist his entrance to the carriage. Yes, altogether it was a ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... awake at the heavenly voice which called him from the dead, that he might be illuminated of Christ, he descended into the dark grave, there to remain for ever covered with the darkness of death. Therefore, even to this day, it is among the Irish a frequent imprecation on a feigned sleeper, Mayest thou sleep, as at the word of Saint ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... With a muttered imprecation the Doctor flung back the rug to cover it, and sprang to his feet, steadying himself ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... beneath the luminous spaces which light them; but what sense of humiliation could equal that with which I watched her calm white figure inflexibly mounting with even steps the terraces of her chateau of Clochegourde, the pride and the torture of that Christian Dido? I cursed Arabella in a single imprecation which might have killed her had she heard it, she who had left all for me as some leave all for God. I remained lost in a world of thought, conscious of utter misery on all sides. Presently I saw the whole family coming down; Jacques, running with ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... spoke once more, but in a foreign tongue. The words sounded first like entreaty, then like command, and at last, almost like imprecation. The ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... boding words gave them different interpretations, according to their different shades of ignorance and of fear; all, however, concurred in imagining them to convey some awful imprecation. They regarded the Christian as the enemy of mankind; the epithets they lavished upon him, of which 'Atheist' was the most favored and frequent, may serve, perhaps, to warn us, believers of that same creed now triumphant, how we indulge the persecution of opinion Olinthus then underwent, and ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five." She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... stood in his room a moment and fairly trembled with shame and rage at himself. Then, with a bitter imprecation, he made the brief toilet the dust of his walk required, and his face was so stern and white one might think he was about to face an executioner instead of Jennie Burton's blue eyes beaming with friendship at least. The thought of discovering anything warmer in their expression sent a mortal chill ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... grew fiendish in its sinister wrath; he shot forth a foul imprecation, and once more he hurled himself resistlessly on his foe. This time I thought my champion must go down, but no! With a dexterity that seemed marvellous, he dodged, ducked and side-stepped; and once more Locasto's blows went wide and short. Jeers began ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Snick-up.—Surely this means nothing more or less than what we should write Hiccup! or Hiccough! so, at least, I have always supposed; misled, perhaps, by Sir Toby's surname, and his parenthetical imprecation on "pickle herring". I do not pretend to be a critic of Shakspeare, and must confess that I do not possess a copy of the "Twelfth Night" but after seeing your correspondent R.R.'s letter (Vol. i., p. 467.), I resolved to write you a note. First, however, ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... words Ledscha again turned her back upon him, but Bias, with a low imprecation, pushed the boat from the shore ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... trumpets like a brazen imprecation and the public pulse furiously pounded, for a young man was dragged near the Venus. About his loins a strip of linen, and he was goodly to see—slender, olive-skinned, with curls clustering over a stubborn brow; but ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... she spoke, there came a sound from the wooded hillside— the sound of a stifled cry, followed by an imprecation and the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... fiercely, "I shall not weary Heaven with ineffectual supplications. I well know I am past all forgiveness. No," he added, with a fearful imprecation, "since Nizza is alive, I will ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... two the big ex-lieutenant was dazed, but then, with a muttered imprecation, he leaped up, dropping his pocketknife as he did so, and rushed at Jack, hitting him ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... point of verbal accuracy), and from his office emanated a paragraph, copied into all the Washington journals, stating that I had cursed my captors fluently. I affirm, on my honor, that this was the solitary imprecation that escaped me from ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... a long time to say this; it only required an instant to see it. The loud explosion of my pistol had hardly ceased to ring before the baron, with a fearful imprecation, was upon me. First he lashed at me with his whip as we tore along side by side, and then I saw him wind the reins round his off arm and bend over, and I felt his angry fingers close tightly on my right foot. The next instant I should have been ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... I wriggled back a little way to where a clump of hazel permitted me to rise without being seen. Thence I fled the spot. And as I went, my heart seemed as it must burst, and my lips could frame but one word which I kept hurling out of me like an imprecation, and that word ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... ivy and glossy acanthus covered the bottom and sides of the quarry, one hundred feet below; but out of the dust of centuries stared the rayless eyes of corpses, and the gaunt despairing faces seemed still uplifted, now in invocation, anon in imprecation to the overarching sky, where blistering suns mocked them by day, and glittering moons and silver stars paused in their westward march through dewy night, to tell them tantalizing tales of how musically Aegean wavelets broke against the marbles ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... gifts as thine. Sleep hardly shows us round thy shadowy shrine What roses hang, what music floats, what feet Pass and what wings of angels. We repeat Wild words or mild, disastrous or divine, Blind prayer, blind imprecation, seeing no sign Nor hearing aught of thee not faint and fleet As words of men or snowflakes on the wind. But if we chide thee, saying "Thou hast sinned, thou hast sinned, Dark Death, to take so sweet a light away ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... however much he might curse, and blaspheme, and drink, and, er, do all the other things that the Captain did (obviously here Mr. Penrose felt hampered by the presence of ladies), yet Death, Judgment, and Churchyard wait for him at last. Whereupon the Captain, emitting an inconceivably terrific imprecation, which no one ever dared to repeat and which consequently is lost to tradition, declared that the first he'd never feared, the second was parson's gabble, and as to the third, never should his dead toes be nearer any church ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... judgment which he was so soon to suffer, would prove but an easy prologue to that which he must undergo hereafter. They next offered to pray with him; but he was too well acquainted with those forms of imprecation which they called prayers. "Lord, vouchsafe yet to touch the obdurate heart of this proud, incorrigible sinner; this wicked, perjured, traitorous, and profane person, who refuses to hearken to the voice of thy church." Such were the petitions which he expected ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... an imprecation, strangely full of hate and, in the manner of lonely desert rats, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... A muttered imprecation escaped the lips of the watcher on the Drive. He stood there, straining his eyes toward the ship as if expecting a following signal, then he turned and gazed aloft at the windows of the apartment houses lining the driveway to see if some answering ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... sweet language for a gentle lady to use to a little infant boy, but the Druze and Moslem women use this kind of imprecation in many of their nursery songs. Katrina says that many of the Greek and Maronite women sing them too. This young woman Laia, who sits here, has repeated for me not less than a hundred and twenty of these nursery rhymes, songs for weddings, ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... my curse Prevails against thy prayer for Thebe's throne, If ancient Zeus, the eternal lawgiver, Have primal Justice for his counsellor. Begone, renounced and fatherless for me, And take with thee, vilest of villanous men, This imprecation:—Vain be thine attempt In levying war against thy father's race, Frustrate be thy return to Argos' vale: Die foully by a fratricidal hand And foully slay him who hath banished thee! Further, I bid the horror breathing gloom Tartarean, of the vault that holds my ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... the wonderful faith of the tiny creature which suffers handling without resistance, the shred of bark, driven by the imperceptible zephyr, falls a few yards away, and in an agony of anxiety utters an imploring purr, or was it an imprecation? That half purr, half hiss has been the only sound of the episode. It is a warning to be gone and leave Nature to her ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... here interjected an imprecation, vulgarly called an oath, "if ever I hear one o' you a usin' of sich improper words, I'll break every bone in ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... to hurry back to the chamber of penitence, when a loud cry of despair came vibrating down, and in another instant the heavy form of a man was precipitated into the well. The wicker chair fortunately broke his fall, and he rose with a dreadful imprecation. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, the root-word of the name Praisae, into ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... him overboard. The next day Billy appeared whilst Aaron, off duty, was strolling up and down outside the pilot-house, and strolled offensively in his wake. Never a hostile glance or a word from Aaron. At last, tired of dumb show, Billy broke forth with a torrent of imprecation closing with "When are you going to pitch me off the boat, you blankety-blank son-of-a-gun ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... female, so to sting The heart that loves them?" "Them," the spirit replied, A long and dreadful punishment awaits. For when the prey of want and infamy, Lower and lower still the victim sinks, Even to the depth of shame, not one lewd word, One impious imprecation from her lips Escapes, nay not a thought of evil lurks In the polluted mind, that does not plead Before the throne of Justice, thunder-tongued Against the foul Seducer." Now they reach'd The house of PENITENCE. CREDULITY Stood at the ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... district, which is under water two months in the year, and for the ten others more like a tough kind of pap than any thing else. Now the men who have pointed out to them this dirty way into heaven are no other than my agents and colleagues, so that I, Fritz Fink, am the lucky man upon whom every imprecation there is in German and Irish falls all the day long. I send off all who are able to walk about, and have to feed the inhabitants of my hospital with Indian corn and Peruvian bark. As I write this, three naked little Paddies are creeping about my ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... remembered of course where I was, and in spite of my latent hilarity felt I had rarely got such a snubbing. I had really been enjoying the good old city of Florence, but I now learned from Mr. Ruskin that this was a scandalous waste of charity. I should have gone about with an imprecation on my lips, I should have worn a face three yards long. I had taken great pleasure in certain frescoes by Ghirlandaio in the choir of that very church; but it appeared from one of the little books that these frescoes were as naught. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... call down vengeance upon me; when, happily the leaden god, in pity to her trembling Lovelace, waved over her half-drowned eyes his somniferous want, and laid asleep the fair exclaimer, before she could go half through with her intended imprecation. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... door which the alferez shut in his customary manner, by a kick. The alferez usually found his hands superfluous. An imprecation and a groan from ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... utter some awful Latin imprecation, which so aroused the superstition of the sentinel that he made no further opposition, which perhaps saved his life, for the retainers of Aescendune were meditating instant violence, indignant at the delay and the ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... prevalent because of the infirmities of temper. There are many men who, when at peace, are most fastidious of speech, but when aroused into the violence of passion, blaze with imprecation. The Oriental's wife spoken of would not have liked her husband to be profane under ordinary circumstances, but now that the camels are gone, and the sheep are gone, and the property is gone, and the boils have come, she says: "Why don't you swear? Curse God and die!" Others, ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... warning of the previous clause, by pointing to the time at which that warning shall be fulfilled. 'If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be devoted and destroyed. Our Lord comes.' The only other thing to be noticed by way of introduction is that this first clause is not an imprecation, nor any wish on the part of the Apostle, but is a solemn prophetic warning (acquiesced in by every righteous heart) of that which will certainly come. The significance of the whole may be gathered into one simple sentence—The coming of the Lord of Love ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... beaming with jollity, as he waited, with a full cup, for Deschenaux's toast. But no sooner did he hear the name of his sister from those lips than he sprang up as though a serpent had bit him. He hurled his goblet at the head of Deschenaux with a fierce imprecation, and drew his sword ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... No doubt many an imprecation was afterwards heaped on my devoted head; and the only apology I can make is to speak the simple truth—that with me it was a matter of life or death, and the bonnets had to go. It was not likely that this would be satisfactory in the quarter where the bonnets were ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... and final effort, the dying man lurched forward and threw himself wildly toward the sound. His hand, brandishing the dagger, was uplifted and seemed about to descend on his foe; but at that very instant, with a frightful imprecation upon his lips, the gigantic form collapsed, the knife dropped from the hand, and he plunged, a corpse, into the arms ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... imprecation that was not flattering to either herder, Bowers wrapped the lines around the brake and leaped over the wheel to head them if it were possible. But they seemed possessed by all the imps of Satan, as they came on ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Tom's breast burst out now into a fierce flame. His eyes blazed. A smothered imprecation broke from his lips. He drew the pistol from his belt, and fired full at the fellow who had sought to ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and his mates about the pound. The man of law saluted him with a smirk of scarcely concealed triumph, and then turned into the house again and shut the door, as if he did not consider further communication necessary or safe. Tom turned with a muttered imprecation on him and his master, and hurried away along the lane which led to the heath. The Hawk's Lynch lay above him, and he climbed the side mechanically and sat himself again ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes |
