"Spiteful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had not come to a full stop when a man sprang lightly from one of the car platforms, and, passing swiftly through the waiting crowd, concealed himself in the friendly shelter of the shadows, where he remained oblivious to the rain falling in spiteful dashes, while he scanned the hurrying crowd surging in various directions. Not one of the crowd observed him; not one escaped his observation. Soon his attention was riveted upon a tall man, closely muffled in fur coat and cap, who ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... luridly at the irrepressible Freddie, he was not alone in his gloom. Katherine Rodney, green with jealousy, was sending spiteful glances after her dearest friend, while Mrs. Rodney was sniffing the air as if it was ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... and cast me as you will. I 'll fetch this friend, and give him to your mercy; Nay, he shall die, if you will take him from me; For your repose, I'll quit my heart's best jewel; But would not have him torn away by villains, And spiteful villainy. ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... do; they will some of them wound her reputation, so that I question whether it can recover. Lady Erskine made many odd inquiries about her to me yesterday, and winked and looked wise at her sister. The dear S.S. must be a little on her guard; nothing is so spiteful as a woman robbed of a heart she thinks she has a claim upon. She will not lose that with temper, which she has taken perhaps no pains at all to preserve: and I do not observe with any pleasure, I fear, that my husband prefers Miss Streatfield ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... case with a spiteful snap. "Don't fool yourself that it's devotion to the common weal that drives you ahead! Don't make a pretty picture of yourself as working to the last in heroic service of your fellow-man! You know, as I know, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... question of assisting a neighbor; but they did so from morning to night, directly they had a chance of pulling any one to pieces. With the door bolted and a rug hung up to cover the chinks and the key-hole, they would treat themselves to a spiteful gossip without leaving their gold ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... enlisted, as his contributions to the Marprelate controversy indicate. I have refrained from touching upon these Mar-Martin tracts because they possess neither aesthetic nor dynamical importance, being, as Gabriel Harvey—always ready with the spiteful epigram—describes them, "alehouse and tinkerly stuffe, nothing worthy a scholar or a real gentleman." They are worth mentioning, however, as throwing a light upon the religious prejudices of our author. ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... when he was answering a spiteful criticism of a late work of his, he was told that she waited his pleasure in the ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... He was a little querulous, spiteful child now, and I had possession of him. I had seen his soul undressed and naked, and it frightened me. I felt more than anxiety for him; I felt compassion. And it was I that put him to bed that night. But meanwhile we were on the way to ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... If not resolv'd into resolved pains, My body's mortified lineaments [315] Should exercise the motions of my heart, Pierc'd with the joy of any dignity! O father, if the unrelenting ears Of Death and Hell be shut against my prayers, And that the spiteful influence of Heaven Deny my soul fruition of her joy, How should I step, or stir my hateful feet Against the inward powers of my heart, Leading a life that only strives to die, And plead in ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... unsightly, loathsome, hideous, grewsome, frightful; (Colloq.) crossgrained, ill-natured, unamiable, inaffable, surly, refractory, vicious, indocile, spiteful, sullen, morose; uncomely, hard-visaged, homely, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... oppress some other, spiteful Fate! Jealousy, get thee hence—begone! away! These may suffice to show me all the grace Of changeful Love, and of that noble face. He takes my life, she gives me death, She wings, he burns my heart, He murders it, and she revives the soul: ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... Dawes Road to find the letter, but the letter was undiscoverable; with the spiteful waywardness which often characterizes such letters, it had disappeared. So Henry thought it would be as well to leave the incident alone. Their cheery politeness to each other when they chanced to meet was affecting to witness. As for Henry, he had always suspected in Geraldine the existence ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... hospitality. At his door was seen the mayor with his wide chestnut-coloured droshky and pair—an exceptionally bulky man, who seemed as though cut out of material that had been laid by for a long time. The other officials, too, used to drive to his receptions: the attorney, a yellowish, spiteful creature; the land surveyor, a wit—of German extraction, with a Tartar face; the inspector of means of communication—a soft soul, who sang songs, but a scandalmonger; a former marshal of the district—a gentleman ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... two rings of immense size and weight on his small fingers; boots with heels two inches high, and a rather long frock-coat buttoned closely round his little body. Signor Ercole had never been known to wear a swallow-tailed coat on any occasion. And spiteful people told each other, that his motive for never quitting the greater shelter of the frock was to be found in his fear of exhibiting to the unkindly glances of the world a pair of knock-knees of ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... would," said Calico Cat, with a spiteful twist of her tail. "Your growl helps me to make ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... and strained, And forced unworthy stripes to bear, When trusted to another's care. [18] Here was it—on this rugged slope, Which now ye climb with heart and hope, 125 I saw you, between rage and fear, Plunge, and fling back a spiteful ear, And ever more and more confused, As ye were more and more abused: [19] As chance would have it, passing by 130 I saw you in that [20] jeopardy: A word from me was like a charm; [D] Ye pulled together with one mind; [21] And your huge burthen, safe from harm, Moved like ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... you have to assume in that premise. I don't in mine. It is notorious that women love babies, while you have only the spiteful saying of a very uncertain ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the remnant of a once lofty barrier; the waters had, as it were, gnawed it to the bone, but they had not destroyed it. In two minutes the voyagers were beside it, paddling with all their strength against the eddy which whirled along its edge toward the cataract, and tossing over the short, spiteful ripples raised by the sudden turn of the current. With a "Hooroo!" Sweeny tumbled ashore, lariat in hand, and struck his army shoes into the crevices of the shattered sandstone. In five minutes more the boat was unloaded and lifted upon ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... slow. By 10 or 11 P.M. it would work its way to the front and the camp would be warm and light. The party would turn in and deep sleep would fall on a lot of tired hunters—for two or three hours. By which time some fellow near the middle was sure to throw his blanket off with a spiteful jerk and dash out of camp with, "Holly Moses! I can't stand ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... immediately the wagon is backed up to the broad open window, or rather hole in the wall, above the trough. A minute suffices to wrench out tub after tub, and to tilt their already half-mashed clusters splash into the reeking pressoir. Then to work again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful eagerness into the mountain of yielding, quivering fruit, the treaders sink almost to the knees, stamping, and jumping, and rioting in the masses of grapes, as fountains of juice spurt about their feet, and rush bubbling ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... Brabender. Her lips were firmly pressed together, and she looked shocked, just as she did sometimes when my godfather told some story that she did not approve at table. My uncle, Felix Faure, was gazing at the floor in an absent-minded way; the notary had a spiteful look in his eyes, my aunt was holding forth in a very excited manner, and M. Meydieu kept shaking his ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... quite sure I shall never be able to stand the whole fortnight more here. We got back on Monday evening, and Godmamma was as disagreeable as could be. She said all sorts of spiteful things about the Tournelles, and especially the Baronne; and Jean looked nervous and uncomfortable, and Heloise like a mule; and Victorine said I had no doubt enjoyed myself, but for her part she would be sorry to be taken for a "young married woman," which was what ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... that the said faults cannot be lost, must be somewhere, and shall be faithfully brought you back whenever they turn up,—as people tell one of missing matters. I am rather exacting, myself, with my own gentle audience, and get to say spiteful things about them when they are backward in their dues of appreciation—but really, really—could I be quite sure that anybody as good as—I must go on, I suppose, and say—as myself, even, were honestly to feel towards me as I do, towards the writer of 'Bertha,' and the 'Drama,' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... uncared for, unendeared[obs3], un-valued; disliked &c. 867. crossed in love, forsaken, rejected, lovelorn, jilted. obnoxious, hateful, odious, abominable, repulsive, offensive, shocking; disgusting &c. (disagreeable) 830; reprehensible. invidious, spiteful; malicious &c. 907. insulting, irritating, provoking. at daggers drawn[Mutual hate]; not on speaking terms &c. (enmity) 889; at loggerheads. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... grass but there'd be fires. I'd never have fat sheep but there'd be dogs among 'em. They ride all over the run; but if a bird belonging to the station flew over one of their selections they'd summon me for trespass. There's no end to the injury a spiteful neighbour can do you in this sort of country. And your father ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... spiteful wretch! the good gentleman vouchsafed to make him his companion, because my husband put him into a few rags, and now see how the unrude rascal ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... mischief; so she stood up before the old woman; but she set to work so nimbly, and pulled the lace so tight, that Snow-White lost her breath, and fell down as if she were dead. "There's an end of all thy beauty," said the spiteful ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... This spiteful retrospect passed swiftly and smoothly through Miss Mapp's mind, and did not in the least take off from the acuteness with which she observed the tide in the affairs of Tilling which, after the ebb of the night, was now flowing again, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... other little services for them. The attitude towards prisoners approved by the men—one trusts it is not to be regarded as a characteristic outcome of Masculinism—is that of petty insults, of spiteful cruelty, and mean deprivations. Dr. Helene Stoecker, a prominent leader of the more advanced band of German Feminists, has lately published a protest against this treatment of enemies who are helpless, ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... him," said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, "because I hold something over him," but he ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... buzzed like lazy hornets. They sounded spiteful rather than wicked, but I knew what their droning stood for, and my body grew cold. In the Ottawa camp the drummers sat beside a post in the centre of a great circle of warriors, and Longuant stood ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... while hating him for she saw the force of him—felt it. And though she was thinking spiteful things of him, she found that she was forming a new impression of him—of his character, his appearance, and of ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... dream, to find that those whom she would love to think of as brethren, were vile and degraded: she saw lazy, drunken men, lounging about at the doors of smoky huts, or administering chastisement to yelping curs, or to women as noisy, reduced by ill-treatment and domestic drudgery to be the cunning, spiteful slaves they were. Every thing shocked the noble and pure spirit of Orikama: there were none here that she could make companions and friends, nor would Towandahoc and Ponawtan have been pleased to have her associate with them. It could not be expected that ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... was amazing—she did nothing else, in fact. And her face tells you just what she is, doesn't it? Her beauty seems to be made up of all the affection she feels, and of all that she has left of her childhood about her. And above all it is her expression. You often feel rather wicked and spiteful, but when she looks at you with that expression of hers it is as though everything of that kind disappears—as though something is melting away. Would you believe that I never ventured to play a single trick on her, and yet I was a terrible ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... Still, these spiteful words inoculated me with a sort of moral disease, which crept on in secret. It would not have displeased me at all to have been the grandson of any person of consideration, even if it had not been in the most lawful way. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... happened that the king and queen had failed to invite a spiteful and ill-tempered old witch. The old witch was very angry, because she had not been invited to ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... honestly. I like you to talk like that. It's very interesting." And she thought: "Suppose Tommy was wrong, after all! ... She's very spiteful." ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... began crying: "Oh, be quick and take me away! Make them give me up to you: ask to have me! I am your poor, loving old father whom you never saw; all these years have I been looking and longing for you! Now take me away, for they are a proud, cruel people, as spiteful as they are small; and my back has been broken twenty ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... but, with such a lot of young ones all the care in the world on our parts may be upset in a moment by thoughtlessness on theirs. Besides, they won't leave a corner unvisited I feel sure, partly out of revenge, for they are a most spiteful race, and partly from feeling persuaded you are the people so long lost, and for whose recovery such large rewards ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... my cheeks grow pale, My heart becomes unduly spiteful, My verses in the Evening Mail Are far from snappy and delightful. I put a civil question, Lyddy: Is that a way to treat ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... gained some knowledge of Dandy's character. (We named him after the black trooper.) He was fawningly, sneakingly, offensively affectionate—when he was hungry, which was nearly always; as ferocious and as spiteful as a tiger cat when his stomach was full; then, with a snarling yelp, he would put his tail beneath his legs and trot for'ard, turning his head and showing his teeth. Crawling under the barrel of the windlass ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... trunk (being rotten at heart, hollow within, and without sound substance) hath our spiteful pullet (CECIL) laid her ungracious eggs, mo than a few: and there hath hatched sundry of them, and brought forth chickens of her own feather, I warrant you. A hen I call him, as well for his cackling, ready and smooth tongue, wherein he giveth place ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... took his mantle's foremost part, And gan the same together fold and wrap; Then spake again with fell and spiteful heart, So lions roar enclosed in train or trap, "Thou proud despiser of inconstant mart, I bring thee war and peace closed in this lap, Take quickly one, thou hast no time to muse; If peace, we rest, we ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... "How spiteful they are," thought Carrie Maynard; "I am glad I know better than to talk that way. Girls," she said aloud, "I think you are forgetting very quickly what Miss Evans read about the marks. The Bible says, ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... Causes, why Men of great Parts and extraordinary Wit, but of loose Principles and immoral Lives, who above all others affect Popularity and gasp after Applause, take so much Pleasure, without the least regard to Modesty and Decency, in a Christian Country to mock Religion and jerk with spiteful Satire Men of ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adele: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of character—watched ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... She might have guessed it. A "Conchy," as they would call him in the Press: all the spiteful screamers who had never risked a scratch, themselves, denouncing him as a coward. The local Dogberrys of the tribunals would fire off their little stock of gibes and platitudes upon him, propound with owlish ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... the atheist, whose denial of God was simply a denial of the idol and a demonstration against an unbearable and most unchristian idolatry. The idol was, as Shelley had been expelled from Oxford for pointing out, an almighty fiend, with a petty character and unlimited power, spiteful, cruel, jealous, vindictive, and physically violent. The most villainous schoolmasters, the most tyrannical parents, fell far short in their attempts to imitate it. But it was not its social vices that brought it low. What made it scientifically intolerable was that it was ready at a moment's ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... and spiteful," cried Smith, rubbing his throat and adjusting his shirt collar, which had been somewhat disarranged. "It served me right for threatening him, when it's evident that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... strangely affected. The man exhibited several other tricks, and then approached with the plate. Otto laid down a mark, and then rose to depart. The juggler remarked the piece of money: a smile played about his mouth; he glanced at Otto, and a strange malicious expression lay in the spiteful look which accompanied his loudly spoken thanks: "Mr. Otto Thostrup is always ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... determined not to allow Kitty the chance of making any of her spiteful little speeches about Dora in presence of the visitor, kept the conversation upon purely impersonal topics, until they rose from table, and the two gentlemen strolled out upon the porch at the western door; while Kitty ran up to call Dora, whom ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... more," continued Ruth, "and Eleanor made a number of other spiteful remarks and walked out with a perfectly hateful look ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... were very fond of him, but his wife was queer, and could only read a little. And he never taught her to improve herself, although he had books and was learned. [Footnote: This is the point alluded to.] He had two daughters, who were spiteful and did not like other girls to be pretty. They had bad taste, too, and wanted to go to church overdressed, and thought it finer to ride a plough-horse than walk. It does not say that they ever read anything, either. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... shall all likewise perish." As much as to say, though ye did not rebel against the Romans like these Galilaeans, you have your sins, which will ruin YOU. As long as you are hypocrites, with your mouths full of the cant of religion, and your hearts full of all mean and spiteful passions; as long as you cannot of yourselves discern what is right, and have lost conscience, and the everlasting distinction between right and wrong, so long are you walking blindfold to ruin. There is an adversary against ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... for a short time to live in lodgings off Hanover Square, and be the curiosity of the town; and then she died. Lady Mary always had a dread of growing old; and she grew old and ill-favored, as Horace Walpole was spiteful enough to put on record. When Pope was laughed at by the beauty, he might have said to her in the words that Clarendon used to the fair Castlemaine, "Woman, you will grow old," and have felt that in those words he had almost repaid the bitterness ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... gentleman drew another long breath, glad it was over. He really had little reason to quarrel about the globe, bent or unbent; he never used it. It sat in his study year in and year out, its dusty twinkle brightened at long intervals by old Rose's spiteful rag. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... should both be well out of it," said he, having reached his joke triumphantly. But Lady Victoria did not like Mr. Barker, or his jokes, very much. She once said so to her brother. She thought him spiteful. ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... me so." But when one has done us cool and deliberate wrong, then we are angry, because the slight is most considerable. There is an appearance of our claims to considerations having been weighed, and found wanting. We call it, "a cool piece of impertinence," "spiteful malevolence," and the like. Any other motive to which the wrong is traceable on the part of the wrong-doer, lessens our anger against him: but the motive of contempt, and that alone, if we seem to discover it in him, invariably increases it. To ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... they weren't," said Anne seriously. "That is just the trouble. If they had been spiteful cats I wouldn't have minded them. But they are all nice, kind, motherly souls, who like me and whom I like, and that is why what they said, or hinted, had such undue weight with me. They let me see they thought I was crazy going to Redmond and trying to ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... alike to the father, Hail, and Jove's kind grace shower his help upon you! Door, that of old, men say, wrought Balbus ready obeisance, Once, when his home, time was, lodged him, a master in years; Door, that again, men say, grudg'd aught but a spiteful obeisance, 5 Soon as a corpse outstretch'd starkly declar'd you a bride. Come, speak truly to me; what shameful rumour avouches Duty of years forsworn, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... the opening of the mind to a larger and sounder conception of the true nature of the Ruling Principle of the universe. It is no imperious autocrat, the very apotheosis of self-glorification, ill-natured and spiteful if its childish vanity be not gratified by hearing its own praises formally proclaimed, often from lips opened only by fear; nor is it an almighty extortioner desiring to deprive us of what we value most, either to satisfy its greed or to demonstrate its sovereignty. This ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... to pilot the steamer under the new order of things, not because he wished to be spiteful to his brother, but because he was smarting under a sense of injustice, which unfitted him for the duty. Though he did not comprehend the legal measures which had been taken, he felt that there was something wrong. The Woodville belonged to him, ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... are told, and philosophy are but an inclement atmosphere for poetry to thrive in. Their spiteful frost nips the young buds and tender shoots of imagination, of fancy, of "sentiment." Well, at what date was modern science born? At what date philosophy? Does philosophy date from Kant, or from Bacon, or from Plato? Does modern science begin with Darwin, ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... afternoon session. She made a most unfavorable impression on the jury. She got very angry at Smilk's counsel and said such spiteful things to him and about his client that the jury began to feel sorry for ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... direction of evil wishes and angry thoughts; and considering the amount of envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness that exists in the world, it will be readily understood that among the artificial elementals many terrible creatures are to be seen. A man whose thoughts or desires are spiteful, brutal, sensual, avaricious, moves through the world carrying with him everywhere a pestiferous atmosphere of his own, peopled with the loathsome beings he has created to be his companions, and thus is not only in sadly evil case himself, but is a dangerous nuisance to his fellow-men, ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... a reply! Above the spiteful crackling of the tindery buildings, out of the thinning dark, came a clear, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... he was beset by men and dogs, and most savagely abused. Things progressed thus for nearly a year, and the Quaker, a man of decidedly peace principles, appeared in no way to resent the injuries received at the hands of his spiteful neighbour. But matters were drawing to a crisis; for Dood, more enraged than ever at the quiet of Obadiah, made oath that he would do something before long to wake up the spunk of Lawson. Chance favoured ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... adjoining her bedroom, where we remained for an hour or more talking over the events of the night. Mary had heard one in the ballroom say this and another say that. Frances had heard all sorts of remarks, some of them kind, others spiteful. I had heard nothing but praise of my cousin, and all that we had heard was discussed excitedly and commented on earnestly or laughingly, as the ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... away the mice will play," continued Jakobina. It was pretty well known that the smith came there for Silla's sake, and her vexation at her three friends having got tickets, and not her, filled her with spiteful gaiety. "Silla has taken a little trip into the town, too!" ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... account of some disgrace at school, had returned home, "nater ha'n't done him half jestice, I 'low. It went through Sam'el Anderson and Abig'il, and picked out the leetle weak pompous things in the illustrious father; and then hunted out all the spiteful and hateful things in the lovin' and much-esteemed mother, and somehow stuck 'em together, to make as ornery a chap as ever bit a hoe-cake ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... and screamed their assent so loud that the Child's ears tingled, and he wished he could chastise them for their spiteful jeers; when a cyane said, in a soft voice, to her younger playmates, "Dear friends, be not led astray by outward show, nor by discourse which regards only outward show. The lark is, indeed, weary, and the space into which she has soared is void; but the void ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... to a reddish flare. It revealed dark forms. A gun cracked. Allie heard the heavy thud of a bullet against the wall. Then Hough shot. His derringer made a small, spiteful report. It was followed by a cry—a groan. Other guns cracked. Bullets pattered on the wood. Allie heard the spat of lead striking Hough. It had a sickening sound. He moved as if from a blow. A volley followed ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... interrupted Cora. "How would it look if I went and you didn't? Everybody knows papa's almost well, and they'd think it silly for us to give up the first real dance since last spring on that account; yet they're just spiteful enough, if I went and you stayed home, to call me a 'girl of no heart.' Besides," she added sweetly, "we ought to go to show Mrs. Villard we aren't hurt because Egerton takes so little notice of ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... "Spiteful, little-minded country boobies," he said to himself with an impatient shake of his head, as if to adjust his hair, which was his usual sign of excitement, "they've always hated me because I was above them. They take advantage of the least opportunity to show ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... spiteful! All along, Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of mute despair, a suicidal throng: The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was, rolled by, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... dine as if it were a matter of no consequence, and as if she could think of other things more than of her business. All this, and her own manner of eating, I described to Eliza once, when I wanted to vex her for something very spiteful that she had said; and I never succeeded so well before, for the girl was quite outrageous, having her own perception of it, which made my observation ten times as bitter to her. And I am not sure but what ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... establishment where he usually takes his bath; nor does he pause at the Chinese Baths. He is too well known hereabout. All Paris would know what had happened the same evening. There would be a lot of ill-bred gossip in clubs and salons, much spiteful comment on his death; and the old fop, the man of breeding, wishes to spare himself that shame, to plunge and be swallowed up in the uncertainty and anonymity of suicide, like the soldiers who, on the day after a great battle, are reported neither ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... a height, beyond that which even they themselves could have accomplished, were not to be envied in their feelings. Poor fellows, and yet they only did what many a reckless, mischievous school boy has done and is doing every day; they only meant to tease him a bit, to pay him off for being so spiteful all the way, and so cross to Fred when he spoke. But it was no use trying to still the voice which spoke loudly within them, which told them that they had acted with heartless cruelty, and that their conduct had, perhaps, cost a fellow-creature ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... as the nose on your face," responded Peter John glibly. "I said that vengeance was a low-down, mean, spiteful attempt to pay back. 'Vengeance is mine and I will repay,' saith ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... first time the story of Psyche must at once be struck by its kinship to the fairy tales of childhood. Here we have the three sisters, the two elder jealous and spiteful, the youngest beautiful and gentle and quite unable to defend herself against her sisters' wicked arts. Here, too, is the mysterious bridegroom who is never seen and who is lost to his bride because of her lack of faith. Truly it is an old, old tale—older than all fairy tales—the story of ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... have my chat out with you, and then I'll go. Come, tell us how you're getting on; wife and children quite well?" And with a spiteful gleam in his eyes, he added, showing his teeth in a mocking grin: "I've been meaning to pay you a call for ever so long, but I've not had the time, I'm always drinking, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Do not profane endearments that were once So sweet, but which I am unworthy now To taste. You have been wrong'd. Fortune has proved Spiteful, nor in your absence spared your wife. I am unfit to meet your fond caress, How I may bear my ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... married her daughter, succeeded her, he scratched out her name wherever he found it and chiselled out the pictures of her. He had evidently had a bad time while she lived, but he must have been a small-minded and spiteful man to take that petty revenge after ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... that fashion, let a writer be as good-natured as he may and let the principle be ever so well-founded that nobody is to be hurt, still there are dangers. It is not always easy to know what will hurt and what will not. And then sometimes there will come a temptation to be, not spiteful, but specially amusing. There must be danger, and a writer will sometimes be indiscreet. Personalities will lead to libels even when the libeller has been most innocent. It may be that after all the ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... the aeroplane struck the earth and Frank threw in the brakes sharply crashing into a rocky wall, with a howl of defiance the whole horde of man-like brutes rushed down on the air-craft with wicked rage in their spiteful little red eyes. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... letters began to fly about the parish they were put down as the work of some spiteful servant, dismissed for dishonesty, perhaps. But little by little Mrs. Carstairs' name began to be whispered in connection with them—no one knew how the rumour started, though I have always held the belief that the Vicar's wife herself ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... on, with a deal of spiteful laughter. Some of these sayings were half truth, no doubt: but the truthfullest word may be infelix. So noting a dark flush on Joan's cheek, I thought to end the scene by taking the Cheap Jack's mirror on the spot, to stop his tongue, and ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... of a steeple that rose beyond the opposite range of buildings, pointing from the eastward; a sprinkle of small, spiteful-looking raindrops on the window-pane. In that ebb-tide of my energies, had I thought of venturing abroad, these tokens would have checked ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... attend some intellectual country people, she went to them every day; they felt it awkward to give her money—and, to her great vexation, gave her husband a suit as a present. He would drink tea for hours and this infuriated her. Living with her husband she grew thin, ugly, spiteful, stamped her foot and shouted at him: "Leave me, you low fellow." She hated him. She worked, and people paid the money to him, for, being a Zemstvo worker, she took no money, and it enraged her that their friends did not understand him and thought ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... the least of these inconveniences. Ah! 'tis most certain I should have chosen a handsome chain to lead my apes in before such a husband; but marrying and hanging go by destiny, they say. It was not mine, it seems, to have an emperor; the spiteful man, merely to vex me, has gone and married my countrywoman, my Lord Lee's daughter. What a multitude of willow garlands I shall weave before I die; I think I had best make them into faggots this cold weather, the flame they would make in a chimney would be of more use to me than ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... the mating season of the birds the rivalries and jealousies are not all confined to the males. Indeed, the most spiteful and furious battles, as among the domestic fowls, are frequently between females. I have seen two hen robins scratch and pull feathers in a manner that contrasted strongly with the courtly and dignified sparring usual between the males. One March a pair of bluebirds ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... at her mother with a sort of incredulous stare. Then, after a struggle, she replied with a tone and manner so spiteful and icy that it would have deceived even us who know her had we heard it. "He has plenty of nurses without me." She added, almost violently, "My husband, if he were wounded, would not have so many, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... with baby during the measles) when the sea, as if scorning all previous performances, seemed lashing itself into a very climax of rage. Smutty rags of clouds flew across the ominous horizon, and spiteful gusts, apparently from every direction of the compass, caught the old Nautilus in wild arms, and tossed her ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... to see what was being done under cover of trigonometry. He found Mr. and Miss Fountain just sitting down to luncheon. David and Arthur were actually together somewhere, perhaps going through the farce of geometry. He was half vexed at finding no food for his suspicions. Presently, so spiteful is chance, the door opened, and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... removed, that is to say, from his winter residence in the Borough. Mrs. Piozzi has written opposite this passage in her copy of Boswell:—'Spiteful again! He went by direction of his physicians where they could easiest attend to him.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 91. There was, perhaps, a good deal of truth in Boswell's supposition, for in 1779 Johnson had told her that he saw 'with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... vaults beneath the mullion chambers nearly frightened her into fits. Henderson darted in and captured the two boys in the fact. Martyn's asseveration that he had taken the pair for Griff and Emily would have pacified the good-natured clergyman, but Mrs. Sophia was too much agitated, or too spiteful, as we declared, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... under a greatness of mind and views. When I turn over the table of contents of that immense correspondence of Napoleon which reveals the entire man in spite of the prudence of the editors, I find continually the name of Madame de Stael, joined to rigorous measures of spiteful epithets. "I write to the Minister of Police to finish with that mad Madame de Stael," he wrote on the 20th April, 1807, to the Count Regnault St. Jean d'Angely, who had apologized for his correspondence ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... pursue to death this spiteful knight: Not earth's low centre, nor sea's deepest part, Nor heaven, nor hell, can shield him from my might: I will o'ertake him, take him, cleave his ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... sprites, kobolds, gnomes, and other woodland imps. These creatures, though dwarfish and insignificant in person, were in such numbers—four thousand, forty thousand, four hundred thousand—and were so impatient of any invasion of their territory, so jealous of their prerogatives, so spiteful and revengeful when injured, that it was policy always to keep on ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... not learn what became of William her husband; but Isabella seemed to have been an extremely strong-minded, determined woman, and rather spiteful, for it was she who blocked the river so that the people of Exeter, who had offended her, could have neither "fishing nor shipping" below the weir. On one occasion, when four important parishes had a dispute about their boundaries, she summoned all their principal men to meet her on the top of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... statement. Such were Mr. Brace's theories of evidence. He added that he was not fully persuaded that there was any hell to go to, yet probably he scrupled not to preach 'tidings of damnation.' He wanted to be more certain of Gowrie's guilt, than he was that there is hell-fire. 'Spiteful taunts' followed, Mar's repartee to the argument about hell being obvious. Bruce must have asserted the existence of hell, from the pulpit: though not 'fully persuaded' of hell. So why not assert ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... had to sell his pig to pay his fine. This theory afforded the Shimerdas great satisfaction, apparently. For weeks afterward, whenever Jake and I met Antonia on her way to the post-office, or going along the road with her work-team, she would clap her hands and call to us in a spiteful, crowing voice: ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... on the western bluffs, and turning his guns in impotent wrath upon the plain, he drove the ambulances and their escort from the field. But the Confederate dead and wounded had already been removed, and the only effect of his spiteful salvoes was that his suffering comrades lay under a drenching rain until he retired to Harrisonburg. By that time many, whom their enemies would have rescued, had perished miserably, and "not a few of the dead, with some perchance of the mangled living, were partially devoured ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... years old she was to go home. And when the Queen saw how beautiful she was, she became spiteful and filled with hatred toward her. She would have been glad to change her into a wild swan, like her brothers, but she did not dare to do so at once, because the King wished ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... people generally do that to be contradicted or to show that they know their weaknesses and have never cared to change them. A woman of your intelligence need never sink to the level of a spiteful chatterbox; every one should keep his tongue sheathed, for it is more deadly than a sword. Your higher interests should make you overlook every little action of your neighbors. You only see or hear what takes place when the window is open; ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... gentleman and that he truly loved her, and because with all her pure, strong soul she truly loved him, she left off running away and came shyly through the wood to meet him. And of course Geoffrey, the jealous, spiteful brother, discovered their secret, and carried the tale to his uncle in violent, indignant guise, precipitating anger for his own ends, where a little discretion might have found a compromise. Mr. Carew's lips curled a little cruelly as he remarked he would easily nip that peccadillo in the bud. ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... positively charming. He was evidently an amiable man, for he smiled to himself over his tea,—he had a trick of smiling,—ill-natured people said he did it on purpose, in order to widen his mouth and make it more in pro-portion to the size of his face. Such remarks, however, emanated only from the spiteful and envious who could not succeed in winning the social popularity that everywhere attended Mr. Dyceworthy's movements. For he was undoubtedly popular,—no one could deny that. In the small Yorkshire town where he usually had his abode, he came little short of being ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... wedding, at Sir Edward Kenton's, Baronet.' He gave the dresses, not only the bridesmaids' white and cerise (Freda's choice), but the chocolate moire which for a minute Mrs. Morton fancied 'the little spiteful cat' had chosen on purpose to suppress her, till assured by all qualified beholders, especially Mrs. Rollstone and a dressmaker friend, that in nothing else would she have looked so entirely ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and without consulting her parents. If my darling girl had come to see her kind and admirable mother, she would not have given me this cruel pain I feel!—You do not know the world; it is malignantly spiteful. People will perhaps say that your husband sent you back to your parents. Children brought up as you were, on your mother's lap, remain artless; maidenly passion like yours for Wenceslas, unfortunately, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the tower no other light was there But from these stars: all seemed to come from them. 'These are the planets,' said that low old man, 'They govern worldly fates, and for that cause 95 Are imaged here as kings. He farthest from you, Spiteful, and cold, an old man melancholy, With bent and yellow forehead, he is Saturn. He opposite, the king with the red light, An arm'd man for the battle, that is Mars: 100 And both these bring but little luck to man.' But at his side a lovely lady stood, The star upon her head was ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... choice and duration. He would frequently part from one, with whom he had lived on terms of close intimacy, without any assignable cause; and his enmities, once fixed, were immovable.' Dr. Parr said of him that 'he was one of the wisest, most learned, but most spiteful of men.' Dr. Johnson, however, thought 'he ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... with Elder Minnett, although she had refrained from detailing her story and her spiteful comments about Sheila and Tunis Latham to the Paulings, she had not ceased to question Zebedee and his mother about the financial ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... violence and bitterness reached by party-feeling in the early years of the United States Constitution. A Mississippi member of Congress listening to a Freesoil speech is mild in demeanor and expression, if we compare his ill-nature with the spiteful fury of his predecessors in legislation sixty years ago. The same temper was visible throughout the land. Nobody stood aloof. Two hostile camps were pitched over against each other, and every man in Israel was to be found ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... the grain field rose in little spurts as the bullets struck, and the rattle of the spiteful machine-gun made a chorus with the snapping and popping of the American rifles. For Jimmy and the others fired from the hip ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... and nothing less would content him: he was very spiteful, and would affect the belief that she had wilfully misled him, and having failed to trap the eagle once again, his revengeful mind would be content ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... into the Bishop's library, where he and Margery were sitting in the dancing firelight. We loved the dark-panelled room where we were always made so happy. At Mrs. Handsomebody's we could never do anything right, mugs of milk had a spiteful way of tilting over on the table-cloth without ever having been touched, but we could handle the things in the Chinese cabinet here or play carpet ball on the rug in ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... to satisfy the child's curiosity, granted her request. She had no sooner taken it into her hand, than, whether being very hasty at it and somewhat unhandy, or that the decree of the spiteful fairy had ordained it, is not to be certainly ascertained, but, however, it immediately ran into her hand, and she directly fell down upon ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... will come now," the girl remarked, walking close beside me. "He's got two of the most spiteful chickens out there you ever saw, and whenever anything goes wrong with him he bolts right out there, no matter who is here, and makes those vicious things peck at each other. Mother and I try hard to ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... spot denuded of hair, just behind the point of his shoulder; upon this the hunter brings the sight of his rifle to bear; lightly and delicately his finger presses upon the hair-trigger. Quick as thought the spiteful crack of the rifle responds to his slight touch, and instantly in the middle of the bare spot appears a small red dot. The buffalo shivers; death has overtaken him, he cannot tell from whence; still he does not fall, but walks heavily forward, as if nothing had happened. Yet ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... there are many who will contend that I have some selfish or spiteful motive in writing thus strongly in condemnation of the waltz. Many will doubtless claim that the waltz is very moral and healthful, is indulged in by the best people of every land, seemingly tolerated by all, and that he who raises his voice against ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... not try to see me any more—you promise?" she added, a little spiteful at the readiness with ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... they're not. I don't want to be a Jap. I don't like them. They're ugly and spiteful. Why can't we choose what we are? I would be an English girl—or perhaps French," she added, thinking of the Rue ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... that the boy had heedlessly spread his blanket over the entrance to the home of a colony of large black ants, and the little fellows, angry at his presumption, had attacked him, in the most spiteful manner, through the rents in his trousers. Patsey, awakened out of a sound sleep by their stings, and remembering Ned's adventure in the Organos mountains, had fancied himself the unfortunate victim of a like attack. We finally succeeded in convincing him that he was not dead, nor likely to ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... the mode of presenting it. German criticism, to which we are expected to defer, has its mode. It combines two elements—a diligent, searching, lawyer-like habit of cross-examination, laborious, complete and generally honest, which, when it is not spiteful or insolent, deserves all the praise it receives; but with it a sense of the probable, in dealing with the materials collected, and a straining after attempts to construct theories and to give a vivid reality to facts and relations, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... surrounded by jets of steam, and little bubbling springs of mineral water; some hissing, some sputtering, others roaring, and others shrieking; the ground being soft and hot, your stick sinking into the clayey ooze, and a puff of spiteful steam following it as withdrawn; your shoes white or yellow, as you tread the chalk or the sulphur banks, and your feet burning with the hot breath of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Geoffrey, annexed, used by Geoffrey—faith, she must have sunk very low before he could dare venture so with her. She received illumination. She saw herself in the wrong first and last, the sole sufficient cause of their catastrophe, a petty mean creature, snarling and spiteful and passionate for trivialities—just like Geoffrey, just such a creature as she hated most. Pride and honour instantly demanded that she must seek Harry, indict herself and read her recantation. She needed that, longed for it, and to ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... I was spiteful enough to give Theobald a grim smile which said as plainly as words could have done that I thought Ernest had hit ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... rolled, galloped, outflying the wind, but not the dismal rider. Marriage is our incubus now. No explanation is offered of why we are afflicted; we have simply offended, or some one absent has offended, and we are handy. The spiteful hag of power ties a wife to us; perhaps for the reason, that we behaved in the spirit of a better time by being chivalrously honourable. Wives are just as inexplicable curses, just as ineradicable and astonishing as humps imposed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hauled aboard, and as he sunk down on an oar,—for he couldn't stand,—all his shirt and hair a-drippin' red, his cold, spiteful eye shot into me like a bullet, and says I to the mate, 'I'm a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of course. If the judge after all the argument finally decides to let the testimony as to the red cow stand, he will not be inclined to change his mind because the lawyer interjects that threatening exception. The sound of the word is spiteful and seems to express the resentment of the lawyer at the ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... turned wrong, and have missed my road—how to regain it? 'sdeath! I could as soon compose an almanac as and a clue to this puzzle. Well, I was found in a wood when a baby, and have just lived to years of discretion to be lost in a wood again! Fortune! Fortune! thou spiteful gipsy! was this an honest trick to pass upon a faithful servant, who has worn thy livery from his cradle, and taken off thy hands a thousand knocks and buffetings without a murmur? Just at this moment too, when hope and fancy were dancing merrily, and had made the prettiest ball-room ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... (to me) new page in natural history, when, during the past season, I made the acquaintance of the sand wasp or hornet. From boyhood I had known the black hornet, with his large paper nest, and the spiteful yellow-jacket, with his lesser domicile, and had cherished proper contempt for the various indolent wasps. But the sand hornet was a new bird,—in fact, the harpy eagle among insects,—and he made an impression. While walking along the road about midsummer, I noticed working in the ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... paddling up the stream for a mile, they heard the genuine crash of a startled animal. Jim stopped and listened. Then came the spiteful stroke of a deer's forefeet upon the leaves, and a whistle so sharp, strong and vital, that it thrilled every ear that heard it. It was a question, a protest, a defiance all in one; but not a sign of the animal could be seen. He was back in the cover, wary and watching, and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... came rapidly to a head. The man was embittered. He had rendered great services and yet had been persecuted with spiteful persistence. The truth seems to be, too, that Arnold thought America ripe for reconciliation with Great Britain. He dreamed that he might be the saviour of his country. Monk had reconciled the English republic to ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... for rest. This time a myriad of hostile pygmies were dragging him down into a bottomless pit. They tugged, and pushed, and danced upon his helpless body, and laughed in spiteful glee as he descended further and further into the ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... most cleverly done," said Dora. "There is such a thing, Hester, as being wickedly clever. This spiteful, cruel attempt to injure another can have but proceeded from one very low order of mind. Hester, there has been plenty of favoritism in this school, but do you suppose I shall allow such a thing as this to pass over unsearched into? If necessary, ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... sir, I'm sure," said Elsworthy, who thought some answer was required of him. To tell the truth, Rosa's uncle felt a little spiteful. He did not see matters in exactly the same light as Mr Wentworth did. At the bottom of his heart, after all, lay a thrill of awakened ambition. Kings and princes had been known to marry far out of their degree for the sake of a beautiful ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... his head downright wonderful. There came an inspector once who praised him up, and said he'd recommend him to a place where he'd be taught to be a school-master, if any one would pay the cost; but the guardians wouldn't hear of it at no price, and were quite spiteful to find he was a good scholar, for fear, I suppose, that ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did not think of that, as she grudges nothing so much as the price of postage. But nothing do I grudge so little, especially when it is a letter from you. Why do you not write me oftener, and tell me what is saying about us, particularly by that spiteful toad, Becky Glibbans, who never could hear of any good happening to her acquaintance, without being as angry as if it was obtained at her ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... with her discourse, which was sensible, spirited, and gay. Her frank and sprightly demeanour excited his own confidence and good-humour; and he described to her the characters of those females who had honoured them with such a spiteful mark of distinction, in terms so replete with humorous satire, that she seemed to listen with particular complacency of attention, and distinguished every nymph thus ridiculed with such a significant glance as overwhelmed her with ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... below, and found for himself a little fetish made of turnips and cabbages. He was as fanatical a devotee of vegetarianism as others have been of a middle state or adult baptism; and, after having torn through a life of spiteful controversy with his fellow-men, and ribaldry of all sacred things, he thus expressed the one weight hanging on his conscience, that "on one occasion, when tempteed by wet, cold, and hunger in the south of Scotland, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... "How spiteful the world be!" said Mrs. Lobkins, after a pause, "'specially if a 'oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public! When Judith died, Joe, the dog's-meat man, said I war all the better for it, and that she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin. One would ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... explanation, the countenance becomes venomous and hurtful, especially to children, who have a tender and most impressionable body. It is also possible that by God's permission, or from some hidden deed, the spiteful demons co-operate in this, as the witches may have ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... sure, Mrs. Harrop, she was respectable when I took her, and if she isn't I shan't keep her. I AM particular, more so than most folk, and I don't mind who knows it." Mrs. Cobb threw back her cap strings. The denial that she minded who knew it may not appear relevant, but desiring to be spiteful she could not at the moment find a better way of showing her spite than by declaring her indifference to the publication of her virtues. If there was no venom in the substance of the declaration there was much in the manner of it. Mrs. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... the giant children spoke to one another, an undertone to that clangorous melody of the smiths. His tide of doubt ebbed. He heard the giant voices; he heard their movements about him still. It was real, surely it was real—as real as spiteful acts! More real, for these great things, it may be, are the coming things, and the littleness, bestiality, and infirmity of men are the things that go. He opened his eyes. "Done," cried one of the two ironworkers, and they flung their ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... forced to endure your society for his daily bread. You have not even the satisfaction of knowing how you are torturing him and how he loathes you; and you give yourself unnecessary pains to annoy him with furtive tricks and spiteful doing of forbidden things. No wonder he is sometimes provoked to fiendish outbursts of wrath. No wonder men of downright sense, like Dr Johnson, admit that under such circumstances children will not learn anything unless they are so cruelly beaten that they make desperate efforts ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... 'if thet fellar's Jean Isbel I ain't hankerin' fer the company y'u keep.' An' he made no bones of pointin' right at Isbel. Greaves looked up dry an' sour an' he bit out spiteful-like: 'Wal, Simm, we ain't hed a hell of a lot of choice in this heah matter. Thet's Jean Isbel shore enough. Mebbe you can persuade him thet his company an' his ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the door. Not to reach it, however, without interruption. In his hurry to be gone, he stumbled over the legs of the Texan, that stretched across the cell, nearly from side to side. Angered by the obstruction, he gave them a spiteful kick, then passed on outward. By good fortune fast and far out of reach, otherwise Cris Rock, who sprang to his feet, and on for the entrance, jerking the dwarf after, would in all probability there and ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... go for to look so spiteful, master; you are not the great man you thought you were; you are nobody now, and so you will find ere long. So, march out, if you please: I wants to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... stream. "You cannot desert me!" she whispered confidingly, and stroked the knight's cheeks with her little soft hands. He turned away from the frightful thoughts that still lurked in the recesses of his soul, and were persuading him that he had been married to a fairy, or some spiteful and mischievous being of the spirit-world. Only the single question, and that almost unawares, escaped from ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... legend, built and worshipped in the ugly pagan temple that overlooked the lake. At another time Saunders believed the spirit to belong to a man whom Eustace had once employed as a laboratory assistant, "a black-haired spiteful little brute," he said, "who died cursing his doctor because the fellow couldn't help him to live to settle some ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... art thou, Grizzle? where are now thy glories? Where are the drums that waken thee to honour? Greatness is a laced coat from Monmouth-street, Which fortune lends us for a day to wear, To-morrow puts it on another's back. The spiteful sun but yesterday survey'd His rival high as Saint Paul's cupola; Now may he see me ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... branches of the English public service, as well as to that of the law. Perhaps it was because of the warning that nothing was done,—that being the usual course with governments; while it was thought a duty to treat with a sort of spiteful neglect every warning that came from Sir C.J. Napier, because he had a rough, fiery way of expressing his opinion of the folly of those who are perpetually giving occasion for warnings which they never heed,—as if in all ages roughness and fire had not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... as Lord Chancellor in 1660, and for seven years enjoyed the power which he had earned by ceaseless devotion to his two royal masters. The ill success of the war with the Dutch, jealousy of his place and influence, the spiteful opposition of the King's chief mistress, and the King's own resentment at an attitude that showed too little deference and imprudently suggested the old relations of tutor and pupil, all combined to bring about his fall. He fled ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... but, happily for him, he was possessed of too independent a spirit to suffer any annoyance from any malicious remarks which chanced to reach his ears. When Miss Carlton first learned of the engagement, she indulged in a long fit of spiteful tears, to the imminent risk of appearing with red eyes at the forthcoming evening party. In due time the marriage took place; and the young physician and his lovely bride set out on their wedding tour amid the congratulations and good wishes ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell |
