"Malicious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lucan did not think as he wrote. He had a purpose to serve; and in an age when to act like a freeman was no longer possible, he determined at least to write in that character. It is probable, also, that he wrote with a vindictive or a malicious feeling towards Nero; and, as the single means he had for gratifying that, resolved upon sacrificing the grandeur of Caesar's character wherever it should be found possible. Meantime, in spite of himself, Lucan for ever betrays his lurking consciousness of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... velvet jacket in the morning. But it might be number two who took that jacket off at night. He was a good-natured cynic, vastly amused by the airs this little girl put on before a man of note, and he took a malicious pleasure in letting her see that they entertained him. He goaded her intentionally into expressions of temper, because she looked prettiest then, and trifled with her hair (but this was in imagination only), ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... for setting aside the vulgar and familiar ones of Rogue, Rascal, Dog, and Thief (which may be taken by way of endearment as well as out of prejudice and offence), as also those of more certain signification, as Malicious Rogue, Ill-Natured Rascal, Lay Dog, and Spiteful Thief.' He had also, he said, been called Rebel, Traitor, Scot, Sadducee, and Socinian. Among the most elaborate replies to his work were: An Answer to a Letter of Enquiry ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... eccentricities of his career, would not have undertaken that mission unless he himself had been honest with regard to the terms to be offered, and anxious, if possible, to consolidate a peace. There were, however, certain persons—malicious people, of course—who found out that it would be convenient to the First Minister to have the noble Lord at a distance, at least for a time. But I never adopted that idea. I did not believe that the noble Lord's journey to Vienna, with a retinue that ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... blest region can I find Such bright perfections in a female mind? What Phoenix-woman breathes the vital air, So greatly greatly good, and so divinely fair? Sure, not the gay and fashionable train, Licentious, proud, immoral and prophane; Who spend their golden hours in antic dress, Malicious ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... for her, one must remember that this is a letter from a son to a father, in which frankness is permissible. He admits the intemperance and shrewishness of the mother; characterizes Josepha as lazy and vulgar; calls Aloysia a malicious person and coquette; dismisses the youngest, Sophie, as too young to be anything but simply a good though thoughtless creature. Surely not an attractive picture and not a family one ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... reputation, think themselves above the reach of censure, and safe in the admission of negligent indulgences, or that mankind expect from elevated genius a uniformity of greatness, and watch its degradation with malicious wonder, like him who, having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, should lament that she ever descended to ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... exertions, that zeal which has never wavered, that hope so steadfast, since it is that of an Englishwoman for her husband, that patience under misconstruction, that forgiveness for the sneer of jealousy, and that pity for the malicious, which you have so pre-eminently displayed, may yet, by God's help, one day reap its reward in the accomplishment of your wishes, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... the posture of Malacca was then too dangerous to admit of being governed by a person who considered his reputation, unless supported by a considerable force. Moniz therefore wrote home to Portugal, complaining against the viceroy, and malicious whispers are for the most part gratefully received by princes and ministers: and the Portuguese ministry, on the sole information of Moniz, committed the weakest act that ever was heard of, as will appear in the sequel: Unhappy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... sweeping the streets in violent gusts, the rain lashing the windowpanes. Night had come unnoticed—swiftly, intensely: in the curate's study a change from gray twilight to firelit shadows. The boy was squatted on the hearth-rug, disquieted by the malicious beating at the window, glad to be in the glow of the fire: his visions all of ragged men and ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... told me long afterwards that the scene remained indelibly impressed on his memory. "For," he said, "the wild eyes and the terrible voice of the witch frightened me more even than her cruel hand; as if even there I detected the devil in her, though I was but a little boy at the time."] When the malicious wretch let the boy go, he darted out of the room and ran down the whole corridor, screaming out that he would tell his mamma about Sidonia; but Zitsewitz met him, and having heard the story, the amorous old fool took him up ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... pair was quickly secured to take their place. Envious and hostile critics declared that they were not whales at all, but only porpoises, but this did no harm. Indeed, Barnum might well have paid them to start these malicious reports, for much good advertising was thereby secured. The illustrious Agassiz was appealed to. He came to see the animals, gave Barnum a certificate that they were genuine white whales, and this document ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... the pleasantry is pointed by a malicious footnote, to the effect that people who might be surprised that a serious man like Valere should have written works of this licentious and frivolous kind, will conceive that in a moment of leisure a philosopher should write Les Bijoux Indiscrets, for instance, and the next day follow ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... already for a long time irritated him with his negligently sincere, assured and serious bearing, so little suitable to the private cabinet of a brothel. But the seeming indifference with which the reporter let pass the malicious remarks which he interposed into the conversation angered ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... guess not! You'll play none of your games on me! You will ride between me and my deputy, Mr. Dean!" And then Job discovered for the first time that Marshall Dean was eying him with a malicious grin of satisfaction. ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... the Grange?' he asked, in a voice which was not so guarded as it should have been on such an occasion. Anger and the quickness of his walk had combined to make him short of breath, and he asked the question with that flurried, hasty manner which is common to angry people who are hot rather than malicious in their angers. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... waive all ceremony, and their father would like it. It would show that we were willing, at least, to be reconciled in our evil day; that we appreciated their magnanimity; that we were not mean as well as malicious, Harry." ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Lois her own mind, but it hurt to hit the trail with nothing more stimulating than a listless kiss and a chill request to write when convenient. Now that he was on his way he began to think of the pranks played by malicious nature during the long, dark nights, and to wonder if he had acted wisely in teaming up with this footless adventurer. He remembered the malice that rides the winter winds, the mischief that comes to Arctic widows, and he ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... The Fates are malicious jades. They delight in playing ill-natured pranks upon us. Not content with spinning and measuring and cutting the threads of our lives to suit themselves, they must also tangle the skein, causing us to cut ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... opposed their purpose, and they tried a whole day in vain. This doubtless proceeded from the providence of God, and his merciful goodness to our men, who were thus preserved by miracle from the malicious and devilish intentions of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the real things now, Aunt Mary," cried her nephew heartily. He was not a bit malicious, possessing a stomach whose equilibrium could not ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... were obnoxious to a large party of his countrymen; but had we not so many examples in history and experience of the blind prejudice and malicious injustice generated by faction, it would seem incredible, as we contemplate, in the impartial light of retrospective truth, his character and career, that any imaginable diversity of views on questions of state policy, could have bred such ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... down to Madame Vauthier to ask if she had received any news of his grandfather. The woman answered sneeringly that he knew very well, or he might know, where to find his grandfather; the reason why he had not come in, she said, was because he had gone to live at the chateau de Clichy. This malicious speech, from the woman who had coaxed and wheedled him the evening before, put the lad into another frenzy, and he rushed to the hospital once more, desperate with the idea that ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... flash out unshrinkingly on the strangers, who inspire curiosity, and not always aversion, if the language of those eyes be interpreted according to the Western code. In fact, the women seem to take a malicious pleasure in annoying their guards by encouraging such advances as can be made by the mute ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... mistrustfull of no euill.] iournie, as he that mistrusted no deceit, measuring other mens maners by his owne. King Offa right honourablie receiued him: but his wife named Quendred, a wise woman, but therewith wicked, conceiued a malicious deuise in hir hart, & streightwaies went about to persuade hir husband to put it in execution, which was to murther king Ethelbert, and after to take into his ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... were suited to the galligaskin. She was a true disciple of Maltre Francois, hating nothing so much as mincing obscenity, and if she flavoured her discourse with many a blasphemous quip, the blasphemy was 'not so malicious as customary.' Like the blood she was, she loved good ale and wine; and she regarded it among her proudest titles to renown that she was the first of women to smoke tobacco. Many was the pound of best Virginian that she bought of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... he was altogether alone in this good custom, and at first the very novelty of it had secured him immunity from pointed notice or comment. But when Damase, thinking he saw in his daily devotions an opening for his malicious purposes, drew attention to them by jeering remarks and taunting insinuations, the others, yielding to that natural tendency to be incensed with any one who seems to assert superior goodness, were inclined to side with him, or at all events to ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... on me that this account will probably have on the reader—they annoyed me exceedingly at times. At times the falsehoods were more malicious still, causing me many sleepless hours. At the end of ten months of complete sobriety, during which I never tasted any stimulant—ten months of constant struggle and determined effort—I fell. Alas, that I am compelled to write the sad words! I had ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... retail that search through robes and skins and blankets and boxes, in foul-smelling, vermin-infested wigwams. It was fruitless. I only recall the lowering face of the big squaw looking over my shoulder at every turn, with heavy brows contracted and gashed lips grinning an evil, malicious challenge. I thought she kept her hands uncomfortably near the ivory handle in the agate belt; but Larocque, good fellow, never took his beady eyes off those same hands and kept a grip ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... no more, for Wayne Wayland entered, followed by another gentleman, at the first sight of whom Emerson started, while his mind raced off into a dizzy whirl of incredulity. It could not be! It was too grotesque—too ridiculous! What prank of malicious fate was this? He turned his eyes to the door again, to see if by any chance there were a third visitor, but there was not, and he was forced to respond to Mr. Wayland's greeting. The other man had meanwhile stepped directly to Mildred, as if he had eyes for no one else, and ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... could not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him in an opposite one. The tender RACINE was no lover; but he was a subtle and epigrammatic observer, before whom his convivial friends never cared to open their minds; and the caustic BOILEAU truly said of him, "RACINE is far more malicious than ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... massacres of living men wherever the papists retained their superiority. One of the most cruel and inexcusable was that which happened at Sens—a city sixty-five or seventy miles toward the south-east from Paris—where, on an ill-founded and malicious rumor that the reformed contemplated rising and destroying their Roman Catholic neighbors, the latter, at the instigation, it is said, of their archbishop, the Cardinal of Guise, and encouraged by the violent example of ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... magazine reporter Princhard had been considered an ignorant and malicious liar. Isabelle looked eagerly as Cairy pointed him out,—a short, bespectacled man with a thin beard, who was talking ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... looked for a moment surprised and disconcerted. Her eye roving over the throng, she perceived several, whom she knew as the wives of Rienzi's foes, whispering together with meaning glances, and more than one malicious sneer at her mortification was apparent. She recovered herself instantly, and said to the Signora Frangipani, with a smile, "May we be a partaker of your mirth? You seem to have chanced on some gay thought, which it were a sin not to ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was restrained from pur-suing them to extremities, from prudential motives. As the kingdom became more settled, the disturbances were less frequent, and within the last century assumed the character of sportive rows rather than malicious feuds. On a recent lamentable occasion (now happily forgotten) the political feelings of the Gown and Town in some measure revived the spirit of the "olden time;" but since then Peace has waved her olive-branch over the city ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... understood only too well the dangerous temper of the cow, and saw that Gibbie was a mere child, and unarmed—an object most provocative of attack to Hornie—so named, indeed, because of her readiness to use the weapons with which Nature had provided her. She was in fact a malicious cow, and but that she was a splendid milker, would have been long ago fatted up and sent to the butcher. The boy as he ran full speed to the rescue, kept shouting to warn Gibbie from his purpose, but Gibbie was too intent to understand the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... OFF.—My hair is coming off, not slowly, but in one great circular patch at the top of the head. A malicious report has in consequence been spread abroad in the neighbourhood that I have been scalped! What course ought I to adopt to (1) recover damages against my traducers, and (2) ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... won't believe you! Oh, Rentgen, how can you invent such cruel things? Are you always so malicious? What do you mean? Come—what do you expect?" She closed her eyes, anticipating an avowal. Why should a man seek to destroy her faith in her husband, in love itself, if not for some selfish purpose of his own? But she was wrong, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... before the dwarf left the queen, he followed us one day into those gardens. I must needs show my wit by a silly illusion between him and the trees, which happens to hold in their language as it does in ours. Whereupon, the malicious rogue, watching his opportunity when I was walking under one of them, shook it directly over my head, by which a dozen apples, each of them near as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling about my ears; one of them hit me on the back as I chanced to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face; but ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... than to Mendoza. I had, therefore, no hesitation in signalling out the Conservative chief to give us the opposite point of view. He responded with deliberation, lifting from his chest his sinister Jewish face, and slowly unfolding his long body, while a malicious ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... towards the end they were less considerate to me, and once, when my mother-in-law had treated me in a very shocking manner, I was so malicious as to feign a colic in order to alarm them in my turn; because so anxious were they to have children, for my husband was the only son, and my mother-in-law was rich, could have heirs through ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... host, I should ignore those tomes. Being a guest, I sometimes glance into them, but with more of horror, I assure you, than of malicious amusement. I carefully avoid those which treat of hospitality among barbarous races. Things done in the best periods of the most enlightened peoples are quite bad enough. The Israelites were the salt of the earth. But can ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Stratton regarded the foreman in silence, observing the glint of veiled triumph in his eyes and the malicious curve of the full red lips. The thought flashed through his mind that Lynch would hardly be quite so pleased if he knew how much time Buck himself had given lately to thinking up some scheme of plausibly bringing about this ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... towards the heavens, after this, towards the earth, and now holding it horizontally, moves himself round till he has completed a circle, by which first action he is supposed to present it to the Great Spirit, whose aid is thereby supplicated; by the second, to avert any malicious interposition of the Evil Spirits; and, by the third, to gain the protection of the Spirits inhabiting the earth, the air, and the waters. Having thus secured the favour of those invisible agents, in whose power they suppose it is either to forward or obstruct the issue ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... his friends in college doubted if he would ever reach maturity; yet he lived to be a grey-haired man, and published a number of excellent books. When he died, in 1878, there were not wanting malicious people to spread the report that he died of intemperance, though the wonder is how he could have lived so long. His death cast a shadow over the social life at Appledore so that it never quite recovered its former gaiety. About the same time several millionaires made ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... to women riding stallions," muttered the veterinary. "The Fop is dangerous. Worse—though I take my hat off to his record—he's malicious and vicious. She—Mrs. Forrest ought to ride him with a muzzle—but he's a striker as well, and I don't see how she can put cushions ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... apply it as the foil to their own virtues. For that were to affirm, that a man writing of Nero, should mean all emperors; or speaking of Machiavel, comprehend all statesmen; or in our Sordido, all farmers; and so of the rest: than which nothing can be uttered more malicious or absurd. Indeed there are a sort of these narrow-eyed decypherers, I confess, that will extort strange and abstruse meanings out of any subject, be it never so conspicuous and innocently delivered. But to such, where'er they sit concealed, let them know, the author defies them and ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... what she received herself. They were the usual useless and undesirable tokens from her class, and others more desirable from the other lady teachers. Wollaston Lee's name was often called. Again Maria experienced that unworthy sensation of malicious glee that all this was lavished upon him when he was in reality hers and beyond the reach of any of these smiling girls with eyes of covert wistfulness upon the ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... discontent: and only 300 Egyptians were so sent away.[113] Finally, on the demand of his generals and troops, the remaining prisoners were shot down on the seashore. There is, however, no warrant for the malicious assertion that Bonaparte readily gave the fatal order. On the contrary, he delayed it for three days, until the growing difficulties and the loud complaints of his soldiers wrung it from him as ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... first of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out. For many years after the Restoration, they were the theme of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, when the press and the stage were most licentious. They ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... the newly emancipated had awakened to the perception of the commercial advantages of freedom, and had begun to lay snares to catch the fleet and elusive dollar. Those controversialists who say that the Negro's only idea of freedom was to live without work are either wrong, malicious, or they did not know Little Africa when the boom was on; when every little African, fresh from the fields and cabins, dreamed only of untold wealth and of mansions in which he would have been thoroughly uncomfortable. These were the devil's sunny ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... overlaid by imagination, and quickened by superstition. Even the strange summons at the threshold, that he himself had vainly answered, was, after the first shock of surprise, rationally explained by him as malicious foolery on the part of some clever trickster, who withheld ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... not malicious. Stupid people may think he is, because his language is charged with the lightning's flash; but they are the people who do not know the difference between an incubator ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... given to teasing, and could be a little malicious. A proud and ambitious schoolteacher had married a well-off but decidedly Cockney Englishman, whose aspirates could be relied upon to do the expected. Soon after the wedding, Harte called and cleverly steered the conversation on to music and songs, finally expressing great fondness for "Kathleen ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... fact of that b'ar-cub infant child, that for all her blushin', an' all her tears, an' kissin' that Captain party good-by that a-way, that the Sanders girl cares a hoss-h'ar rope for him in a week. An' it all proves what I remarks, that while females ain't malev'lent malicious, an' don't do these yere things to pierce a gent with grief, their 'ffections is always honin' for the trail, an' is shorely prone to move camp. But, bless 'em! they can't he'p it none if their hearts be quicksands, an' I libates to ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Milos. "I will give you a sharper sword with which to cut off the malicious head of the noble Piam. See, with this sword did the good-for-nothing treacherously slay my father. ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... proved a fitting field for her generalship. The event so long dreaded by her as the seeming end of her own youth, was suddenly turned into a double triumph. For, as Nathalie passed through the long salons, she was followed by such a trail of whispers, envious, malicious, amazed, from the women, universally applausive from the men, that the Countess suddenly realized that she held in her hands a new instrument of power; one greater than she had ever wielded before. Moreover, before an hour was gone, she knew well that she had been vindicated of ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... the mirror; and, her hands so tightly clenched that the finger-nails dug into the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily at the wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there had been a malicious magic in Jean's detraction; for immediately, as though the harm had been wrought by the girl's voice, she saw that her clear freshness had gone. Her face had a wax-like quality, the violet shadows under her eyes were brown. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... is so sadly different from that which is spoken! The malicious demon concealed in the ink bottle delights in wrecking love. Misunderstandings and long silences follow in rapid succession, tenderness changes to coldness, and ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... A malicious gleam of pleasure shot into Rischenheim's eyes. "In truth, sire," continued the constable, his hand on the curtain, "we were so interested in what the count was ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... and later on when she became Prioress of that same Nunnery; and furthermore stating that this full absolution was granted because it had been brought to the knowledge of His Holiness that this noble lady had entered the cloistered life owing to a wicked and malicious plot designed to wrest her castle and estates from her, and also to part her from a valiant Knight, at that time fighting in the Holy Wars, to ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... occasions of disappointment and vexation. Its pleasures are not cheerful, but its distresses are ludicrous, and are felt to be so. Each laughs at his neighbour's mortifications, and the consciousness he is supplying the same malicious amusement in his turn, does not take the sting from his own griefs when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... come on!" repeated Archy; and certain malicious thoughts which rankled in his heart ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... some new slander. No kind of stratagem, or malicious device in their power, did they omit. They came to surprise and ensnare me in my words; but God guarded me so well, that therein they only discovered their own malevolence. I had no consolation from the creatures. She who had the care ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... the mines of Cripple Creek. Public opinion in Colorado knew no middle class. The miners and the operators represented the two chief interests of the section. Hard feeling and violence accompanied the strike. The malicious murder of non-union men added to the bitterness, which the presence of the militia and a series of arbitrary arrests could not allay. The strike was complicated by the presence among the workers of a strong ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... gude to his ain. A malicious proverb, spoken as if those whom we disparage were deriving their success from ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... made us miserable enough. Neither do I remember that we ever bound ourselves by any secret oath or other solemn obligation, to find the seats getting too hard to be sat upon after a certain time; or to have intolerable twitches in our legs, rendering us aggressive and malicious with those members; or to be troubled with a similar uneasiness in our elbows, attended with fistic consequences to our neighbours; or to carry two pounds of lead in the chest, four pounds in the head, and several active blue-bottles in each ear. Yet, for certain, we suffered under those distresses, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... several states, and there are also Federal laws as well as Postal Regulations covering matters which are akin to libel. The answer to libel is truth, but not always, for sometimes the truth may be spread with so malicious an intent as to support an action. It is not well to put into a letter any derogatory or subversive statement that cannot be fully proved. This becomes of particular importance in answering inquiries concerning character or credit, but in practically every ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... in Mrs. Romanes' Life of her husband, and three letters on that occasion, and particularly that in which Huxley tried to guard her from any malicious interpretation of his jests, are to be found on ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... stupid to condemn a magazine novelty like 'Every Other Week' for being novel; and to augur that if it failed, it would fail through its departure from the lines on which all the other prosperous magazines had been built, was in the last degree perverse, and it looked malicious. The fact that it was neither exactly a book nor a magazine ought to be for it and not against it, since it would invade no other field; it would prosper on no ground but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wore an expression of malicious satisfaction which did not escape the regent, who watched him some time in silence, as if trying to discover what was passing through the brain of ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... nest till pop he got right up and he didn't even have to shoot her. He just clubbed her over the back and down she went ker-splash as dead as you please. Them there eggs won't hardly hatch out this year, I don't reckon," and at the prospect Joe broke into a malicious guffaw. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... false, malicious, and scandalous, inspired solely by motives of animosity and revenge. He was not accustomed to carry on a warfare with women, he told the court, nor did he ever bask in the sunshine of any one's favor. Honorable ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... unevenness of the ground and the thick shrubbery. Their hurried movements and evident desire to avoid meeting the boys marked them as suspicious characters. Fearing that they might have committed some malicious act to render the place uninhabitable, Ernie hastened toward the cave, followed by the other boys, ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... *glotti um tǫnn*, 'grinned round a tooth,' i.e. showed his teeth in a malicious grin. Two MSS. read ...
— An Icelandic Primer - With Grammar, Notes, and Glossary • Henry Sweet
... and but once, clouded with the King's displeasure, and it was about this time; which was occasioned by some malicious whisperer, who had told his Majesty that Dr. Donne had put on the general humour of the pulpits, and was become busy in insinuating a fear of the King's inclining to popery, and a dislike of his government; and particularly for the King's then turning the evening lectures ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... Schelling, which had preceded it. So that the absolute philosophical futility of the first half of the century following upon Kant in Germany is obvious; and yet the Germans boast of their gift for philosophy compared with foreigners, especially since an English writer, with malicious irony, called them a nation ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... girls was inalienably connected in his memory with unnecessary washing up; with boring parties; with stiff collars; with unending polishing of shoes; humiliating walks down the avenue, stammering, idiotic phrases, while from every window the eyes of malicious friends were set in mockery. Girls never slid down the banisters or fell out of apple trees, or snapped garter snakes, or raised white mice or collected splinters coasting down the icehouse roof. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... into a unionistic or Reformed sect. Especially these discreditable internal dissensions were a cause of deep humiliation and of anxious concern to all loyal Lutherans. To the Romanists and Reformed, however, who united in predicting the impending collapse of Lutheranism, they were a source of malicious and triumphant scoffing and jeering. A prominent theologian reported that by 1566 matters had come to such a pass in Germany that the old Lutheran doctrine was publicly proclaimed only in relatively ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... thousand francs for sixteen shares in the Chronique. If borrowed plate were on his table he was terribly afraid that the whole transaction would fail; as one of the people invited was a painter, and painters are an "observant, malicious, profound race, who take in everything at a glance."[*] Everything else in his rooms would represent the opulence, ease, and wealth ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... or malicious, are not uncommon, and I have seen hill-sides completely destroyed. At a certain season the pines change their foliage and the ground becomes thickly covered to the depth of a couple of inches or more with the dry and highly inflammable spines. Should these take fire, the conflagration ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... C., in closing the case for the prosecution, asked the jury to return a verdict against the prisoner for as malicious and premeditated a crime as ever disgraced the annals of any civilized country. His cleverness and education had only been utilized for the devil's ends, while his reputation had been used as a cloak. Everything pointed strongly ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... his perils, and insisted he was as good a gentleman as many of Bellingham's officers. Eustace attempted to laugh at his apprehensions, assured him that the rumour of the General's intention to decimate the prisoners was suggested by some malicious person, who sported with the feelings of unfortunate people. "The only difference in our fate," said he to Jobson, "is that you are at large with your unhealed wounds to beg or starve, whichever (being your own master) you shall think most eligible, while I shall be well taken care ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... at a distance that we become benevolent. When we mix with them, we suffer by the contact, and grow, if not malicious from the injury, at least selfish from the circumspection which our safety imposes but when, while we feel our relationship, we are not galled by the tie; when neither jealousy, nor envy, nor resentment are excited, we have nothing to interfere with those ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fortified and defended as a fortresse, [Sidenote: Hen. Hunt.] casting the moonks out of doores, and in euerie place where soeuer he came, he robbed the countrie before him, till at length in the midst of his reuenge and malicious dooings, he was shot thorough with an arrow amongst his men by a sillie footman, and so ended his life with confusion, receiuing worthie punishment for his vngodlie behauiour. [Sidenote: Sim. Dunel. Iohn Pike. Matth. West. N. Triuet.] For ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed
... the work of Stephanie you are right, of course, but nevertheless the poetry is well fitted to the character of the stupid, coarse and malicious Osmin. I know full well that the style of the verse is none of the best, but it has so adjusted itself to the musical thoughts (which were promenading in my brain in advance) that the lines had to please me, and I will wager there will be no disappointment at ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... are, and this is perfect Tragedy. It instructs us to stand on our guard, to refine and moderate our Passions, which alone occasion'd the loss of those unfortunate ones. Thus the aspiring may learn to give bounds to his Ambition; the Prophane to fear God; the Malicious to forget his Wrongs; the Passionate to restrain his Anger; the Tyrant to forsake his Violence and Injustice, &c. Those idle and infirm Men, who are not able to bear the Yoak of Religion, and have need of a grosser sort of ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier
... Wherefore beginning our iourney the second daye after the feast of the Purification, wee arriued at the towne of Canow, which was immediately vnder the dominion of the Tartars. [Sidenote: Michaas the malicious] The gouernour whereof allowed vs horses and a guide vnto another towne, wherein wee found one Michaas to be gouernour, a man full of all malice and despight. Who notwithstanding, hauing receiued giftes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... government. The piece was printed and sold largely, being afterwards put on the Irish stage under the title of The Patriot. This affair provoked a satirical pamphlet from Samuel Johnson, entitled "A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage from the malicious and scandalous Aspersions of Mr Brooke" (1739). His wife feared that his connexion with the opposition was imprudent, and induced him to return to Ireland. He interested himself in Irish history and literature, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... he thought fit to do so, and had allowed them to reach Caxamalca unmolested because he desired to see them for himself, and to obtain possession of their arms and horses. This, at least, was the interpretation of what the Inca said given by Felipillo; but he was a malicious youth, who bore Atahuallpa no good will, and the Spaniards were only too ready to believe anything that seemed to justify their cruel deeds. Pizarro replied that the fate of the Inca was the lot that fell to all who resisted ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... a vision of a distracted brain, or the invention of a malicious heart, or a real faction in the country, must be judged by the appearances which things have worn for eight years past. Thus far I am certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office, who has not, at some time or other, borne ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... and there were lewd letters of Monime[280] to him and his answers to her. Theophanes says that there was also found an address of Rutilius[281] in which he urged the King to the massacre of the Romans in Asia. But most persons with good reason suppose this to be a malicious story of Theophanes, perhaps invented through hatred to Rutilius, who was a man totally unlike himself, or perchance to please Pompeius, whose father Rutilius in his historical writings had shown to be a thoroughly ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... they have thin, rather long lips and deep rounded chins; but it is the fine upward curve of the nostrils and the fall of the eyelids which most surely mark them. Their glances and their faint smiles are beneficent, yet with a subtle shade of half-malicious superiority. When they look at you from under those apparently fatigued eyelids, you feel that they have an inward and concealed existence far beyond the ordinary—that they are aware of many things ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... and he seemed to be buttoning up his coat; Dick had one scant look at his face as he turned away again to resume his lunch, and he could never again forget the expression he saw there, it seemed to be so full of fear, of nervous strain, of malicious triumph. ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... Helena and dies in 1821. What he did for Germany was to prove to her how impossible was a cluster of jealous, malicious provincial little state governments in the heart of Europe, protecting themselves from falling apart by the ancient legislative scaffolding of the Holy Roman Empire. He squeezed three hundred states into thirty-eight, and the very year of Waterloo, on April the 1st, a German Napoleon ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... crab is much more delicate eating. Besides, it's as malicious as a monkey, and it seldom ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... tell many stories, not only of malicious grislies thus attacking men in camp, but also of their even dogging the footsteps of some solitary hunter and killing him when the favorable opportunity occurs. Most of these tales are mere fables; but it is possible that in altogether ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... angry, and wanted to be revenged on somebody. A bright idea came to him. He would place the "printer's devil," whose admission to the Society he resented, in an awkward position. He rose with a malicious smile ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Bram bravely championed his sister, he could not protect her from those wicked innuendoes disseminated for the gratification of the virtuous; nor from those malicious regrets of very good people over rumours which they declare to "be incredible," and yet which, nevertheless, they "unfortunately believe to be too true." The Scotch have a national precept which says, "Never speak ill of the dead." ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... An officer of an hour or two, when the hands were piped "to mischief." The lord or abbot of misrule on shore has immemorially been a person selected to superintend the diversions of Christmas. In these larks, however, malicious mischief was unknown. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... that looked into those of Joyce in the gloom of the cabin abruptly shook off sleep. They passed from an amazed incredulity to a malicious triumph. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... back, for he ceased of himself to urge them on, lest the whole-hooved steeds should encounter on the track, and overset the well-knit cars, and the drivers fall in the dust in their zeal for victory. So upbraiding Antilochos spake golden-haired Menelaos: "Antilochos, no mortal man is more malicious than thou. Go thy mad way, since falsely have we Achaians called thee wise. Yet even so thou shalt not bear off the prize unchallenged to ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... happiness dates from that troublesome time. The children were with me constantly, and their kind treatment completely cured me of my ugly, malicious temper. I then became acquainted with my dear friend Fritz, in whose company I have spent many happy hours. In order to talk with him I was compelled to learn his language, and soon I could bark so well that little Hope ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Officiel—and both the speech and long extracts from the newspaper are quoted, with approval, in Mr. Devine's book. This quaint person is so frantically keen to pour whitewash over Nikita that he has no time to listen to the main treacheries of Nikita's career. "Malicious falsehoods!" he splutters—and they can be traced to horrible pan-Serbians. He has reason to believe that they wish to make Serbia the Prussia of the new Federation; well, the Croats and the Slovenes and the Bosniaks and all the others cannot say that Mr. Devine has not warned them. ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... at home, and one year ago the handsome, happy, honored representative of one of the oldest families in the county. His income was large, his estates unincumbered, his manners charming, his morals unexceptionable, and half the young ladies in Cheshire"—with another malicious glance at her sister—"at daggers-drawn for him. There was the slight drawback of insanity in the family—his father died insane, and in his infancy his mother was murdered. But these were only trifling spots on the sun, not worth ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... look so well an' that's a fact, Trimm," sneered the tramp, resuming his malicious, mocking air. "But set down an' make yourself at home, an' after a while, when this is done, we'll have a bite together—you an' me. It'll be a reg'lar tea party ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... Sapphira, with the attempt to point out the enormity and danger of that sin, that the truly sincere should not be kept from duty by hypocrisy as seen in others, or by being accused of it in themselves by the malicious. At the close, the warden, grasping my hand, said, "We will let all go in who choose. We will make no selection," and we ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... and musical but poisoned with a malicious triumph that grated upon the nerves of P. Sybarite; ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... to her side. The reaction was a feeling of distinct pleasure that she had her share of pain, and even a hope that her illness might become grave; he pictured himself summoned to her sick chamber, imagined her begging his forgiveness. But it was not merely, nor in great part, a malicious satisfaction; he succeeded in believing that Amy suffered because she still had a remnant of love for him. As the days went by and he heard nothing, disappointment and resentment occupied him. At length he ceased to haunt the neighbourhood. His desires grew sullen; he became fixed in the resolve ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... married, and describe a number of circles with the plate and lamp. This is to prevent the evil of any jealous looks, which certain persons might make. The Hindoos believe that great evils arise from wicked looks. They consider that even the gods themselves are not out of the reach of malicious eyes; and therefore after they have been carried through the streets, the ceremony of arati is always performed, to efface the evil which they may ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... was, that Colonel Grenfell, whether guilty or not guilty, delivered up the negro, horses, and money to the civil authorities. If the charges against him are proven true, then there is no doubt that the course of General Bragg will be to dismiss him from his staff; but if, on the contrary, malicious slanders are defaming this ally, he is Hercules enough and brave enough to punish them. His bravery and gallantry were conspicuous throughout the Kentucky campaign, and it is hoped that this late tarnish on his fame will be removed; or if it be ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... worshipful love of Raphael. She had followed him to Rome, so he told me, like some faithful, dumb animal which could not live away from its master, and moved by her great affection he had given her lodging and employment as his model. There lacked not malicious tongues who called her his mistress; but so modest yet unabashed was her demeanour that I can well believe that she deserved to the end the honour which he paid in choosing her face as his ideal of all that is ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... so unguardedly betrayed her gratitude for his prompt and zealous services at the first moment of her affliction, that the vain and ambitious Duke had profited by the circumstance to influence her opinions and measures so seriously as to draw down the most malicious suspicions of their mutual position, suspicions to which the antecedents of M. d'Epernon unhappily lent ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... speak seriously to you. I was malicious last night; you must forgive me. It's because of that I need religion; just as I need the penitential garment and the stone floor. To spare you, I'll tell you what nightmares are to me. My bad conscience! Whether I punish myself or another punishes me, I don't know. I don't permit myself to ask. ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... intention of shaking her until her teeth chattered in her head, but he did not achieve this result, for the reason that Margarita fought like a demon; fought, her hands being pinioned, with her supple back, her strong shoulders and her rigid knees. It was like struggling with a malicious little girl of six and a stubborn boy of sixteen rolled into one. She did not cry nor chatter but set her teeth and directed all her superb energy to the actual business in hand. His idea of grasping ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... say, that, at thy birth, New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth? For sure the milder planets did combine On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, And even the most malicious were in trine. Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high, That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth; And then, if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres. And if no clust'ring swarm of bees On thy ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... her mind against him. He, at any rate, should be put out of the way at the first opportunity, and thus the only witness against himself be removed; for Lady Vernon's own unsupported story would be merely her word against his, and could be treated as the malicious fiction ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... not malicious; he was not laughing at them. He was admiring the skill of the human mind in tying itself in knots. When one watches a clever contortionist going through his paces, one doesn't laugh at the contortionist; one admires and enjoys the weird twists he can get ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... received with great pleasure the news of his being in custody in New Town, and soon sent round his long-boat, paid all costs and charges, and brought him once more on board his ship. The captain received him with a great deal of malicious satisfaction in his countenance, telling him in a taunting manner, that, though he had promised Sir William Courtney to be at home before him, he should find himself damnably mistaken; and then with a tyrannic tone bade him strip, calling the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... intentions seemed really supererogatory. When she went to Irene to have her button her dress in the back, she had such a sensation of holiness, such a consciousness of a forbearing, pure, and gentle spirit, that her sister's malicious pretense of ignoring her presence appeared to her nothing less ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... melancholy, discontented man, whose spirits seemed to labor in the contriving of villainies. He hated the prince his brother, and he hated Claudio because he was the prince's friend, and determined to prevent Claudio's marriage with Hero, only for the malicious pleasure of making Claudio and the prince unhappy, for he knew the prince had set his heart upon this marriage almost as much as Claudio himself; and to effect this wicked purpose he employed one Borachio, a man as bad as himself, whom he encouraged with the offer of a great reward. This ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... evincing that the belief in witchcraft is only asleep, and might in remote corners be again awakened to deeds of blood" (Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, London, 1884, p. 272). Compare L. Strackerjan, op. cit. i. p. 340, Sec. 221: "The great power, the malicious wickedness of the witches, cause them to be feared and hated by everybody. The hatred goes so far that still at the present day you may hear it said right out that it is a pity burning has gone out of fashion, for ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... he could read it before Mrs. Granby and me, what a compliment that would be to one bride," added the malicious Mrs. Nettleby, "and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... frightful words, sped to the next, which also she locked and muttered over; and so with all the hundred doors, till she arrived in her own cellar. There she sat down on the floor ready to faint, but listening with malicious delight to the rushing of the water, which she could hear distinctly through all ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... of Beethoven before the public in one evening?), and follow Bulow's conducting in the orchestral works of Beethoven. To set one's back up against such remarkable deeds as these, I call feeble or malicious nonsense. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated |
