"Imprecation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we approached he lifted up his head and 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 ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 you, scribes ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... first the way was enlivened by humorous suggestions on the part of my companions as to what had become of Colonel Gaylord, but as I did not respond very freely to their bantering, they finally fell silent with only an occasional imprecation as someone stubbed his toe or caught his clothing on a brier. After a half hour or so of plodding we came to a clear path through the woods and in a few minutes reached the mouth of ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... recounted the escape he had had, an imprecation, the first he had ever heard him utter, broke from his father's lips. With the indiscrimination of party spirit, he looked upon the warder's insolence and attempted robbery as the spirit and behaviour of his master, the earl being in fact as little capable of such ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... ever thus," cried 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... sweet, Nor Love nor Hope can give such 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 As shone but late, ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... purloin certain articles of value from a jewel-case belonging to Lady Trafford. Aha!" he continued, producing a short silver staff, which he carried constantly about with him, and uttering a terrible imprecation, "I see you're confounded. Down on your marrow-bones, sirrah! Confess your guilt, and Sir Rowland may yet save ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the glass, but the thick black liquid of which it was full aroused such repulsion that she would have attempted a last appeal; but a horrible imprecation from the abbe and a threatening movement from his brother took from her the very last gleam of hope. She put the glass to her lips, and murmuring once more, "God! Saviour! have pity on me!" she swallowed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... not turn his head, he growled out a deep imprecation and walked away. Matchin was hardly surprised. He mused to himself, "I thought it was funny that Mattie should sack Sam Sleeny for that fellow. I guess he didn't ask the sperrits how the land lay," chuckling over the discomfiture of the seer. ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... tipped with the glow of evening and its base in purple shadow, descending abruptly into the darkening waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the surf-fringed beach, the great mountain seem to bar our further progress, but with a guttural imprecation and a loud cracking of the whip, our coachman deftly guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the Capo del' Orso, and in a trice Amalfi, whither ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... 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?" is a master-key that unlocks the mysteries ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... still have a blessing for him, after giving Esau his. But Rebekah allayed his anxieties, with the words: "When Adam was cursed, the malediction fell upon his mother, the earth, and so shall I, thy mother, bear the imprecation, if thy father curses thee. Moreover, if the worst comes to the worst, I am prepared to step before thy father and tell him, 'Esau is a villain, and Jacob is ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... smile untiring, they tear my bowels out and still gloat over my sold corpse, go on to bare my bones, and veins at will, wrench out my heart," probe vainly for the secrets of hunger and the mystery of pain, until from her "dead breast gurgles a gasp of malediction." Much of her verse is imprecation. "A crimson rain of crying blood dripping from riddled chests" of those slain for liberty falls, on her heart; the sultry factories where "monsters, of steel, huge engines, snort all day," and where the pungent air poisons the blood of the pale weaver girls; the fate ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... imprecation the Doctor flung back the rug to cover it, and sprang to his feet, steadying ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... pretty a piece of imprecation for you, when joined to the lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course of your business. But don't forget the addition of the above three lines, which are clinchers ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... some time 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, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... 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 up ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... thus addressed muttered some inaudible reply, which sounded, however, very much like an imprecation, to which his tormentor responded with a gay laugh. Then I heard the door creak upon its solitary hinge and scrape along the ground, as it was dragged open, and the voice of the Frenchman said, addressing ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... his seat, with his very beard bristling with passion. "What is your happiness to me? What have I to do with her that you must dangle her photograph before my eyes?" I almost thought that he was about to strike me in the frenzy of his rage, but with another imprecation he dashed open the door of the cabin and rushed out upon deck, leaving me considerably astonished at his extraordinary violence. It is the first time that he has ever shown me anything but courtesy and kindness. I can hear him pacing excitedly up ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not accurately known to us. But it is certain that, when John became King, the distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost disappeared. In the time of Richard the First, the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentleman was "May I become an Englishman!" His ordinary form of indignant denial was "Do you take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a hundred years later was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... have none; they never attend mass, nor confess themselves, and never employ the names of God, Christ and the Virgin, but in imprecation and blasphemy. From what I learnt from them it appeared that their ancestors had some belief in metempsychosis, but they themselves laughed at the idea, and were decidedly of opinion that the soul perished when the body ceased to breathe; and the ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... Cross of Lochmaben, where, with great solemnity, drums beating, and colours displayed, those there colected drank to "their King's health;" the Master of Burleigh giving the toast, and uttering an imprecation on all such as should refuse to pledge it. These meetings had been continued for several years, and, during the reign of Queen Anne, without any molestation from Government.[10] Lord Nithisdale took a decided part in all these measures, and was ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... An imprecation trembled on Dan's lips, and one of his hands left the wheel in an involuntary gesture of resignation. Then he shut his teeth tight ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... fierce imprecation of rage, the astonished young man rushed down to the office to interview the proprietor as to the meaning ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... men hurried away, and in a few minutes presented to the astonished eyes of the Scouts their old acquaintances and quasi-enemies, Dublin, Limpy Rae, and Monkey Rae. The latter favored the boys with a look of hatred and a muttered imprecation. ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... the silvery wail of a fallen angel. Then followed the terrible imprecation passage. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... revolver against his chest, Dartie had pulled the trigger several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an imprecation, he had muttered: "For shake o' the children," and sank into a chair. Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave him some soda water. The liquor had a magical effect. Life had illused him; Winifred had never ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... were used to attract the fish, which came swimming to the sheen, and were then speared. As little noise as possible was made; but though the men bit their lips instead of crying out when they missed their fish, there was a continuous ring of their weapons on the stones, and every irrepressible imprecation was echoed up and down the black glen. Two or three of the gang were told off to land the salmon, and they had to work smartly and deftly. They kept by the side of the spearsman, and the moment he struck a fish they grabbed at it with their hands. When the spear had a barb there was ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... that we are here dealing for the moment solely with lawful swearing. There are such things as imprecation, blasphemy, and general profanity, of which there will be question later, and which have this in common with the oath, that they call on the name of God; the difference is the same that exists between bad and good, right and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... to be a 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 ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... leaped into the eyes of the half-breed. He seemed on the point of speaking, but with an unintelligible muttered imprecation he relapsed into sullen silence. Chloe had purposely baited the man, hoping in his anger he would blurt out some bit of information concerning the mysterious Pierre Lapierre. Instead, the man crouched silent, scowling, with his gaze fixed ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... noiselessly on, until they stood at the 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
... hoop-skirts once worn by women of rank, as if to say "So you are playing the great lady!" The insulted woman, in resentment, makes with both hands, for double effect, the sign of horns, before described, which in this case is done obviously in menace and imprecation. The husband is a pacific fellow who is not willing to get into a woman's quarrel, and is very easily held back by a woman and small boy who happen to join the group. He contents himself with pretending to be in a great passion and biting his finger, which gesture may be collated with ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... her arm—picked them up. Evidently she did not move fast enough to suit Baar's temper, for as she straightened up the man cuffed her upon the head. She stumbled to one side against Baar's wife, who was standing there, and the other woman, with a sharp imprecation, struck her ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... dish of friar's brains. A most rare delicacy, and rendered costly by virtue of the scarcity of the ingredients." And with that answer Peppe was gone, leaving the monk with an ugly look in his eyes, and an unuttered imprecation on his tongue. ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... have a child— Lucr. Horrible thought! Cen. That if she ever have a child; and thou, Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God, That thou be fruitful in her, and encrease And multiply, fulfilling his command, And my deep imprecation! May it be A hideous likeness of herself, that as From a distorting mirror, she may see Her image mixed with what she most abhors, Smiling upon her from her nursing breast. And that the child may from its infancy Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed, Turning ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... bags. Thou hadst best go, 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 ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... growl like a muttered imprecation within, and when the door opened there stood upon the threshold a tall, bearded, muscular old fellow in a dirty red shirt, with a big revolver shining in his hand. A quick glance at us satisfied him that we were not thieves, and he ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... 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 ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... struggle, resented his treatment and answered back with the only weapon he had, risking and enduring being driven from his home and birthplace, and kept good the grudge in the days of his success, I think cannot be doubted. The records of court proceedings, the imprecation above his grave, both indicate a man of strong will and not unaccustomed to mastery. We may reject one or another of the retorts or sallies in verse, but we must, I think, agree, that the fact that they are brought to us ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... man had passed him, Dick ran to the staircase. He descended one flight; he was half way down another when a yell of pain and imprecation came to his ears. He knew that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... 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 ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... gilded cruets, and a dozen goblets. Azucena is brought before the Count, and manacled. Operatic handcuffs—a most humane contrivance—with long links, to permit of the freest facilities for entreaty and imprecation. Soldiers, who have been called to arms, but stayed, from a natural curiosity to hear what the Conte di Luna had to say to the Gipsy, go off, as she is led away to prison, with a sense that they have seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... 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
... standing motionless, framed by the green foliage. Suddenly, barking was heard in the distance, partially drowned by the firing of a gun. A few seconds later, two feeble reports were heard, followed by an imprecation from Monsieur de Camier, whose caps flashed in the pan. The Baron, who had just leaned forward that he might see better through the thicket, raised his hand to warn Octave to hold himself in readiness. He then placed himself ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... 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 ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... With an imprecation Slinkton put his hand to his head, tore out some hair, and flung it to the ground. It was the end of the smooth walk; he destroyed it in the action, and it will soon be seen that his use for ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... and he turned away with a smothered word which sounded like an imprecation upon all the race of foreigners; whilst Howel asked with ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Jack, seeing his chum's intention, followed his example, and the two Huns went down in a heap, falling over the heads of their antagonists with many a German imprecation. Their weapons flew ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... imprecation upon his useless right arm, and the man whose sure aim had made it so. "But for you," he muttered, grinding his teeth, "I'd ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... had scarcely laid it down beside its mother and brother, when he saw his rival in the outer room of the store, and with one deadly imprecation, and a face which Eustace could not think of without horror, challenged him to fight, and in a second or two had struck him down, with a fractured skull. But the deed was done in undoubted brain fever. That ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... give the force, the malignity, the concentrated meaning with which the words were hurled out, as the majestic form of the old Lord towered in the shadow, with his hands outstretched as if in imprecation. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... sufficed to break the spell which bound them. This did so; and, with one accord, and yells of imprecation, they rushed forward and plunged among the old walls ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Something like an imprecation rose to his lips, but he chopped it off quickly, uttering again that laugh, so hard, so cruel, so blood-curdling, that it sent a chill of terror to her ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... imprecation that must have made his ancestors, asleep behind the old Quaker meeting-house down in Buck Creek, gasp in ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... 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 lifted out of my saddle, but there came another ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... to ostentation."—Blair cor. "To illustrate the great truth, so often overlooked in our times."—C. S. Journal cor. "The principal figures calculated to affect the heart, are Exclamation, Confession, Deprecation, Commination, and Imprecation."—Formey cor. "Disgusted at the odious artifices employed by the judge."—Junius cor. "All the reasons for which there was allotted to us a condition out of which so much wickedness and misery would in fact arise."—Bp. Butler cor. "Some characteristical circumstance being generally ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the storm was blowing over when Mervyn came in, charmed to mortify Juliana by compliments to Phoebe on 'doing it stylishly, careering in Acton's turn-out,' but when the elder sister explained where she had been, Mervyn, too, deserted her, and turned away with a fierce imprecation on his brother, such as was misery to Phoebe's ears. He was sourly ill-humoured all the evening; Juliana wreaked her displeasure on Sir Bevil in ungraciousness, till such silence and gloom descended on him, that he was like another man from him who had smiled on Phoebe in the afternoon. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the woods or beaten them in detail in the narrow gorge, but in another instant the reason of their furious haste was manifest. Spurring his horse ahead, Clinch dashed out into the open with a cheering shout—a shout that as quickly changed to a yell of imprecation. They were on the Ridge in a blinding snow-storm! The road had already vanished under their feet, and with it the fresh trail they had so closely followed! They stood helplessly on the shore of a trackless white sea, blank and spotless of any trace ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... was a member of a riotous and profane club[359], we may account for Johnson's having a prejudice against him. Paul Whitehead was, indeed, unfortunate in being not only slighted by Johnson, but violently attacked by Churchill, who utters the following imprecation: ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the same, for at the close the girl threw the paper cm the floor and stamped upon it. At that the Russian's rage knew no bounds. With an imprecation, he sprang at the Japanese girl. As Mazie looked on in speechless horror, she fancied she caught the gleam of a ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... his slayer from his breast; started erect upon his feet! tore out, from the deep wound, the fatal weapon which had made it; hurled it far—far as his remaining strength permitted—into the rayless night; burst forth into a wild and yelling cry, half laughter and half imprecation; fell headlong to the earth—which was no more insensible than he, what time he struck it, to any sense of mortal pain or sorrow—and perished ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... 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
... he tried to resume his thoughts with coolness, and finally, after giving vent to a last imprecation, he was about to abandon all idea of regaining possession of his case, when once more, in spite of himself, there flashed across him the thought of his document, the remembrance of all that scaffolding on which his future hopes depended, on ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... stood 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, ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 eagerness of his age. Madeleine, a gazelle ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... to be possessed of the most extraordinary powers for evil; they could bewitch a man, woman or child—even the cows and flocks—by casting an "evil eye" upon them, by uttering an imprecation, or in other ways casting a spell upon them. This power was derived directly from the devil himself, with whom witches were supposed to be in direct compact; consequently their influence was all for evil. These deeds were practised daily throughout ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... her. Like an immaterial spirit, Inez slipped away from the place where she stood and went back to Dolores' room, knowing that Eudaldo would very probably go and knock where he supposed her sister to be a prisoner, before slipping the outer bolt again. And so he did, muttering an imprecation upon the little lamp that had gone out and left the small hall in darkness. Then he knocked, and spoke through the door, offering to bring her food, or fire, and repeating his words many times, in a supplicating tone, for he was devoted to both the sisters, though terror of old ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... imprecation on hearing the woman's message, and then said, "Come with me, Dubarle; if we can not convince the fellow, we can at least silence him! Marie Duquesne, you will ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... was unconsciously humming, glanced suddenly and swiftly upwards; then, as if a thunderbolt had struck him, he came to a sudden halt, having a dazed expression on his features and littering a half suppressed oath or imprecation. Mrs. Merrick had not noticed the approaching couple, her thoughts being far away, but the suddenness of the gentleman's movement arrested her attention, and she looked him fully in the face for a moment; then, ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... finely printed and exquisitely bound. Lord Falkland, to divert the king, proposed that he should make a trial of his fortune by the Sortes Virgilanae. The king opening the book, the passage he happened to light upon was part of Dido's imprecation against Aeneas in lib. iv. l. 615. King Charles seeming concerned at the accident, Lord Falkland would likewise try his own fortune, hoping he might fall upon some passage that could have no relation to his case, and thus divert the king's thoughts from any impression the other ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... crimes and the cruelties which he inflicts; blood will have blood; and the ferocious oppressor is involved in the natural reaction of his own wickedness, by the frenzied retaliation of the oppressed. Now was indeed beheld the realization of the sublime imprecation in Shakspeare: "one spirit of the first-born Cain" did indeed reign in the hearts of men; and now, if ever upon this earth, it seemed likely, from the dreadful acharnement which marked the war on both sides,—the acharnement of long-hoarded vengeance and maddening remembrances in the Grecian, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... 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
... ship with everything set that would draw, and with a studding-sail flapping, before it could be drawn down, which he knew in an instant to be the Foam. At this spectacle Mr. Truck compressed his lips, and made an inward imprecation, that it would ill comport with our notions of propriety ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... corporal in the Military Police—loomed into view, and with an imprecation the rough backed away from the girl, turned, and in a moment was lost in the gloom. I brought my eyes back to the girl who had confronted me in the red light of sunset, and I stood gazing at her dumbly, fascinated, but with never a word ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... thief: fear, madness, confusion, the fierce look, the distorted features, and—force of moral superiority in the race—his religious awe to see assembled there such august personages! Here came in opportunely a long imprecation, a harangue, a diatribe against the perversion of good customs, hence the necessity of a permanent military tribunal, "a declaration of martial law within the limits already so declared, special legislation, energetic and repressive, because it is in every way needful, it is of imperative importance ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... eighth is characteristic of imprecation. It consists in stretching the palm of the hand toward the object as in a caress, but with this difference, that the fingers are spread apart, thus offering ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... sprang quickly forward and seized the German's arm even as his finger pressed the trigger and the bullet went wild. With a muttered imprecation, the German whirled on Frank, reversed his revolver quickly and brought it ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... the sinner who had violated the Divine injunction against rebuilding Jericho, for he said that the blasphemous talk of such evil-doers always called forth his rage. Thereupon God promised Elijah that fulfilment should attend whatever imprecation might in his wrath escape him against the godless for their unholy speech. As the prophet entered the general's house, he heard Hiel utter these words: "Blessed be the Lord God of the pious, who ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... he had not seen her, for he stopped short scarcely a rod from her, drew out his watch, and looked at the time; then, with a fierce imprecation on his lips, ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... conceived it in the mock-mediaeval style of our caricaturists:—Shrapnel stretched at his length, half a league, in slashed yellows and blacks, with his bauble beside him, and prodigious pointed toes; Nevil in parti-coloured tights, on one leg, raising his fists in imprecation to a nose in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... 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 ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... as well, old Jean Pierre Pichou, ex-boatswain of the Didon frigate, would come along arm-in-arm with Julien Carales, alias Frap d'Abord, ex-marechal des logis—Pichou, with his wooden leg, and Frap d'Abord twisting a grey moustache and uttering a steady torrent of imprecation—or so it sounded. These could be counted on; but scores of others stopped and turned at the Bayfield elm, and Polly had names for them all. Moreover, on one memorable day Dorothea had watched one who did not ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... made by General Abercrombie was a fiercely-uttered imprecation. Seizing at the same time the arm she had dropped from his, he drew her out of the vestibule and down the snow-covered step with a sudden violence that threw her to the ground. As he dragged her up he cursed her again in ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... said, contained the plate. Here another difficulty arose. The box, which in reality contained the plate, was securely locked, and the key nowhere to be found. Anxious to get at the rich booty, the leader, with an angry imprecation, put the muzzle of his heavy horse-pistol to the lock; a sharp report followed, and the lid thus unceremoniously opened offered no further obstacle to the rapacity of the invaders. Donna Ignazia took advantage of the joyful excitement of the band, and left the room to ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... Gavitt!" he called, not less gruffly than of yore, but without the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... era is shown by other passages in the Acts of the Apostles; in Paphos the "false prophet," a Jew, whose surname was Bar-Jesus, otherwise known as "Elymas the sorcerer," opposed the teaching of St. Paul and brought on himself the imprecation: "O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... This imprecation is pronounced in your name, men of Athens, by the herald, at every meeting of the Assembly, as the law appoints; and when the Council sits, it is pronounced again there. Nor can Aeschines say that he did not know it well. He was your under-clerk and servant to the ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... as close to the edge as he dared. The hand doubled as if in imprecation, shaking savagely in the face of that force which leaves its creatures to immutable law; then spread wide again, clutching, expanding, crying for help as audibly as ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... 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 ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... a wagon. After her galloped a Rebel Sergeant, with revolver drawn shouting to her to stop or he would fire. Abe Bolton stepped forward impulsively to shoot the Rebel, missed his footing, and slid down the hill, landing in the orad with such force as to jar into unintelligibiliy a bitter imprecation he had constructed for the emergency. He struck in front of the Sergeant, who instantly fired at Aunt Debby's mare, sending a bullet through the faithful animal, which sank to her knees, and threw her rider to the ground. Without waiting to rise, and he was not certain that he ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... while the ploughs left their dozen furrows of moist, fresh soil, and the blackbirds hopped gingerly behind. But the water went down, down in the glass, and still there was no sign of a further supply. Allan again cut the air with his whistle, and at length, with a muttered imprecation, he slammed the throttle shut ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... gone far enough. I'm sick of it, I tell you. I will kill myself in another week. Don't," he said in louder tones and with an imprecation—"don't tell me not to. You've been doing ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... 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
... formula before noticed. It is borrowed from the Jewish, "of blessed memory" (after the name of the honoured dead, Prov. x. 17.); with the addition of "upon whom be peace," as opposed to the imprecation, "May the name of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... had gone I tottered to my feet, with an imprecation on my weakness, and I took an amount of stimulant that Dr. Bates would never have prescribed; but it had little effect. In stony, sullen protest at my fate, I sat down again, and the hours passed ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... other hand, pressed her throat hard, till she was black in the face, kicked her several times with ferocious rage, and then flung her away from him to the other side of the hut with a fierce and untranslatable native imprecation. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... the term "Word;" to Christ's change of intention about going up to the feast of Tabernacles (John vii. 8); to the judgment denounced by Saint Peter upon Ananias and Sapphira, which he calls an "imprecation of death." (Jewish and Heathen Test. Vol. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... 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, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... on 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 ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... in the dust; she threw to the winds the hard-won results of treachery and crime, and only that she might be near him who abhorred her, and whose first word on coming back to consciousness might be an imprecation. Beside this man who hated her, he who adored her was as nothing, and all his devotion and all his adoration were ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... 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
... 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, I called on a neighbour ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... of the 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 ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo |
