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Rapine

noun
1.
The act of despoiling a country in warfare.  Synonym: rape.






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"Rapine" Quotes from Famous Books



... from Sincapore. It was expected that we might there fall in with some of the piratical vessels which so completely infest the Indian Archipelago; and if so, we trusted to give them a lesson which might for a time put a check to their nefarious and cruel system of plunder and rapine. I found that my name was down in the list of the party selected for the expedition. Bidding, therefore, a temporary adieu to Sincapore, on the 2d of August we set off on the expedition, with a force consisting of two barges, one cutter, and a gun-boat belonging to the merchants of ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... matter; they hunt with a veritable art which Man himself has not disdained, since he has taken as his associate their relative, the Dog. It is the same with the Eagle and the Crow. The latter, in order to seize the prey which he desires, needs much more varied resources than the great bird of rapine for whom nature ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... From the bloody heaps of Flodden Can redeem their dearest slain? Bid them cease,—or rather hasten To the churches, every one; There to pray to Mary Mother, And to her anointed Son, That the thunderbolt above us May not fall in ruin yet; That in fire, and blood, and rapine, Scotland's glory may not set. Let them pray,—for never women Stood in need of such a prayer! England's yeomen shall not find them Clinging to the altars there. No! if we are doomed to perish, Man and maiden, let us fall; And a common gulf of ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... movements aroused, they came upon the Rhine. A full flood of moonlight burnished the knightly river in glittering scales, and plates, and rings, as headlong it rolled seaward on from under crag and banner of old chivalry and rapine. Both greeted the scene with a burst of pleasure. The grey mist of flats on the south side glimmered delightful to their sight, coming from that drowsy crowd and press of habitations; but the solemn glory of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... possessed an invincible objection to the kilt. We should therefore expect to find in him some consciousness of the racial difference. He writes of the Highlanders with some ill-will, describing them as a "savage and untamed people, rude and independent, given to rapine, ... hostile to the English language and people, and, owing to diversity of speech, even to their own nation[14]." But it is his custom to write thus of the opponents of the Anglo-Norman civil and ecclesiastical institutions, ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... the barracks where his men lay, of whom half-a-dozen at least were his to the gate of the Pit itself, less scrupulous even than himself because more ignorant, possessed of but one or two impulses—a foolish affection for him and an inherited regard for rapine too rarely to be indulged in these tame latter days. To call them out, to find them armed and ready for any enterprise of his was a matter of brief time. They set out knowing nothing at all of ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... done with our wealth," said I, "the effects of plunder and rapine? If we keep it, we continue to be robbers and thieves; and if we quit it we cannot do justice with it, for we cannot restore it to ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... chivalry. Scott says: "James was, in fact, equally attentive to restrain rapine and feudal oppression in every part of his dominions. 'The King past to the isles, and there held justice courts, and punished both thief and traitor according to their demerit. And also he caused great men to show their holdings, wherethrough he found many of the said lands in ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... is very easy to assign the motive. It secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of barbarians, whose unskilfulness in the arts made it easier for them to supply their wants by rapine than by industry, and who from time to time poured in upon the inhabitants of peaceful commerce as vultures descend upon domestic fowl. Their celerity and fierceness made the wall necessary, and their ignorance ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson

... rural face, Now scarce retained its faintest streak; So sallow was his leathern cheek. She lank, and pale, and hollow-eyed, With rouge had striven in vain to hide What once was beauty, and repair The rapine ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... tired, dull faces of those old dwellings that loomed across the way with blind and lightless windows, sleeping without suspicion that he had stolen in among them—the grim and deadly thing that walked by night, the Lone Wolf, creature of pillage and rapine, scourged slave of that ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... his wife. Perhaps it is only a vague and unfounded rumour, which should be rejected; or is it; perhaps, a truth which failed to reveal itself? It would be strange if after the lapse of half a century the hiding-place were to open and give up the fruit of his rapine. Who knows whether some of this treasure, accidentally discovered, may not have founded fortunes whose origin is unknown, even to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... state. When that consummation is attained, or when such an approximation to it as he judges to be within his reach, is attained, then, and not till then, he is for conservation;—revolution then is sin; but, till then he will have change and overturning—he will fill the earth with rapine, and fire, and slaughter. But this is just the peace and war principle, which this man, who proposes a durable and solid peace, and the true state, a state constructed with reference to true definitions ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... the greater number were Tories, many of them red-handed from scenes of rapine in which their present captors had suffered the loss of all that men hold dear. So you will not wonder that there were knives and rifles shaken aloft, and fierce and vengeful counsels in which it was proposed to put the captives one and all to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... remained the same,—the rich still rich, the poor still poor. In the first days of the revolution, Sir Geoffrey Gates, the freebooter, little comprehending the earl's merciful policy, and anxious naturally to turn a victory into its accustomed fruit of rapine and pillage, placed himself at the head of an armed mob, marched from Kent to the suburbs of London, and, joined by some of the miscreants from the different Sanctuaries, burned and pillaged, ravished and slew. The earl quelled this insurrection with spirit and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... corruption is barely not universal, is universally confessed. Venality sculks no longer in the dark, but snatches the bribe in publick; and prostitution issues forth without shame, glittering with the ornaments of successful wickedness. Rapine preys on the publick without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry. Irreligion is not only avowed, but boasted; and the pestilence that used to walk in darkness, is now ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... possession of Alost, marched to the support of their fellow brigands in the citadel of Antwerp; and both, simultaneously attacking this magnificent city, became masters of it in all points, in spite of a vigorous resistance on the part of the citizens. They then began a scene of rapine and destruction unequalled in the annals of these desperate wars. More than five hundred private mansions and the splendid town-house were delivered to the flames: seven thousand citizens perished by the sword or in the waters of the Scheldt. For three days the carnage and the pillage ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... combination formed against us. Well, had the Dutch fleet been able to join forces with the French, this brave Britain of ours would no longer have ruled the ocean, and all the horrors of invasion, massacre, and rapine would have been added to our other troubles. We were depending upon our Channel fleet to avert the last and overwhelming calamity, when all at once, to the horror of every one, this fleet mutinied and refused to go to sea. They even seized their officers, and though they lifted ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... rapture of the multitudes whom unsuccessful emulation has hurried to the grave; even the robber and the cut-throat have their followers, who admire their address and intrepidity, their stratagems of rapine, and their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... peasant, even in the sanctuary of his family—held in the highest veneration by the Turk. The peasants in many instances had no other alternative than to fly to the mountains for safety, and lead a wretched existence by rapine and murder. Some left Turkey to settle in Russia and Austria, in search of that liberty and protection which was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... expected. Our long deluded people are opening their eyes, and beginning to see and smell the blood and burnings of that 'Tophet', that political hell of slavery and ruin, to which the British army is now endeavoring, by murder and rapine, to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... victims. Sometimes the baffled invaders are compelled to sound a retreat; too often however, as in human contests, right proves but a feeble barrier against superior might; the citadel is stormed, and the work of rapine and pillage forthwith begins. And yet after all, matters are not nearly so bad, as at first they seem to be. The conquered bees, perceiving that there is no hope for them in maintaining the unequal struggle, submit themselves to the pleasure of the victors; nay more, they ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... tott'ring China shook without a wind. Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind! A Sylph too warn'd me of the threats of fate, 165 In mystic visions, now believ'd too late! See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs! My hands shall rend what ev'n thy rapine spares: These in two sable ringlets taught to break, Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck; 170 The sister-lock now sits uncouth, alone, And in its fellow's fate foresees its own; Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal shears demands, And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands. Oh hadst thou, cruel! ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... of facts had been highly embellished by fiction; handed down from generation to generation, it had now become a long tragic history of robbery, murder, and rapine, which precluded any intercourse ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... them some Indians who were running away in the distance. "Come to us, dear little Indians; you know we are your best friends!" Suppose "Arabs" or "Mexicans" had been substituted for "Indians." To a Frenchman, our conquests in India are rapine; his own conquests in Algeria or Mexico are the extension of civilization by the "holy bayonets" (I forget whether the phrase is Michelet's or Quinet's) of the chosen people. Justice gives the same name (no matter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... sun as the estuary alone knows; bloodshot, and in a sky asmoke as of cities burning—regarded him as he finished and stood back outside as one who considers. He was a grim figure of outlawry and rapine, alone there in that lonely place, amidst the gathering, dank gray of the marsh mists, the red rays touching his coat and turning it to deep purple, and his eyes to dull ruby flame; a beast, once seen, you would not forget, and could ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... to know that during those centuries of turmoil the Chinese were not wholly engrossed with war and rapine. The T'ang dynasty is conspicuously the Augustan Age. Literature reappears in a more perfect form than under the preceding reigns. The prose writers of that period are to the present day studied ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... adventures of heroes, has it that he found in the ruins of a church a treasure which enabled him to reconstitute his party. But he himself has contradicted this story, stating that it was by the ordinary methods of rapine and plunder that he replenished his finances. He selected from his old band of brigands thirty palikars, and entered, as their bouloubachi, or leader of the group, into the service of the Pacha of Negropont. But he soon tired of the methodical life he was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... words as clear an idea as I am able to give of the immense volume which might be composed of the vexations, violence, and rapine of that tyrannical administration, the territorial revenue of Purneah, which had been let to Debi Sing at the rate of 160,000l. sterling a year, was with difficulty leased for a yearly sum under 90,000l., and with all rigor of exaction produced ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... wolf's in his den. Worthy are these to worship their master, the murderous Lord of lies, Who hath given to the pontiff his servant the keys of the pit and the keys of the skies. Wild famine and red-shod rapine are cruel, and bitter with blood are their feasts; But fiercer than famine and redder than rapine the hands and the hearts of priests. God, God bade these to the battle; and here, on a land by his servants trod, They ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... hour dark fraud, Or open rapine, or protected murder, Cry out against them. But this very day, An honest man, my neighbor—there he stands— Was struck—struck like a dog, by one who wore The badge of Ursini, because, forsooth, He tossed ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... like an enemy, that the other has not done, or is not doing, or planning, and thinking of? What was there in the whole of the journey of the Antonii; except depopulation, devastation, slaughter, and rapine? Actions which Hannibal never did, because he was reserving many things for his own use, these men do, as men who live merely for the present hour; they never have given a thought not only to the fortunes and welfare of the citizens, but not ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... mightiest work of human power; And marvelled as the aged hind With some strange tale bewitched my mind, Of forayers, who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurred their horse, Their southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue, And, home returning, filled the hall With revel, wassail-rout, and brawl. Methought that still, with trump and clang, The gateway's broken arches rang; Methought grim features, seamed with scars, Glared through the window's ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... to the abyss; if Desmoulins and Danton had triumphed, the Convention had lost its virtue, ready to surrender the Republic to the aristocrats, the money-jobbers and the Generals. If men like Tallien and Foucher, monsters gorged with blood and rapine, triumph, France is overwhelmed in a welter of crime and infamy ... Robespierre, awake; when criminals, drunken with fury and affright, plan your death and the death of freedom! Couthon, Saint-Just, make haste; why tarry ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... in the vernacular: that common prayer should be read in the vernacular: that certain exactions of gifts and dues should be abolished. Again, no one should be allowed to dishonour the sacraments, or the service of the Mass: no unqualified person should administer the sacraments: Kirk rapine, destruction of religious buildings and works of ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... dastardly temper, as it had prevented his ever doing good in any honest way, so it as effectually put it out of his power to acquire anything considerable by the rapine he committed; for as he wanted spirit to go into a place where there was immediate danger, so his companions, who did the act while he scouted about to see if anybody was coming, and to give them notice, when they divided the booty gave him just what they thought fit, and keep the rest to themselves. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... Algiers, a truce may be bought for money; but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together, and form a society, they would, however ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... of the Hundred Years' War, which, indeed, was not yet entirely ended by the Peace of Tours, was the existence of bands of men trained to nothing but war and rapine, and devoid of any other means of subsistence than freebooting on the peasantry or travellers, whence they were known as routiers—highwaymen, and ecorcheurs—flayers. They were a fearful scourge ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... been ravaged by the native tribes. Forty square miles of country had been overrun by natives, and every house burned, just before the annexation.' And he wrote again, July 6: 'Every day convinces me that unless this country had been annexed it would have been a prey to plunder and rapine from the natives on its border, joined by Secocoeni, Mapok, and other tribes in the Transvaal. Feeling the influence of the British Government, they are ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... fall into danger great and neither of us will return safe from this bate; but we shall both be cut off by fate and leave our cousins desolate." Then Kanmakan laughed and knew that he was a coward; so he left him and rode down the rise, intent on rapine, with loud cries and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... causing surprise and horror, but which it would be powerless to prevent. By this time the stores which had burned so brilliantly on the previous night were dully glowing heaps of ashes. The tom-toms had ceased their hollow-sounding monotones so suggestive of disorder and rapine, and the wild yelpings of the fiend-like crew had given place to the desultory howling of some coyotes and timber-wolves that had ventured right up to the outskirts of the village, attracted by the late congenial uproar. They were now keeping it up on their own account. Farther away ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... than you. Int'rest's the God they worship in their state, And we, I take it, have not much of that. Well monarchies may own religion's name, But states are atheists in their very frame. They share a sin; and such proportions fall, That, like a stink, 'tis nothing to them all. Think on their rapine, falsehood, cruelty, And that what once they were, they still wou'd be. To one well-born th' affront is worse and more, When he's abus'd and baffl'd by a boor. With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do; They've both ill nature and ill manners too. Well may they boast themselves an ancient ...
— English Satires • Various

... the spoilers, chartered by their leader to unlimited and open rapine—indeed, he had led them hither with that understanding—the Prussians, peasant and noble alike, fled to the East. A hundred times the advance guard, fully alive to the advantages of their position, had raced ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... holy Christmas-tide, God's pledge of peace and good-will toward men, rose upon a fair and fertile frontier scathed and blackened by wasting and rapine, and the year went out in "tears and misery, in hatred and ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... appearance. Soon all the land was divided among a certain number of occupiers. Those whose weakness or indolence had prevented their getting a share were obliged to sink into slavery, or to rob their richer neighbors. Then followed civil wars, tumult and rapine. At last those who had the land conceived the most deliberate plot that ever entered into the human mind. They persuaded the poorer people to join with them in establishing an association which should defend all its ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... hands. The venerable man Stretched forth his arms, as though to clasp them all: Above them next he signed his Master's cross; Then, while the tears ran down his aged face, Brake forth in grateful joy; 'To God the praise! When, forty years ago, I roamed this vale A haunt it was of rapine and of wars; Now see I pleasant pastures, peaceful homes, And faces peacefuller yet. That God Who walked With His disciples 'mid the sabbath fields While they the wheat-ears bruised, His sabbath keeps ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... on among them, whether it was one Nation against another, or only Personal, we cannot tell; But the World seem'd to be swallow'd up in a Life of Wickedness, that is to say, of Luxury and Lewdness, Rapine and Violence, and there were Giants among them, and Men of Renown, that is to say, Men fam'd for their mighty Valour, great Actions of War we may suppose, and their Strength, who personally oppos'd others. We read of no considerable ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... supernatural, and all those who dared—like Hypatia, with thousands of other pious and noble ancients—to deny his divinity, were sacrificed to this new Moloch, set up by parricide Constantines, or adulterers of the Theodosius caste. Thus through the ages, has the race suffered under such murder, rapine, and lust, as never disgraced tolerant ancient heathendom in the interests of paganism, even as recently happened in Central America,[C] and would happen everywhere else, if priestcraft had the power to act without restraint, so that, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... who, being dead, yet liveth. Nay, ask no names, yet mark me this—the world's amiss, boy. Pentavalon groans beneath a black usurper's heel, all the sins of hell are loose, murder and riot, lust and rapine. March you eastward but a day through the forest yonder and you shall see the trees bear strange fruit in our country. The world's amiss, messire, yet here sit you wasting your days, a foolish brush stuck in thy fist. So am I come, nor will I go hence ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... Dacier,(38) "that those times and manners are so much the more excellent, as they are more contrary to ours." Who can be so prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of those ages, when a spirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of rapine and robbery, reigned through the world: when no mercy was shown but for the sake of lucre; when the greatest princes were put to the sword, and their wives and daughters made slaves and concubines? On the other side, I would not be so delicate as those modern ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... tolerate murder, rapine, thefts, piracies, conflagrations, with every outrage violating the happiness and safety of society, but are the first to set the example and to consecrate the atrocity—where the people are taught no one principle of morality or religion—where the arts and sciences are wholly unknown or despised—where ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... raised. Castles were erected to repulse the vagrant attacks of the Normans; and in France, from the year 768 to 987, these places disturbed the public repose. The petty despots who raised these castles pillaged whoever passed, and carried off the females who pleased them. Rapine, of every kind were the privileges of the feudal lords! Mezeray observes, that it is from these circumstances romancers have invented their tales of knights ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... may be of age at the period of his father's death, he inherits his authority and influence only. He is left to his own sagacity and exertions to procure wealth, which can seldom be obtained without rapine, enslavement, and bloodshed. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... (Works, vi. 101) he describes the soldier as 'a red animal, that ranges uncontrolled over the country, and devours the labours of the trader and the husbandman; that carries with it corruption, rapine, pollution, and devastation; that threatens without courage, robs without fear, and is pampered without labour.' In The Idler, No. 21, he makes an imaginary correspondent say:—'I passed some years in the most contemptible of all human stations, that of a soldier in time of peace.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Cyane found himself have been absolute abandonment of all claim of our citizens for indemnification and submissive acquiescence in national indignity. It would have encouraged in these lawless men a spirit of insolence and rapine most dangerous to the lives and property of our citizens at Punta Arenas, and probably emboldened them to grasp at the treasures and valuable merchandise continually passing over the Nicaragua route. It certainly would have been ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the prospect of that loathsome death which, with almost absolute certainty, overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril could deter from the adventure, prevented the unfurnished and untenanted dwellings from being stripped, by the hand of nightly rapine, of every article, such as iron, brass, or lead-work, which could in any manner be turned to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... cultivate the ground that has fallen to its share. Those people, like the ancient Germans and modern Tartars, who, having fertile countries, disdain to cultivate the earth, and choose to live by rapine, are wanting to themselves, and deserve to be exterminated as ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... Spain, again, was a land which had stored up, during long centuries, nearly the whole of its accumulated possessions in every art, sacred and secular, of fabulous value, within the walls of its great fortress-like cathedrals; Napoleon's soldiers over-ran the land, and brought with them rapine and destruction; so that in many a shrine, as at Montserrat, we still can see how in a few days they turned a Paradise into a desert. It is not only the West that has suffered. In China the rarest and loveliest wares and fabrics that the hand of man has wrought were stored in ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... equally unquestionable that he was entirely devoid of moral sense. He possessed a genius for organization, and he succeeded in consolidating the unruly Doomsmen into a compact and disciplined body of outlaws. Murder and rapine were quickly reduced to exact sciences, and, unfortunately, the House People could not be made to see the necessity of united action; the townsman and the stockade dweller preferred to contend with each other rather than against the common enemy. As a consequence, the freebooters had a clear road ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... suppose French revolutions, Italian insurrections, Caffre wars, and such other scenic effects of modern policy, to be among the normal conditions of humanity. I know there are many who think the atmosphere of rapine, rebellion, and misery which wraps the lower orders of Europe more closely every day, is as natural a phenomenon as a hot summer. But God forbid! There are ills which flesh is heir to, and troubles to which ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... encroachments upon feeble neighbors, and rapacity toward their wards whose lands are coveted. Republics are, in this, as rapacious and unprincipled as Despots, never learning from history that inordinate expansion by rapine and fraud has its inevitable consequences in dismemberment or subjugation. When a Republic begins to plunder its neighbors, the words of doom are already written on its walls. There is a judgment already pronounced of God upon whatever is unrighteous ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... they ring to-night, Malines? In nineteen hundred and fourteen, The frightful year, the year of woe, When fire and blood and rapine flow Across the land from lost Liege, Storm-driven by the German rage? The other carillons have ceased: Fallen is Hasselt, fallen Diest, From Ghent and Bruges no voices come, Antwerp ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... flashing green— "The fruit shall be what the seed has been— His realm shall reap what his hosts have sown; Debt and misery, tear and groan, Pang and sob, and grief and shame, And rapine ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... went on again, "we all know that 'nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal.' But because the fox runs off with the goose, or the hawk swoops down on the chicken, and 'yon whole little wood is a world of plunder and prey'—is that any reason why we should be content to plunder and prey too? And ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... here three years ago as a clerk on L2 a month. Abdul-Kereem Pasha, the Governor, took a fancy to him, and made him chief of the tax-gatherers; in three years he gained the rank of Pasha and L60,000—meaning 5000 ruined homes, several million strokes of the bastinado, rapine, robbery, and men driven to exasperation, and ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... art thou To catch a loathly plume fallen from the wing Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey Is man's good name: he never wronged his bride. I know the tale. An angry gust of wind Puffed out his torch among the myriad-roomed And many-corridored complexities Of Arthur's palace: then he found ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... Westmister, to defend the holie church, and rulers of the same, to gouerne the people in iustice as became a king to doo, to ordeine righteous lawes & kepe the same, so that all maner of bribing, rapine, and wrongful iudgements should ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed

... forgotten that Greeks and Romans alike lived by slavery (which is robbery), by rapine, and by plunder; yet we, born into a Christian community which lives by honest labor, propose to impregnate the impressionable minds of youth with the morals and literature ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands

... the column was contrived for love and not for rapine, my friend. Should the white stone from Coromandel that can be cunningly wrought into marble ever cross your fate, be on your guard lest the omen mean, not the gaining of a fortune, but the making ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... courageous voice, 'By rapine!' But his bride retorted, 'Suppose the grown-up people wouldn't be rapined?' 'Then,' said the colonel, 'they should pay the penalty in blood.' - 'But suppose they should object,' retorted his bride, 'and wouldn't pay the penalty in ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens

... and they came again and again. Gold they could not get; for it does not exist in Trinidad. But slaves they could get; and the history of the Indians of Trinidad for the next century is the same as that of the rest of the West Indies: a history of mere rapine and cruelty. The Arrawaks, to do them justice, defended themselves more valiantly than the still gentler people of Hayti, Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, and the Lucayas: but not so valiantly as the fierce cannibal Caribs of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... storm-clouds overcast, Even like a spectre of the past,— Of rapine, feudal strife, and blood, Thou tellest an old, wild, warlike story, When squadrons on thy ramparts stood, With spear and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various

... man is like the bee that fixes his hive, augments the world, benefits the republic, and by a daily diligence, without wronging any, profits all; but he who contemns wedlock, like a wasp, wanders an offence to the world, lives upon spoil and rapine, disturbs peace, steals sweets that are none of his own, and, by robbing the hives of others, meets misery as his ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... beginning of the nineteenth; and for the same reason—the facilities they offer (rare in those seas) for procuring wood and water. Hither, then, the black flag often resorted; and here, amidst these romantic solitudes,— islands untenanted by man,—oftentimes it lay furled up for weeks together; rapine and murder had rest for a season, and the bloody cutlass slept within its scabbard. When this happened, and when it became known beforehand that it would happen, a tent was pitched on shore for my brother, and the chronometers ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... been stolen away a child, and reared in a robber horde in the depths of a German forest, do you think the world would have had "Faust" and "Iphegenie?" But he would have been Goethe still—stronger, wiser than his fellows. At night, round their watch-fire, he would have chanted wild songs of rapine and murder, till the dark faces about him were moved and trembled. His songs would have echoed on from father to son, and nerved the heart and arm—for evil. Do you think if Napoleon had been born a woman that he would have been contented to give small tea-parties and talk small scandal? He ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... there was not one fairly educated man in the richest and most progressive part of the island. For more than three hundred years, the history of England is an almost continuous record of anarchy and rapine. ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook

... well imagine the transition of feeling which ensued on your accession to power. Your subversion of the Constitution of 1824, your establishment of centralism, your conquest of Zacatecas, characterized by every act of violence, cruelty, and rapine, inflicted upon us the profoundest astonishment. We realized all the uncertainty of men awakening to reality from the unconsciousness of delirium. In succession came your orders for the Texans to surrender their private arms. The mask was thrown ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... a rising of the people against oppression; a challenge to the oppressor to do his worst; a gallant leading of a forlorn hope.... But a slave insurrection! a midnight butchery! There was one who used to tell me tales of such risings in the Indies. Murder and rapine, fire rising through the night, planters cut down at their very thresholds, shrieking women tortured, children flung into the flames,—a ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... failed; a hero is a martyr who succeeded; both gain the veneration of a people, and die or live secure of self-respect. Mr. Nixon should have uplifted the standards of a new crusade against that handful of great robbers who, making Tammany their stronghold, issued forth to a rapine of the town. Nor, had he done so, would he have fallen in the battle. As I have already said, nineteen of every Tammany twenty would have come round him for that fight. He would have conquered a true leadership and ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... an account of the condition of Darunghur, Futtyghur, Furruckabad, and of the whole line of our military stations in the Nabob's dominions. You see the whole was one universal scene of plunder and rapine. You see all this was known to Mr. Hastings, who never inflicted any punishments for all this horrible outrage. You see the utmost he has done is merely to recall one man, Major Osborne, who was by no means the only person deeply involved in these charges. He nominated all ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Bishop of Australia in 1840.—"Neither can I comprehend or approve the policy which thus leaves multitudes without moral or religious guidance, under every inducement to commit acts of violence and rapine, which are not only the sources of infinite misery to the unhappy perpetrators, and to their wretched victims, but actually bring upon the government itself ten times the pecuniary charge which would be incurred by the erection of as many churches, and providing for the support of ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... liberties of the Northern citizen. You will be at the mercy of the successful general whose triumph may make him the idol of the armed millions that alone can accomplish our subjugation. In the South, butchery and rapine by hordes of desperate negroes—in the North anarchy and political intrigue, to be merged into dictatorship and the absolutism of military power. Such would be the results of your ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... grotesque, whose first act must be to trample all principle under foot, and place on its altar the worship of the passions;—those are the demands which are already made, and those will be the trophies which the hands of political zealotry and personal rapine, in the first hour of their triumph, will raise on the grave where lies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... wounded, was judging him. I'd as soon have thought of describing General Grant as a murderer, because he ordered the battles in which men were killed or because he planned and led the campaigns in which subordinates committed rapine and pillage and assassination. I did not then see the radical difference—did not realize that while Grant's work was at the command of patriotism and necessity, there was no necessity whatever for Roebuck's getting rich but the ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... this for two or three years in the Mohammedan countries of the western part of Asia, and extended his conquests there in every direction. It is not necessary to follow his movements in detail. It would only be a repetition of the same tale of rapine, plunder, murder, and devastation. Sometimes a city would surrender at once, when the conqueror approached the gates, by sending out a deputation of the magistrates and other principal inhabitants with the keys of the city, and with magnificent presents, ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... weight, without sharing the benefits, of society. In the free states of antiquity, the domestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigor of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman empire was preceded by ages of violence and rapine. The slaves consisted, for the most part, of barbarian captives, [451] taken in thousands by the chance of war, purchased at a vile price, [46] accustomed to a life of independence, and impatient to break and to revenge their fetters. Against such internal enemies, whose ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... night? - Night with pestilent breath Feeds us, children of death, Clothes us close with her gloom. Rapine and famine and fright Crouch at our feet and are fed. Earth where we pass is a tomb, Life ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... to slay and strangle. Gradually the camouflage of bovine geniality was lifted from the face of Germany and the dripping fangs of the Blonde Beast were displayed—the Minotaur countenance of one glutted with human flesh, weary with rape and rapine, but still tragically insatiable and lusting for the new sensation ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... chiefly that this change was brought about; they had penetrated into the interior, and saw with their own eyes the system of cruelty and rapine that was carried on; they wrote home accounts, which were credited, and which produced a great alteration. To the astonishment and indignation of the boors, law was introduced where it had always been set at defiance; they were told ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... punished at all. A severe tax, which the noble reluctantly paid and which the penniless culprit commuted by personal slavery, was sufficiently unjust as well as absurd, yet it served to mitigate the horrors with which tumult, rapine, and murder enveloped those early days. Gradually, as the light of reason broke upon the dark ages, the most noxious features of the system were removed, while the general sentiment of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... for the liberties of Florence in the end. The chieftains of these military clubs, usually from the lowest ranks, with no capacity but for bloodshed, and no revenue but rapine, often ended their career by obtaining the seigniory of some petty republic, a small town, or a handful of hamlets, whose liberty they crushed with their own iron, and with the gold obtained, in exchange for their blood, from the city bankers. In the course of time such seigniories ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... have ordered the seizure of the persons to be made in the night, to avoid a disturbance; but that they will not be able to prevent; the mob are but too happy to prove their loyalty, when they can do so by rapine and plunder, and depend upon it that this house will be sacked and levelled to the ground before to-morrow evening. You cannot go to prison with your father; you cannot remain here, to be at the mercy of an infuriated and lawless mob. You must go with me, Wilhelmina; trust to ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... in the view of all, are taken notice of for some of these qualities, which procure them either commendations or blame: and this is that some one is held liberal, some miserable, (miserable I say, nor covetous; for the covetous desire to have, though it were by rapine; but a miserable man is he, that too much for bears to make use of his owne) some free givers, others extortioners; some cruell, others pitious; the one a Leaguebreaker, another faithfull; the one effeminate and of small ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... punishment in order to amendment, but to increase his wickedness; for he only aimed to procure every thing that was for his own bodily pleasure, though it obliged him to be injurious to his neighbors. He augmented his household substance with much wealth, by rapine and violence; he excited his acquaintance to procure pleasures and spoils by robbery, and became a great leader of men into wicked courses. He also introduced a change in that way of simplicity wherein men lived ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... of oak, some rustic's blade Hewed out my shape; grotesquely made I guard this spot by night and day, Scare every vagrant knave away, And save from theft and rapine's hand My humble ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... men, the fear of the laws, purity of morals, honour, and religion, were laid aside, where might ruled supreme with iron sceptre. Under the shelter of anarchy and impunity, every vice flourished, and men became as wild as the country. No station was too dignified for outrage, no property too holy for rapine and avarice. In a word, the soldier reigned supreme; and that most brutal of despots often made his own officer feel his power. The leader of an army was a far more important person within any country where he appeared, than its lawful governor, who was frequently obliged to fly before him into ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... human mind is slow. Sir, it was not until after two hundred years discovered that, by an eternal law, providence had decreed vexation to violence, and poverty to rapine. Your ancestors did however at length open their eyes to the ill-husbandry of injustice. They found that the tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the least be endured, and that laws made against a whole nation were not the most effectual methods of securing its obedience. Accordingly, ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... having made himself king of the wild beasts, and wishing to acquire the reputation of equity, abandoned his former course {of rapine}, and, content among them with a moderate supply of food, distributed hallowed justice with incorruptible fidelity. But after second ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... telling a simple story in this log of what takes place in warfare, when men of our army and navy contend with the uncivilised enemies of other lands. In this case we were encountering a gang of bloodthirsty wretches, whose whole career had been one of rapine and destruction. The desire seemed to be innate to kill, and this man, a prisoner, who since he had been taken had received nothing but kindness and attention, had been patiently watching for the opportunity which came at last. Just as Mr Reardon was stooping to attend to his fellow-prisoner, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... the most scoundrel race that ever lived; A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones, Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns; The Pict and painted Briton, treacherous Scot, By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought; Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes, Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains; Who joined with Norman French compound the breed From whence your true-born ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... of considerable classes, chiefly of foreigners, who are contemplating murder and rapine, should interest every good citizen. At Cincinnati on the 6th of March, it is said, "The institution of the Paris commune in 1848 and 1871 was celebrated tonight by the Cincinnati anarchists. It was the most revolutionary gathering ever seen ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various

... our friends pretty much as friends' misfortunes are usually regarded in life—occasions for a tender pity, and a hopeful trust in Providence. Let them—the writer speaks of the Allied armies—let them go on in the career of rapine and cruelty; let them ravage the Duchies and dismember Denmark; but a time will come when the terrible example of unlawful aggression shall be retorted upon themselves, and the sorrows of Schleswig be expiated on the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... "Why does not GOD prevent war? Why does He permit murder and cruelty and rapine?" the answer is that He could only prevent these things by dint of over-riding the will of man by force: and moreover that it is not the method of GOD to do for man what man is perfectly well able to do for himself. For wars would cease ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... secondarily and incidentally with the perpetuation of a government professedly based on the Revolution. From the outset of Napoleon's independent career, something of the future dictator appears. This implied promise that pillage, plunder, and rapine should henceforth go unpunished in order that his soldiers might line their pockets is the indication of a settled policy which was more definitely expressed in each successive proclamation as it issued from his pen. It was repeated whenever ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... when his own pocket or plans were concerned, they grew singularly unpleasant, and greatly resembled those of some not amiable animal—was it a rat, or a serpent? It was a peculiar concentrated vigilance and rapine that I have seen there. But that was long afterwards. Now, indeed, they were meek, and sad, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... I am, opprest, To think that now our life is only drest For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, Or groom!—We must run glittering like a brook 5 In the open sunshine, or we are unblest: The wealthiest man among us is the best: No grandeur now in nature or in book Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore: 10 Plain living and high thinking are no more: The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... on many other occasions, and although I varied my methods and redoubled my precautions, he was never deceived, his sagacity seemed never at fault, and he might have been pursuing his career of rapine to-day, but for an unfortunate alliance that proved his ruin and added his name to the long list of heroes who, unassailable when alone, have fallen through the indiscretion of ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... o'er breasts of fallen foes, And stains with blood his courser's iron heel. When comes a brief, false peace, and wearily Amidst the havoc doth the priest sit down, His pleasures are a crime, and after rapine Luxury follows. Like a thief he climbs Into the fold, and that desired by day He dares amid the dark, and violence Is the priest's marriage. Vainly did Rome hope That they had thrown aside the burden vile Of the desires that weigh down other ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... a shrill, clear, and emphatic voice, that rose above the clamour of the brawl; "Uzcoques! what means this savage uproar? Are you not yet sated with rapine and slaughter, that you thus fall upon and tear each other? Are ye men, or wolves and tigers? Is this the way to obtain your leader's deliverance; and will the news of this day's havoc, think you, better the position ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... be the signal for internecine strife, and such a saturnalia of blood and rapine as the world has never known; but were the question whether Britain should to-day accept India as a gift, and I had the privilege of replying, then, "Declined with thanks;" and yet it is the fashion just now to call India "the brightest jewel in the crown." The glitter of that jewel may ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... and mother, of all that had gone?—touched her with a human delight that seemed to reach to the roots of her nature. It was Fred who preached; and he spoke of the second coming of Christ, when the faithful would be carried away in clouds of glory, of the rapine and carnage to which the world would be delivered up before final absorption in everlasting hell; and a sensation of dreadful awe passed over the listening faces; a young girl who sat with closed eyes put out her hand to assure herself that Esther ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... armed men in the district where they governed, and their power was arbitrary and they had counts under them who also had a certain number of men subjected to their orders; sometimes these nobles carried rapine, pillage and slaughter into each other's territories, when the government had devolved upon the Franks; and the king took no notice of their misdeeds, as long as they observed a certain fealty towards ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... am here under the justice of the King, not under yours. You have no power over my life. It is sacred with respect to you, who are neither judges nor executioners. Speak! Show yourselves openly as you really are. I have offended you by checking your rapine. You are my enemies and ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... reliance on a mere prohibition of any particular amusement or employment, as a cure for gaming, because any pastime or employment, however innocent in itself, may be made an instrument for its designs. There are few customs, however harmless, which avarice cannot convert into the means of rapine on the one hand, and of distress on ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... astonishment, gaze—not upon any one of the proud triumphs of Art, ancient or modern; but rather upon a wild, yet exceedingly lovely, combination of, and improvement on, the Beautiful of all! Gates were there none to this city, neither closing portals to the habitations thereof; for rapine and violence were in that delicious land unknown. Highly-ornamented apertures, in the fashion of porticoes and arcades, &c., stood ever open for the ingress and egress of the social denizens of this Elfin Eden; and the windows of the shining structures seemed, when the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various

... to that escape from the world that Parsifal owes its birth and growth. What man can, during a whole lifetime, gaze into the depths of this world with a calm reason and a cheerful heart? When he sees murder and rapine organised and legalised by a system of lies, impostures, and hypocrisy, will he not avert his eyes and shudder with disgust?" (Wagner, Representations of the Sacred Drama of ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... air, and, not resisting it, Falls, and returns, and shivers where it lights. Such humours stirr'd them up; but this war's seed Was even the same that wrecks all great dominions. 160 When Fortune made us lords of all, wealth flow'd, And then we grew licentious and rude; The soldiers' prey and rapine brought in riot; Men took delight in jewels, houses, plate, And scorn'd old sparing diet, and ware robes Too light for women; Poverty, who hatch'd Rome's greatest wits,[593] was loath'd, and all the world Ransack'd ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... ground that when such voyages as ours were shown to be practicable, the inhabitants of the earth, who were so much more numerous than those of the moon, might invade the latter with a large army, for the purposes of rapine and conquest. We farther learnt that this opinion, which was at first cautiously circulated in the higher circles, had become more generally known, and was producing a ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... humanity, entertained the destitute from both parties and treated the wounds of any man who needed care. Both the Government forces and the rebels came to respect Quaker integrity, and in the midst of pillage and rapine the Quaker households escaped unscathed. But Thomas Hancock, who told the story a few years later, pointed out that in their course of conduct the Friends had ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin

... enough to do such a thing; and yet all our shopkeepers, the moment a discussion arises on marriage, will passionately argue against all reform on the ground that nothing but the most severe coercion can save their wives and daughters from quite indiscriminate rapine. ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... Bangor. Here he erected a small oratory of wood, and joined himself to a few devoted men ardent for the perfection of a religious life. He was soon after elected Bishop of Connor. With the assistance of some of his faithful monks, he restored what war and rapine had destroyed; and was proceeding peacefully and successfully in his noble work, when he was driven from his diocese by a hostile prince. He now fled to Cormac Mac Carthy, King of Desmond;[240] but he was not permitted to remain here long. The See of Armagh was vacated by the death of St. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... omnipotence is disturbed by the invasion of, Germanic barbarians. They press toward the old seats of power and riches to improve their condition. They are warlike, fierce, implacable. They fear not death, and are urged onward by the lust of rapine and military zeal. The old legions, which penetrated the Macedonian phalanx and withstood the Gauls, cannot resist the shock of their undisciplined armies; for martial glory has fled, and the people prefer their pleasures to the empire. Great emperors are raised up, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... brink of an abyss, into which all are about to tumble? And yet the road was broad enough for all. Why then this madness to destroy oneself? Why these countries given over to pride, these States devoted to rapine, these peoples to whom is taught murder, as if murder were their duty? But wherefore this butchery everywhere among living beings? Why this world that devours itself? To what purpose the nightmare of that monstrous and endless chain of life, each ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland

... occasion no surprise. His robust, hardy frame, used to exposure in all weathers—his daring courage, as displayed in his perilous dealing with the adder, bordering upon fool-hardiness—his mental depravity and immoral habits, fitted him for all the military glory of rapine and desolation. In his Grace Abounding he expressly states that this took place before his marriage, while his earliest biographer places this event some years after his marriage, and even argues upon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... additions are made to the English regiments in the disturbed districts, this state of things will not only continue, but extend itself. The fall of Delhi will act to some degree as a check; but where rapine and outrage have raged uncontrolled, even for a few hours, it is to be feared that nothing but the actual presence of force will ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... porpentine, not porcupine, Mr. Inspector. A common corruption. Verify your quotations. Have them (in future) attested by two resident magistrates. And now to work. All in strict confidence. Let not the world hear of these things. Let not the people know that violence and rapine walk hand-in-hand with my administration. Nameless in dark oblivion let it dwell. Let it be sub rosa, sub sigilla confessionis, sub-auditer, sub everything. Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in Askalon, for behold, if the people heard, they would ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... to-day and there to-morrow; who at one time stampedes a herd of mules upon the head waters of the Arkansas, and when next heard from is in the very heart of the populated districts of Mexico, laying waste haciendas, and carrying devastation, rapine, and murder in his steps; who is every where without being any where; who assembles at the moment of combat, and vanishes whenever fortune turns against him; who leaves his women and children far distant from the theatre of hostilities, and has neither towns or magazines to defend, nor lines ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... faulty adventurer, and the continent is named after Amerigo. Lighter examples of this instinctive appropriation are constantly met with among brilliant talkers. Aquila is too agreeable and amusing for any one who is not himself bent on display to be angry at his conversational rapine—his habit of darting down on every morsel of booty that other birds may hold in their beaks, with an innocent air, as if it were all intended for his use, and honestly counted on by him as a tribute in kind. Hardly any man, I imagine, can have had less trouble in gathering a showy stock of information ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... the night from the 18th to the 19th of June, the dead were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in one corner of the battlefield while others ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... have become more aware than usual of the worries and annoyances connected with the management of my estates. We live, sir, in a world of robbers"—Melrose suddenly rounded on his companion, his withered face aflame—"a world of robbers, and of rapine! Not a single Tom, Dick, and Harry in these parts that doesn't think himself my equal and more. Not a single tenant on my estate that doesn't try at every point to take advantage of his landlord! Not a single tramp or poacher that doesn't covet my goods—that wouldn't ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Orleans, he was waited upon by a deputation of fifty reformed ministers, who urged him to look well to the discipline and purity of the army. They begged him, by salutary punishment, to banish from the camp theft and rapine, and, above all, that more insidious and heaven-provoking sin of licentiousness, which, creeping in, had doubtless drawn down upon the cause such marked signs of the Lord's displeasure, that, of all the congregations in France, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... and minions presume to despise, Encroach on our rights, and make freedom their prize; The fruits of their rapine they never shall keep, Though vengeance may nod, yet how short is her sleep! In ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... some English Vessel till they can be sent to England; and there are many who desire to remain, in hopes of finding among the Ruins some of the little Cash they may have lost in their Habitations. The best orders have been given for preventing Rapine, and Murders, frequent instances of which we have had within these three Days, there being swarms of Spanish Deserters in Town, who take hold of this opportunity of doing their business. As I have large sums deposited in my House, belonging to such of my Countrymen ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... of asylum, annexed not only to the ambassadors at Rome, but even to the whole district in which any ambassador chanced to live. This privilege was become a terrible nuisance, inasmuch as it afforded protection to the most atrocious criminals, who filled the city with rapine and murder. Innocent XI. resolving to remove this evil, published a bull, abolishing the franchises; and almost all the catholic powers of Europe acquiesced in what he had done, upon being duly informed of the grievance. Louis XIV. however, from a spirit of pride and insolence, refused to part ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... victorious. Thus may we be mothers, thus may we be blest in our children, O dear Pallas, who destroyedst the blood of the dragon by the hurled stone, driving the attention of Cadmus to the action, whence with rapine some fiend of the Gods ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... the black regiments of the West India islands landed on their shores. They now call to mind the declarations of British statesmen, that a war with the United States will be a war of emancipation. They now see before them servile insurrections which torment their imaginations; murder, rapine, and bloodshed, now dance before their affrighted visions. Well, sir, I say to them, this is your policy, not mine. You have prepared the cup, and I will press it to your lips till the very dregs shall be drained. Let no one misunderstand me. Let no ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... disposed, but their meals were served on the dais. In the evening the harper played and sang legends of deeds of bravery in the day of Ireland's independence; and as Ronald translated the songs to him Archie could not but conclude privately that civil war, rapine, strife, and massacre must have characterized the country ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... prey to intestine wars; slaughter, fire, and rapine spread ruin throughout the land; cries of distress, horror, and woe rose ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... conversation no word of profanity, such as is affected by many military men, had crossed his lips. The framed photograph of his wife and daughters on his desk and his respectful references to women indicated he was not the type of soldier who lusts for rapine. But seated before that dull mahogany bar, whatever inhibitions, whatever conventional shackles, whatever selfdenials and repressions had been inculcated fell from him swiftly and completely. He barked his orders at the bartender, who seemed to know him very ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... Corinthian Gulf east of AEtolia, was inhabited by a wild, uncivilized race, scarcely Hellen'ic in character, and said to have been addicted, from the earliest period, to theft and rapine. Their two principal towns were Amphis'sa and Naupac'tus, the latter now called Lepanto. There was another settlement of the Locri north of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... hours old was I when Tostig Lodbrog first laid eyes on me. His was the lean ship, and his the seven other lean ships that had made the foray, fled the rapine, and won through the storm. Tostig Lodbrog was also called Muspell, meaning "The Burning"; for he was ever aflame with wrath. Brave he was, and cruel he was, with no heart of mercy in that great chest ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... such feelings, he was, till the close of May, 1793, a Girondist, if not an ultra-Girondist. He exclaimed against those impure and bloodthirsty men who wished to make the public danger a pretext for cruelty and rapine. "Peril," he said, "could be no excuse for crime. It is when the wind blows hard, and the waves run high, that the anchor is most needed; it is when a revolution is raging that the great laws of morality are ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... order of the British general. The county of Westchester, very soon after the commencement of hostilities, became, on account of its exposed situation, a scene of deepest distress. From the Croton to Kingsbridge, every species of rapine and lawless violence prevailed. No man went to his bed but under the apprehension of having his house plundered or burnt, or himself or family massacred, before morning. Some, under the character of whigs, plundered the tories; while others, of the latter description, plundered the whigs. Parties ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... sackcloth. But it seems to me that instead of being so, it is the only conviction that can make a man bear to see the world as it is. Brethren, which of these two is the gloomy—the creed that says, Look at all these men dying—in dumb ignorance, living in brutal sin; look at blood, rapine, lies, battlefields, broken hearts, hopes that never set to fruit but died in the bud, the stream of sad groans, and sadder curses, and wild mirth, saddest of all. Look at it all, coming to pass on this fair earth ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... is a wretchedly poor place. All are needy, from the Sarkee downwards, and when they get any property it all comes from the razzias. The system of living on rapine and man-stealing seems to bring its own punishment along ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... large army of regulars and militia was employed to put down the poor, starved, distressed, and plundered people. Many lives were lost, and a special commission was appointed, by which great numbers were found guilty, and transported to Botany Bay, and all this arose from the most horrid system of rapine and plunder that ever disgraced any nation on ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... jargon of that factious race, Who, poor of heart and prodigal of words, Formed to be slaves, yet struggling to be lords, Strut forth, as patriots, from their negro-marts, And shout for rights, with rapine in their hearts. Who can, with patience, for a moment see The medley mass of pride and misery, Of whips and charters, manacles and rights, Of slaving blacks and democratic whites, And all the piebald polity that reigns In ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... confidential offices gave them constant access to the person and councils of Lord Temple, to testify his ability and assiduity in business, the extent of his researches, the vigilance with which he penetrated into the secrets of departments where the most gross rapine and peculation had been practised for ages with impunity, and particularly the firm integrity with which he resisted all jobs, however ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... for a moment bending low to look curiously into the dead face—wrinkled, scarred, still featuring cruelty, the thin lips drawn back in a snarl. What scenes of horror those eyes had gazed upon during fifty years of crime; what suffering of men, women, children; what deeds of rapine; what examples or merciless hate. Juan Sanchez!—the very sound of the name made the blood run cold. "Dead or alive!" Well, they had him at last—dead; and the plainsman shuddered, as he ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish



Words linked to "Rapine" :   plundering, pillage, pillaging, rape



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