"Damning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... merrily told them, if they were ground-landlords, he hoped if they built tenements upon the land and made improvements, they would, according to the custom of all landlords, grant them a long lease; and bid them go fetch a scrivener to draw the writings. One of the three, damning and raging, told them they should see they were not in jest; and going to a little place at a distance, where the honest men had made a fire to dress their victuals, he takes a firebrand and claps it to the outside of their hut, and very fairly ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... and took them down to Gondreville in the night-time, where no doubt they were hidden in the cellars of that chateau, which he had bought in the name of another man—who was it, by the bye? he had him made chief-justice of an Imperial court—Ah! Marion. Having thus disposed of these damning proofs he returned to Paris to congratulate the First Consul on his victory. Napoleon, as you know, rushed from Italy to Paris after the battle of Marengo with alarming celerity. Those who know the secret history of that time are well aware that a message from Lucien brought him back. ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... and things could scarcely look blacker for him. He knew the law was likely to be severe with him, as a Britisher he would probably get the extreme sentence. There was no one but the professor to appeal to and, bitter thought, would even he believe him with all this damning evidence against him? All this passed through his mind in an instant, as he stood in amazement, too taken aback to speak, and passively ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul's, and his warehouse Picthatch. Takes up single testons upon oath, till doomsday. Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat bonds. He waylays the reports of services, and cons them without book, damning himself he came new from them, when all the while he was taking the diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber for rent and victuals. He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... now this damning system of infidelity, under the specious name of philosophy, light, and science, spread with such untiring industry over the European mind, that unhinged the whole framework of society, and prepared it, like a ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... and she invited our heroine to share her constitutional on the porch. Honora found the proceeding in the nature of an ordeal, for Mrs. Tyler's legs were short, her frizzled hair very blond, and the fact that it was natural made it seem, somehow, all the more damning. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... glad that thou art not a reigning king! Peace of mind is not for them. If there be a purgatory, Henry, in another world, I have already endured all its tortures on this earth. Is not remorse the worst purgatory? ay—the most damning hell. But why, then, do they pursue me ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... little dull," as though feeling an explanation of his presence in the gambling-house were necessary, "and I thought I'd drop around and get a little excitement out of the game if I could. Burton was there and had just been cleaned out; he was in an impatient sort of humor and was damning things at a tolerable speed. Nothing vicious, you know, but just enough to show ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... that some determined influence was back of them, and how far that influence might carry it was hard to tell. The reason for it was all very simple, of course, and yet he was at a loss how to combat it. Wade was called next and told the story of that damning incident at the supper-party, being corroborated by the others. Then there were several witnesses who swore to inconsequent things, such as waiters at the Hotel Central, and the ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... I was a murderer, and my proper place a jail. Why should I be more favored than some poor common man charged with that crime? Had such a person been confronted with such a charge, supported by such damning evidence as the bloody knife, would any ceremony have been observed? 'To jail!' all would have cried, 'No bail for the murderer!' And why should the rich Mr. Davenant be ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... of the searchers have dismounted and are standing grouped around it. He sees them, and would gladly go back, but dares not. Defection now would be damning evidence against him. After all, what has he to fear? They will find a dead body—Clancy's—a corpse with a bullet-hole in the breast. They can't tell who fired the fatal shot— how could they? There were no witnesses save the trunks of the cypresses, and the dumb brute of a dog—not so ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the pride of birth out of her heart. That the young Earl might be saved from the damning sin and also from the polluting marriage;—that was ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... mar our swift advance. And, for our cause, As we believe it just in sight of God, So should it triumph in the sight of man, Whose generous temper, at the first, assigns Right to the weaker side, yet coldly draws Damning conclusions from its failure. Now Betake you to your tasks with double zeal; And, meanwhile, let our ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... profound gift for reading human nature, which it pleased a Divine Providence to bestow upon me, could hardly have hit more jolly well on the peg." He paused, then added, "But be that as it may—in the habit which has become so prevalent among us money-changers in the temple, of damning the soul of Hamilton Burton—when he is absent—I think we overlook a few patent truths. We hate the man and all his breed simply because he outclasses us at our ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... whites; and on the other hand they will frequently reject, or at least discredit, testimony of the Negro against the white man, however well supported it may be. But to compound for sins we are inclined to by damning those we have no mind to, in case of any difficulty between white and black, and the former is injured or loses his life, lucky is the latter if the homicide is not declared murder—when courts of justice, though sure to inflict the highest penalty ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... his acceptance with God and of the forgiveness of his sins. "I envied the very horses in the stalls," he said, in describing his emotions; "they were fulfilling their destiny; they had no burden of sin; while I was tortured with a damning sense of guilt. I flung myself on the straw," he went on; "and groaned in the bitterness of my spirit, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death.' At that moment," he exclaimed, ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... and damning resolution—to screen off temporal danger, and count his golden hoards a little longer—that awful criminal touched the throat again: and he turned his head away not to see that horrid face, clutched the swollen gullet with his icy hands, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... as did Colonel Blood in his attack on the regalia, abstracting the volume from a cupboard in the rectory, through a hole which he made in the outside wall. No interest in the progress of Queen Elizabeth prompted him: the register was taken during the hearing of a law suit in order that its damning evidence might ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... request, Mary was admitted to his room in presence of Susan and Mr. Norton. Unaware of the recovery of the powder and the interception of her letter, "she thanked God that she was much better, and said her mind was more at ease than it had been"; but, being informed of these damning discoveries, she fell on her knees by her father's bed and implored his forgiveness, vowing that she would never see or write to Cranstoun again. "I forgive thee, my dear," said the old man, "and I hope ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... to the library. He related how his wife had heard Anne threaten to kill Daisy, produced the anonymous letter, detailed Daisy's accusation that the governess was in love with Ware, and finally pointed out the damning fact of the flight. The rector was quite convinced by this reasoning ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... because he knew they would convict him, or to remove something he had left here at the time of the murder, something incriminating,—the weapon, perhaps, or some personal article; a cigarette-case, a handkerchief with his name upon it, or a pair of gloves. Whatever it was it must have been damning evidence against him to have made him take ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... blithe muse will indulge a smile, Why scowls thy brow, O Bookseller! the while? Thy sunk eyes glisten through eclipsing fears, Fill'd, like Cassandra's, with prophetic tears: With such a visage, withering, woe-begone, Shrinks the pale poet from the damning dun. Come, let us teach each others tears to flow, Like fasting bards, in fellowship of woe, When the coy muse puts on coquettish airs, Nor deigns one line to their voracious prayers; Thy spirit, groaning like th'encumber'd block Which bears my works, deplores them as dead ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... rightly thought by Calvin Ross Shelby's audience the most telling of his speech, the first and second are unmistakably plagiarisms of ideas, while the third, differing from its original in but one telltale, damning word, is shameless, flat-footed theft. Either of the first two offences committed singly might be unconscious; conjoined they betray deliberation; united with the third they 'smell to heaven.' It ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... she answered, "indirect but damning enough. This man has sometimes forwarded and collected for me letters from connections of mine in Germany. He handed me one to-night from a distant cousin. You know him by name General Geroldberg. The first two pages are personal. Read what he says towards the end," she added, passing ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... [Climbing up.] I am got out at last, and (which is a Miracle) without a Clue— and now to Damning and Cursing,— but if that would ease me, where shall I begin? with my Fortune, my self, or the Quean that cozen'd me— What a dog was I to believe in Women! Oh Coxcomb— ignorant conceited Coxcomb! to fancy ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... that image, however, and worse than any thought of punishment by powers not within his actual ken, was the book's damning imputation of shame incurred, of unworthiness proved, of inferiority so deep that no ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... "The damning brand of the magnate is on me, and employers are warned against me. And all because I possess a conscience that would not stoop to crime. I have stood out against retaliating as long as I can. Now my vow is given to be avenged on Steel and ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... armies are capable of "no undisciplined cruelty," said the 93 Professors, without seeing how damning was the phrase. No!—theirs was a cruelty by order, meditated, organised, and deliberate. The stories of Senlis, of Vareddes, of Gerbeviller which I have specially chosen, as free from that element of sexual horror which repels many sensitive ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gossip is a record that would stagger the census bureau. Still, you can't get away from the note, Craig. There it is, in Dixon's own handwriting, even if he does deny it: 'This will cure your headache. Dr. Dixon.' That's a damning piece ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... as a relapsed heretic, and cut her off from the Church, he gave her all that the Church gives to her faithful. Perhaps a last sentiment of humanity awoke in the heart of the wicked judge; he considered it enough to burn the poor creature, without driving her to despair, and damning her. Besides, it was attempted to do it privately, and the eucharist was brought without stole and light. But the monk complained, and the Church of Rouen, duly warned, was delighted to show what it thought of the judgment pronounced by Cauchon; it sent along with the body of Christ ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... hastening to a crisis. These absences of Katharine's, moreover, left them exposed to interruptions which almost destroyed their pleasure in being alone together. The rainy evening made it impossible to go out; and, indeed, according to William's code, it was considerably more damning to be seen out of doors than surprised within. They were so much at the mercy of bells and doors that they could hardly talk of Macaulay with any conviction, and William preferred to defer the second act of his ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... wearily, "you are an exact reversal of the legend of Pandora's Box. You have all the charm and advantages that a boy could want to help him on in the world, and behind it all there is the fatal damning gift of ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... myself to have ever actually been a party to them. For more than three years I remained the victim of a most singular and diabolical illusion. Poor country priest though I was, I led every night in a dream—would to God it had been all a dream!—a most worldly life, a damning life, a life of Sardanapalus. One single look too freely cast upon a woman well-nigh caused me to lose my soul; but finally by the grace of God and the assistance of my patron saint, I succeeded in casting out the evil spirit that possessed me. My daily life was long ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... land, denying the existence of any real grievance; and standing thus with that consciousness of strength which integrity imparts, you must strike the first blow, cross the Rubicon, commit the foul and damning crime of treason, and bring upon your people ruin, devastation, and destruction, and call down upon your guilty heads the curses of your children and the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as might command, and to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... never understood me," sighs the wife. Her satisfaction in being able to pronounce these damning words is so great, that it drowns the memory of a reply which her husband has given ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... waiter that they had never seen Ronald before. If Ronald were not guilty, why had he departed so hurriedly from the inn that morning? And if he were not the murderer what was the explanation of the damning evidence of the footprints leading to the pit in which the body of the murdered man had been flung? If the discovery of the two kinds of candle-grease in Mr. Glenthorpe's bedroom indicated that two persons were in the room on the night of the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... corrupt, she was not utterly hardened. Incapable of virtue, she was not incapable of gratitude. Weltering in grossness, she could still be touched by the sight of purity. Plunged into extremest vice, she retained the damning horror of her situation. If she had ever striven to recover her lost position, there were none to assist her; the bigotry of patriotism rejected her for her birth,—the scrupulousness of modesty, for her history. The night, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... his Letter to Anthony Collins, 1703-4, where he speaks of "those sharp heads, which were for damning his book, because of its discouraging the staple commodity of the place, which in his time was called ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... fire, and doubtless in the darkness saw merely a stray horse broken from the picket-rope. The other fellow took one swift shot, but it went wild, and I heard the voice of the enraged lieutenant damning in the distance. Then with a rush we went up the steep bank on the eastern shore, and I sat upright in the saddle and ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... accomplices are numerous. For I have heard it shrewdly said that to one man you may impart anything, since, unless you have been led to commit yourself by writing, your denial will go as far as his assertion. Shun writing, therefore, as you would a rock, for there is nothing so damning as a ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... treated later, the growth of the Sterne cult in Germany was delayed, so that Yorick was in the plenitude of his German fame when England had begun to look askance at him with critical, fault-finding eye, or to accord him the more damning condemnation of forgetfulness. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Maria Edgeworth and Miss Barlow. But serious art or serious thought in Ireland has always revealed itself to the English sooner or later as a species of sedition, and the Irish have with culpable folly allowed themselves to accept for characteristic excellences what were really the damning defects of their work—an easy fluency of wit, a careless spontaneity of laughter. They have taken Moore for a great poet, and Handy Andy for a humorist to be proud of. Yet an Irishman who wishes to speak dispassionately must find humour of a very different kind from that of Handy ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... my dear boy," said old Mr. Cary, gently: "would it not be rank treason to let these foxes escape, while we have this damning ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and harassed condition, the sophistry illuded her; she was sensible only of the menace his words distilled. She saw herself tricked and trapped, meshed in a web of damning circumstance; everything was against her—appearances, the hands of all men, the cruel accident that had placed the necklace in her keeping, even her parentage. For she was the daughter of a notorious thief, ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... turbulence of voiceless rage at myself, at her, at Daniel's treachery, at all the train, at Benton, and again at this damning predicament wherein I had landed. When I was bound to wrest free after having done my utmost, she appeared to be twitting me because I would not submit to farther use by her. I certainly had the right to extricate myself ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Don Carlos denied knowledge of the boxes of contraband goods, then knowledge of their real contents, then knowledge of their destination, and, finally, everything except that they were there in sight, damning witnesses to somebody's complicity in the breaking of neutrality laws. Passionate as had been his denial of all this, it was as nothing compared ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... somewhat still amiss; More peevish, cross, and splenetic, Than dog distract, or monkey sick; That with more care keep holiday The wrong than others the right way; Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to; Still so perverse and opposite, As if they worshipped God for spite; The self-same thing they will abhor One way, ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... should best know your own character. Are you the cold-blooded scoundrel who, taking advantage of that girl's confiding disposition, of the absence of her father, stole like a thief into his house; by lies, by false oaths, and damning hypocritical professions of love, won her affections; blighted her, and then left her what I blush to name? You wish the question addressed to you; you have ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... standard of perfection that the presence of the more subtle poisons could be detected in the stomach and intestines, and that the young and beautiful wife could be charged with and found guilty of the deed by the damning ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... valuable sense of the word, because it automatically accepts as derived from Q everything common to Matthew and Luke, and leaves out all the rest. It is merely a method of canonising the subjectivity of Matthew when it agrees with that of Luke, or of Luke when it agrees with that of Matthew, and damning both of them when they happen to disagree. Why the subjectivity of the editors of the gospels becomes objective when it is accepted by modern writers is ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... or the small; forgetting that approbation neither adds to virtue nor diminishes? Perhaps, and indeed I fear, my mind was warped. Yet surely the neglect and even odium in which the unobtruding man of genius is at present overwhelmed, is a damning accusation against the rich and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... pardoned, I'm secure; Death has no sting beside; The law gives sin its damning power, But Christ, my ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... coming from so unexpected a source do not, though couched in such mild language, hide the startling importance of the question discussed. On the contrary, they accurately and with double weight convey the sense and gist of the most damning argument against the policy of the retrocession of the Transvaal in its entirety; and proceeding from their own carefully chosen commissioners, can hardly have been pleasant reading to Lord ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... further confirmation of her perfidy that ever since his father's flight she had made a point of being down to breakfast before him, so that he could never see what letters she received. That was damning evidence against her—damnable evidence, in fact, for it argued a degree both of intelligence and energy for which he had not given her credit. Like his father before him, he was discovering that there was more up this sparkling lady's ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... anything in it: to see how some old gamesters, that have no money now to spend as formerly, do come and sit and look on, as among others, Sir Lewis Dives, who was here, and hath been a great gamester in his time: to hear their cursing and damning to no purpose, as one man being to throw a seven if he could, and, failing to do it after a great many throws, cried he would be damned if ever he flung seven more while he lived, his despair of throwing it being so great, while others did it as their luck served almost every throw: to see how persons ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... hymn-books and holy writings handed to the jury were NOT, as his Honor had surmised, for the purpose of enabling the jury to indulge in—er—preliminary choral exercise! He might, indeed, say, "Alas, not!" They were the damning, incontrovertible proofs of the perfidy of the defendant. And they would prove as terrible a warning to him as the fatal characters upon Belshazzar's wall. There was a strong sensation. Hotchkiss turned a sallow green. His lawyers assumed a ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... to myself, "it will bring these damning doubts to a final trial. If they have been fools heretofore, opportunity will serve to madden them. We shall see—we shall know ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the Potomac immortal in history, and made its campaign of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania a campaign of glory, let us not forget that negro troops in that army, and in other armies in the same campaign, have borne their part faithfully, and deserve well of the republic. Nor let us forget the damning atrocities at Fort Pillow, where black men in United States uniform were massacred in cold blood, because they were willing rather to die freemen with their white comrades of the United States army, than live slaves to rebel masters:[D] thus vindicating their claim to freedom, and reflecting ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... work before them it was necessary to get a name for Beatrice. Her own name was doubly abhorrent—first, from her own life-long hate of it, which later circumstances had intensified; and, secondly, from the damning effect which such a name would have on the fortune of any artiste. Langhetti wished her to take his name, but Despard showed an extraordinary pertinacity ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... Abbot's friends." It was as good as a play to him—a hunter; but to Isoult, the wild little outcast, it was deadly work. Like all her class, she held dogs in more fear than their masters. You may cajole a man; to a dog the very attempt at it is a damning proof ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... Their motives were their feelings; their feelings were their traditions, and their traditions were back in the old entrenchments. The time for large changes had slipped by. Haggard, of the Courier, thought it "Equally just and damning" to reprint from the General's odiously remembered letter of four years earlier, "If we can't make our Negroes white, let us make them as white as we can," and sign it "Social Equality Launcelot." Parson Tombs, sweet, aged, and beloved, prayed from his pulpit—with the ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... breaks out into the following rhapsody:—"No man of common sense and common integrity can deny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, a worthless contemptible infidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common profligate, a soul-despising, a soul-murdering, a soul-damning, thoughtless wretch as could exist on the face of the earth. Now be astonished, O heavens, to eternity! and wonder, O earth and hell! while time endures. Behold this very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror of wisdom, goodness, holiness, truth, and love." But whoever ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... transient as they were, told nevertheless with disturbing effect upon his temper. In the same unfortunate direction was the tendency of a habit grown insidiously upon him,—a habit against the damning control of which (as no one better than the writer of this article knows) he wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, resorting to all the remedial expedients which professional skill or his own experience could suggest, but never entirely delivering himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... careless of suspicion, Ne fawnest for the favour of the great; Ne fearest foolish reprehension Of faulty men, which danger to thee threat; But freely dost, of what thee list, entreat, Like a great lord of peerless liberty; Lifting the good up to high honour's seat, And the evil damning over more to die; For life and death is in thy doomful writing; So thy renown ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... with such delight in damning, That if at the resurrection Unto him the free election Of his future could be given, 'Twould be rather ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... mysterious Contradictions, but likewise the most palpable Absurdities, such as Transubstantiation; that the Pope is infallible, and has the Power of Thundering out Anathema's and granting Absolutions; and consequently of damning and saving whom he pleases; that the Pomp and Magnificence of the Sacred College, and even the Luxury of a Court, are laudable Means, and absolutely necessary to keep up the Dignity and outward Luster of the visible Church; and that the Spiritual ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... head, and who judged perhaps that the return of the queen as the wife of an English protestant nobleman would afford the best prospect of safety to himself and his party, readily acceded to the proposal, and consented still to withhold the "damning proofs" of Mary's guilt which he ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the box in both trembling hands, staring with piteous eyes at the damning evidence of ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... together, in one of those occasional flashes of wildness which showed that there was a vein of insanity running through all the frenzied zeal of the witchfinder. He had now arrived at a period of his narration, when the most damning proof of all was to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... is full of evidence that our great grandfathers looked upon mountains with aversion and horror. The poets of even the seventeenth century never tire of damning them in good, set terms. If they had had the unhappiness to read the opening lines of "The Pleasures of Hope," they would assuredly have thought Master Campbell had gone funny and should be shut up lest he ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... His mother had never said anything about me, excepting criticism. I had been a bitter disappointment to her. Whatever she said would be politely cruel—at best, a damning with faint praise. ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... Terrasse de Feuillants and the broad walk of the Tuileries, they nowhere discovered the sublime Paquita Valdes, on whose account some fifty of the most elegant young men in Paris where to be seen, all scented, with their high scarfs, spurred and booted, riding, walking, talking, laughing, and damning themselves mightily. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... with the evil precedent of Colonel Napier's History of the Peninsular War. It is a specimen of the true French military school; not a thought for the justice of the war,—not a consideration of the damnable and damning iniquity of the French invasion. All is looked at as a mere game of exquisite skill, and the praise is regularly awarded to the most successful player. How perfectly ridiculous is the prostration of Napier's mind, apparently ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... not a bit right, my dear. He does—just what the man says in the rhymes—what is it? you know—makes up for his own little peccadilloes by damning yours and mine. I forget how it goes. But there'll be more in by-and-by, and then we'll have another table. Those who come late will be more in your line; not so ready to peck your eyes out if you ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... the word I spoke when I first heard that she had left me. Impossible? And why? Is a friend more true than a wife? After Lady Chetwynde failed me, why should I believe in Neville Pomeroy? And you—why did you not let me end my life in peace? Why did you bring to me this frightful—this damning evidence which destroys my faith not in man, but ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... formerly damned the Pontifical See, And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P.; But he turned up his nose at their murmuring and shamming, And cared (shall I say) not a d—— for their damning. So they first read him out of their church, and next minute Turned round and declared he had never been in it. But the ban was too small, or the man was too big; For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig (He don't look like a man who would stay ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... day he overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothing in the pockets. It will be exhibited at the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of the killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position enables him to learn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... writings of the gentleman from Posey, but am not allowed to read them; and, indeed, sir, under the circumstances, decency forbids their use. But if I were permitted to read them, and show their worse than damning influence upon society, in conjunction with this system of separate interests, I venture to aver that gentlemen would turn from them with disgust; aye, sir, they would shun them as they would shun man's worst enemy, and flee from them as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... closing of the case had wrought in the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a hideous death by fire in the electric chair—sobered ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Greyles out there. Bassett Oliver may have done, though. I know he toured in a lot of American towns—I only went to three—New York, Chicago, St. Louis. I suppose," she continued, turning to Copplestone with a suggestion of confidence in her manner, "I suppose you consider it a very damning thing that Bassett Oliver should disappear, after saying what he did ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... plea, let Pity be your screen. Let Monodies on Fox regale your crew, And Melville's Mantle [116] prove a Blanket too! One common Lethe waits each hapless Bard, And, peace be with you! 'tis your best reward. 750 Such damning fame; as Dunciads only give [liii] Could bid your lines beyond a morning live; But now at once your fleeting labours close, With names of greater note in blest repose. Far be't from me unkindly to upbraid The lovely ROSA'S prose in masquerade, Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... no offence to you, Larkin; but it's true—I will prove it;' and I went on to detail my early acquaintance with Hallet; his vast profession and small performance of piety; his betrayal of Frank's mother; his treatment of his son, and all the damning record I have spread ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... another—(what is it that Dante has said?) And the trouble of other men's stairs. In a word, I wish fate had some real affliction conferr'd On your whimsical self, that, at least, you had cause For neglecting life's duties, and damning its laws! This pressure against all the purpose of life, This self-ebullition, and ferment, and strife, Betoken'd, I grant that it may be in truth, The richness and strength of the new wine of youth. But if, when the wine should have mellow'd ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... author deprecates the hasty voice of the pit in words that suggest the anxiety of a man now responsible for a happiness dearer than his own. "I have heard," he writes, "that there are some young Gentlemen about this Town who make a Jest of damning Plays—but did they seriously consider the Cruelty they are guilty of by such a Practice, I believe it would prevent them"; the more, that if the author be "so unfortunate to depend on the success of his Labours for his Bread, he must be an inhuman Creature ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... story: "A friend of mine returned from a short tour in the United States, declaring that he heartily disliked the country and would never go back again. Enquiry as to the grounds of his dissatisfaction elicited no more definite or damning charge than that 'they' (a collective pronoun presumed to cover the whole American people) hung up his trousers instead of folding them—or vice versa, for I am heathen enough not to remember which is the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Guicciardini, "conscio dei sospetti, i quali il re forse non vanamente aveva avuti di lui," etc. (Istoria, tom, iv. p. 30.) This way of damning a character by surmise, is very common with Italian writers of this age, who uniformly resort to the very worst motive as the key of whatever is dubious or inexplicable in conduct. Not a sudden death, for example, occurs, without at least ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... 'our women,' the brow had cleared. You saw that it was beautiful. Miss Levering stood at the door with an anxious eye on the stair, as if fearful of the home-coming of 'her fellow-coward,' or, direr catastrophe—old Mr. Fox-Moore's discovering the damning fact of this outlaw's presence under his roof! Yet, even so, torn thus between dread and desire to pluck out the heart of the new mystery, 'the militant woman,' Miss Levering did not speed the parting guest. As though recognizing fully ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... I should get back into Lloyd's, and I saw the foreman, and he told me to my face that I was too old, that they wanted younger men. And I went into the office to see Lloyd, pushed past the foreman, with him damning me, and I ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... no end of interest locally. To give them their due, the jury were very reluctant to bring in that verdict—but I assure you"—he spoke weightily—"when I heard the other side marshalling their facts, each one making the case look still blacker and more damning, I began to be afraid. Yes, I confess it, I began to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... intervals he gesticulated and muttered a phrase. He was making excellent progress with it and at five and twenty minutes to three he was at the end of it. The prince sat stolidly in the easy chair by the long windows. At twenty-four minutes to three the baron flung out the last damning phrase (with the appropriate splendid gesture) at his image in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece. Then he turned to beam triumphantly on his little charge. The easy chair was ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... for Phillopolis from the first. The case against him was so clear and so damning that the magistrate, before whom the preliminary inquiry was heard, had no hesitation in committing him to take his trial at the Old Bailey on a charge of receiving, and that at the first hearing. Every article ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... man," said I, somewhat startled by his impressive manner, "however presumptuous, as far as social considerations are concerned, it might be, by which you affect to be inspired, is utterly inconsistent with the cruel, dastardly crime of which such damning evidence has an ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... expect me to believe that that bold libertine, who made you the object of his unrepressed admiration, was your father? Why, that man was not old enough to be your father,—and if ever profligacy was written on a human countenance, its damning lines were traced on his. Your father! Away with a subterfuge so vile and flimsy, a falsehood ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... damning arraignment, and Wiley's men listened grimly, but he only twisted his lip and nodded his head ironically. With one eye on his accuser, who was becoming hysterical, he hustled the ore into the empty trucks and started them off down the road; and then, as ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... the bank examiners had suddenly put in an appearance, had either discovered or deduced that something was wrong, and had realised that should Suviney's demand for money, or Suviney's blackmailing story become known, it would appear as damning evidence of a past record looming up to point suspicion toward him now. That was what he had meant by saying he ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... address at the Hotel Metropole. Guileless as he appeared, he turned out to be an agent of the German Government. He naturally wanted to make himself solid with his masters by delivering the goods, so he had twisted all my words into the most damning evidence, and had fixed up two or three ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... HEROD.—Do these same white-walled sepulchres of hell know that they are committing the damning sin of Herod in the slaughter of the innocents, and are accessories before the fact to the crime of murder? Do women in all circles of society, when practicing these terrible crimes realize the real danger? Do they understand that it is undermining their health, and their constitution, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... boxes upon the wall-top. Here the wretched were shot and hung in sight of their trembling comrades. The brick wall at the foot of the yard is scarred and crushed by balls and bullets which first passed through some human heart and wrote here their damning testimony. The gallows had been suspended from a wing in the ledge, and in mid-air the impotent captive swung, none daring or willing to say a good word for him; and not for any offence against God's law, not for wronging his neighbor, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... very different, and far more unpardonable. The self-created, frantic jealousy of Leontes is very distinct from that of Othello, writhing under the arts of Iago: or that of Posthumus, whose understanding has been cheated by the most damning evidence of his wife's infidelity. The jealousy which in Othello and Posthumus is an error of judgment, in Leontes is a vice of the blood; he suspects without cause, condemns without proof; he is without excuse—unless the mixture of pride, passion, and imagination, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... considered a prejudiced party. But I hoped I had established a bit of a reputation for square-dealing in business and I wanted to feel that my own kind were in touch with me and would have faith that I was working hard for all interests. You and I can both join in damning these demagogues and radicals and visionaries and Bolshevists. We must be practical even ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... disliked Italians, fire-new nobles, sea captains dubbed Admirals and Viceroys came. Every one who had been restrained from greed, lust and violence came. Those who held an honest doubt as to some one policy, or act, questioned, found their mere doubt become in Aguado's mind damning certainty. And so many good Spaniards dead in war, and so many of pestilence, and such thinness, melancholy, poverty in Isabella! And where was the gold? And was this rich Asia of the spices, the elephants, the beautiful thin cloths and the jewels? The friends of Christopherus Columbus had ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... relations with the White House and the Treasury were not confidential. No one volunteered advice. No one offered suggestion. One got no light, even from the press, although press agents expressed in private the most damning convictions with their usual cynical frankness. The Congressional Committee took a quantity of evidence which it dared not probe, and refused to analyze. Although the fault lay somewhere on the Administration, and could lie nowhere else, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... transgression, beyond the bounds of forgiveness, the leaders of that party, who put Mr. Strong up for Governor, have attained it. These things I gather from the papers, and from the history of the day, as I have collected them since my return home. And to all this must be added the damning fact of Te Deums, orations, toasts, and processions of the clergy, and the judges, with all the leaders of the federal, or opposition party, in celebration of the success of the Spaniards in restoring the Inquisition, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... the snatches of his talk that reached us, and they had a damning significance. We, the lords of Silverado, had come face to face with our superior. It is the worst of all quaint and of all cheap ways of life that they bring us at last to the pinch of some humiliation. I liked well enough to be a squatter when there was none but Hanson ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very boisterous and merry and perceiving Mings and his fellows inclined for slumber, roared them to wakefulness, bidding them drink with him and damning them for sleepy dogs. Yet in a while he fell silent also and presently takes out his dagger and begins fondling it. Then all at once he was on his feet, the dagger glittering evilly in his hand the while he glared from me ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... going about that some years ago—while the war was on, in fact—you wrote a very wonderful attack upon the trades unions. This attack was so bitter in tone, so damning in some of its facts, and, in short, such a wonderful production, that at the last moment the late Prime Minister used his influence with you to suspend its publication. It was held over, and in the meantime the attitude of the trades unions towards certain phases of the ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
