"Vicious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charge of lending countenance to licentiousness and impiety—whose writings, in fine, are calculated to inflict serious injury upon the tastes, the understandings, and the hearts of her youthful female readers, by accustoming them to a vicious and ridiculous style, by filling their minds with false and perverted sentiments and wrong impressions upon some of the most important matters, and by setting before them the example of a woman who boasts of being a member of ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... yards of where I cowered in the shadow and stood for a long time gazing in between the trees at the pillared porch, and I could hear his breathing, uneven and laborious, as though he had been running or fighting. Once I thought he struck out at something with a vicious fist. Then his trouble was gone, between two winks, and he was gone too, up the walk and up the steps, without any to-do about it. I don't know whether he tapped on the door or not. It was open directly. I caught a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... arise from the womb; for if it be after any ways thus affected, there will be a barrenness,—if it be more condensed, or more thin, or more hardened, or more callous, or more carneous; or it may be from languor, or from an atrophy or vicious condition of body; or, lastly, it may arise from a twisted or distorted position. Diocles holds that the sterility in men ariseth from some of these causes,—either that they cannot at all ejaculate any sperm, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... "So far I believe my plan has been successful: the secret has been kept; he has broken with the evil associates that ruined him here—to the best of my knowledge he has had no communication with them since; even a certain woman here who shared his vicious hidden life ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... winnowed, sifted. Din, dun, muddy of complexion. Ding, to beat, to surpass. Dink, trim. Dinna, do not. Dirl, to vibrate, to ring. Diz'n, dizzen, dozen. Dochter, daughter. Doited, muddled, doting; stupid, bewildered. Donsie, vicious, bad-tempered; restive; testy. Dool, wo, sorrow. Doolfu', doleful, woful. Dorty, pettish. Douce, douse, sedate, sober, prudent. Douce, doucely, dousely, sedately, prudently. Doudl'd, dandled. Dought (pret. of dow), ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the discrepancy been real, the remedy for it which is here proposed, and which is advocated with such tedious emphasis, would probably prove satisfactory to no one. In fact, the entire method advocated in the foregoing passage is hopelessly vicious. The writer begins by advancing statements which, if he believed them to be true, he must have known are absolutely fatal to the verses in question. This done, he sets about discussing the possibility of reconciling an isolated expression in ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... a weak growth of hair on his upper lip; with a look half brazen, half shamefaced; with eyes half wistful, half malicious; his pear-shaped face expressing some love of the beautiful, some wit, some cynicism, much personal vanity, vicious inclinations and practices, restlessness, the torture of secret self-reproach, a vague distress, a longing to escape somewhere ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... this time there was a tear in her eye. Sanders was little better than an "orra man," and Sam'l was a weaver, and yet—But it was too late now. Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke with a stick, and when it had ceased to grunt, Bell was back in the kitchen. She had forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam'l only got water ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... little importance, that serve no good purpose and cause very great expense to your royal treasury. At those presidios the soldiers die in great numbers from the unhealthful climate, insufficient and poor food, and their own inactivity and vicious lives. We believe that a small fleet for the sea could be maintained at a much smaller cost; that will sweep it of enemies, will keep the soldiers contented and in sufficient numbers (and if they are killed, it will be while performing their duty, and not for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... down Mark had another fall, but he gathered himself up, looking extremely vicious now, and while Tom Fillot was still struggling with the slavers, one of whom had got hold of his leg, another man made at the midshipman, and drove at him with a capstan bar, not striking, but thrusting fiercely at his face ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... could manage to get the body of any person he wanted, were it that of giant, dwarf, hunchback or lord, but later, when the number of students increased very rapidly, the trade of "resurrection man'' became commoner, and attracted the lowest dregs of the vicious classes. It is computed that in 1828 about 200 people were engaged in it in London alone, though only a few gained their entire livelihood by it. In the first half of the 18th century, and for some time afterwards, the few dissections which were undertaken were carried ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... once to describe the set of circumstances which the gospel is intended to meet. The Gentiles have not been true to such knowledge as they had of God, and by an inevitable process they have passed on to unnatural and vicious excess (i. 18-32). And when St. Paul turns to the Jews, he finds they are in no better case. With fuller knowledge they have sinned scarcely less. Strict justice will be meted out by God to all, the Jew coming first and then the Gentile. The Gentile will not escape, ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... from the house as I was cantering home, I met S——, and took her up on the saddle before me, an operation which seemed to please her better than the vicious horse I was riding, whose various demonstrations of dislike to the arrangement afforded my small equestrian extreme delight and triumph. My whole afternoon was spent in shifting my bed and bed-room furniture from a room on the ground-floor to one above; in the course of which operation, a ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... superfluous to go into proofs, that the Roman government was vicious and wicked in its constitution and nature. Nevertheless, the Apostle enjoined submission to it, and taught its subjects how to demean themselves under it. Here, then, we have an instance, in which we ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... does not matter how complete may be the education given in schools. It may include the whole range of knowledge: yet if the scholar is under the necessity of daily returning to a home which is indecent, vicious, and miserable, all this learning will prove of comparatively little value. Character and disposition are the result of home training; and if these are, through bad physical and moral conditions, deteriorated and destroyed, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... shall see that this was literally the case. A castrated version of Bandello, revised by Ascanio Centorio degli Ortensi, was published in 1560.[151] It omitted the dedications and preambles, suppressed some disquisitions which palliated vicious conduct, expunged the novels that brought monks or priests into ridicule, but left the impurities of the rest untouched. A reformed version of Folengo's Baldus appeared in 1561. The satires on religious orders had been erased. Zambellus was cuckolded by a layman instead of a priest. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... to have pardoned that poor man," said Madame des Vanneaulx. "Love, and not greed, made him steal the money; he was neither vicious ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... the Province, reversing the judgments, and taking off the attainder from those who were sentenced to death in 1692, has this paragraph: "Some of the principal accusers and witnesses in those dark and severe prosecutions have since discovered themselves to be persons of profligate and vicious conversation;" and Calef speaks of them as "vile varlets," and asserts that their reputations were not without spot before, and that subsequently they became abandoned ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... was appeased by the prospect of some excitement, and seeing a vicious shake administered to the old man by the young one, he cried, "Hands off!" and undertook policeman's duty; but as he was not in blue, his authoritative mandate obtained no respect until he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... commits his crime with the ruthlessness of a beast, his own nature being wholly untamed. If we deduce that his father was an adventurer and a vagabond, we shall not be far wrong. If we deduce that his mother was the opium-eater, prematurely aged, who had transmitted her vicious propensity to her child, we shall almost certainly ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... the history of certain vices, to a foreign eye often a little overcharged, but always full of wit and novelty. He understands in his compositions how to make pleasant pretext for satirising the ridiculous and the vicious, by firm and significant strokes, all of which are prompted by a lively, fertile and ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... ceased to be invigorating; that, on the contrary, it fosters the more inglorious predispositions of men, and encourages a native willingness, already so strong, to acquiesce in a lazy accommodation with error, an ignoble economy of truth, and a vicious compromise of the permanent gains of adhering to a sound general principle, for the sake of the temporary gains of ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... been wrought in that school stood at the end of the drive as we left and in response to the exclamation, "It seems impossible that these girls could ever have been guilty of the deeds the records show!" she answered, "These girls are not vicious. It is after all a question of leadership and they followed the wrong leaders." She paused a moment, looked back at the buildings, and then said softly, "God pity the girl who is easily led." And in our hearts we ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... of the tongue Against all disputants, old and young. Let us see if doctors or dialecticians Will dare to dispute my definitions, Or attack any one of my learned theses. Here stand I; the end shall be as God pleases. I think I have proved, by profound research The error of all those doctrines so vicious Of the old Areopagite Dionysius, That are making such terrible work in the churches, By Michael the Stammerer sent from the East, And done into Latin by that Scottish beast, Erigena Johannes, who dares to maintain, In the face ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... from the city, where he had attended a jovial meeting, when, feeling more than usually drowsy, he slipped from his saddle to the ground, without being awakened by the change of position, and letting go the bridle as he fell. His faithful steed, which had the character of being a vicious horse, instead of galloping home, as might have been expected, stood by his prostrate master, keeping as strict a watch over him as ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... spread throughout the land and across the seas. James Bryce, in his first edition of his American Commonwealth cited him as an example of the sterling type of young Americans who were arousing themselves at that time to rescue the municipal and state governments from the grip of the vicious boss system. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... of his sting? Is not such pity—wasted upon the wasp—an insult to the bee who toils so wearily to gather in for others; and who, because he stings not man, is by man maltreated? Now it seems to me, if I read them aright, that vicious women, and women that are of honesty and honour, are much akin to the wasp ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... usefulness of the virtue, the knowledge, or the method, for increasing the probability of a practical success in worldly affairs. Among the articles inculcating morality which he used to put into his newspaper was a Socratic Dialogue, "tending to prove that whatever might be his parts and abilities, a vicious man could not properly be called ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... it was with Pharaoh of old. All God's pleading with him by the message of Moses and Aaron, by the mighty plagues which God sent on Egypt, only hardened Pharaoh's heart. The Lord God spoke to him, and his message only lashed Pharaoh's proud and wicked will into greater fury and rebellion, as a vicious horse becomes the more unmanageable the more you punish it. Therefore, it is said plainly in scripture, that THE LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart; not as some fancy, that the Lord's will was to make Pharaoh hard-hearted and wicked. ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... even to clothing himself, and was not wont to recover his money from his debtors, save only when he was in the greatest straits, his name was therefore changed from Tommaso to Masaccio,[13] not, indeed, because he was vicious, for he was goodness itself, but by reason of his so great carelessness; and with all this, nevertheless, he was so amiable in doing the service and pleasure of others, that nothing ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... defensive, trying only to escape. Again he broke away and crawled toward safety. The ring howled with mingled derision and delight. Balbus, cursing, his face congested with rage, again threw him back, and again the vicious gray fell upon him with teeth ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... rubbish punctual precipice council orphan microscope justice civilized threshold muscles precious merchandise especially traveler physician recognize anecdote marvelous sufficient apologize character benefited vicious ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by rapid action—that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... others who turned back, she mounted the stairway on to the roof of the 'bus. There she was alone, and, pulling the tarpaulin covering around her, she seated herself on the little bench farthest from the driver. The little bell tinkled twice, viciously—all drivers and conductors are made vicious by a steady rain—and they moved out into the swim of the traffic, as a steamer puts out ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the town of this story is what it is, there came to dwell in it a Spirit—a strange, mysterious power—playful, vicious, deadly; a Something to be at once feared and courted; to be denied—yet confessed in the denial; a deadly enemy, a welcome ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... finally remarked, as he also arose, while he revealed his white teeth in a vicious smile, "it may be in her power to carry out that resolution, but one thing is sure, she can never free herself from the fetters which she finds so galling—she can never marry any other ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... well-aimed contrasts demonstrated that, in the use of those beverages, even in a temperate degree, there was but one result—drunkenness and eternal death. He was no advocate of temperance; that is, the temperate use of anything hurtful. Did not believe that anything vicious could be tampered with, without harm coming from it. He argued to a final and satisfactory conclusion, that in the use of alcoholic beverages there could be no such thing as temperance; that the man who took a drink now and then would make it convenient to take more drinks now ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... can tell you something of what the whole people of this country enjoy. And to begin with, there is, as I have intimated, in the United States but one class of people, aside from the criminal class common to all lands, and that vicious but not relatively numerous element which lives on the borderland between respectability and actual crime. This truth seems sometimes to be questioned in Europe—why, I can but guess. Who would attempt to enter the nurseries and schoolrooms of our ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... then, before turning in, sweeping and smoking out such as had got inside. Yet with all this there seemed hundreds left to sing and sting throughout the night. The mules being without protection, we tried hard to save them from the vicious insects by creating a dense smoke from a circle of smothered fires, within which chain the grateful brutes gladly stood; but this relief was only partial, so the moment there was light enough to enable us to hook up we pulled out for Abercrombie ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... with a mixture of piquancy and distinction; and I will quote the characteristic beginning and end of the last letter I was able to find. It begins: 'No, it is impossible to be sulky with you!' and ends: 'If I become vicious, it is you, my Mentor, who make me so, and I cast my sins upon you. Even if I were damned I should still be your most devoted friend, Henriette de Schnetzmann.' Casanova was twenty-three when he met Henriette; ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... objection to any of the ordinary seance phenomena is, that whatever manifestations are genuine proceed very largely, if not entirely, from this strata of the crude and inconsequential, if not the vicious, with whom the high-minded man or woman would not have associated in life, and after death their presence would be quite as much to be deplored. Granted all these exceptions. One may sweep them off and ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... about five female lions to one male. This is caused by the jealous and vicious disposition of the male. It is a fact that the old Toms kill every young lion they can catch. Both male and female of the litter suffer alike until after weaning time, and then only the males. In ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; and those who worthily seek public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... they wished the period of apprenticeship to end in 1838 instead of 1840; but there was a general belief of the preparatory step being necessary,—a belief apparently founded on experience of the negro character, and indeed of the vicious tendency of all slavery, to extinguish the power of voluntary labour, as well as to make the sudden change to freedom unsafe for the peace of the community. The fact soon dispersed these opinions. Antigua in a minute emancipated ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... may not the vraisemblable be preserved even in works of fiction? Let us have a story which, se non è vero, è ben trovato. Writers of this school, my dear fellow, create, or pander to, a vicious taste.” ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... qualified to embark on a historical analysis, and shall do no more than say that many of the persons who are involved in the tale actually existed, and the events referred to actually took place. The weak and vicious King and his malign and unscrupulous mother are real enough, as is a Duc de Montpensier, a Prince of the Blood, who achieved some notoriety for the cruelty with which he treated any Huguenots who fell into his hands, and for the leadership he gave to the assassins during ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... how gentlemanly General Cortinas had treated us, all pronounced it wonderful, and said, 'We could not have believed General Cortinas capable of such kindness to Americans so in his power. It was truly a miracle.' We believed that it was God who restrained the naturally vicious passions of the man, in direct answer ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... to be opposed. His lordship could offer nothing sufficiently substantial against such persuasive wisdom; and, being unable longer to reason, he could no longer continue to resist. Should the scornful insolence, that is ever awakened, in low and vicious minds, by even the slightest mention of virtuous deeds, endeavour to interpose the mean malignity of it's cold suspicions on hearing this recital; let the humbler bosom, that cherishes more generous sentiments, reflect ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... whenever there was a favorable period the majority who could, as you put it, see beyond the ends of their noses increased. Our era is just the opposite. We are trapped in a vicious circle. Those noses are usually so close to the grindstone that men are afraid to raise their heads. We are ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... battle raged, the little girl fled out of the school-house toward the pinto and pulled up the picket-pin. The teacher did not see her go, but, in retreating from an unusually vicious blow of the Swede boy's fist, caught sight of her just as she was leading her horse to an ant-hill to mount. With a hoarse call for her to return, he started after her, bearing in his train the two boys, who, still struggling, ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Somerled rescued him from something or other—prison, probably, judging by the shape of his nose (think it must have been broken and mended in absent-minded moment by amateur) and the look he gives me occasionally from corner of eye—like vicious horse cowed by owner and dangerous to strangers. Barrie and Mrs. James think him such a "quiet, nice man." It is not their business to judge character, luckily for their illusions. My opinion of Vedder—who looks exactly like the frog footman in Tenniel's illustrations ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was only logical. Even a virtuous woman could not stand the strain, and Laura was not virtuous. Of neurotic temperament, inherently weak, if not actually vicious in character, with the spirit of the courtesan strong within her from an early age, fond of luxury and personal adornment she could not legitimately afford, it was not surprising that she listened to the flatterers and went to the devil quicker than any woman before her in the whole history of ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... pains to carry a revolver with which I purposed, if attacked, to kill him if possible before I received any serious injury. I soon met, saluted, and passed him without receiving and recognition in return except a fierce, vicious stare. After this, on several occasions, I passed him about the camps or on the roads without noticing him, and although his threats were repeated I was not molested by him. Soon the incident and his subsequent conduct led to some trouble between him and Milroy. Milroy placed ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... rest assured that the squatters of Iowa were as a class neither idle, nor ignorant, nor vicious. They were representative pioneers of their day, than whom, Benton declared, "there was not a better population on the face of the earth." They were of the best blood and ranked as the best sons of the whole ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... the Renaissance; many some stately and simple period of Grecian life; and still more elect to pass a few years wandering among the villages of Palestine with an inspired conductor. For some of our quaintly vicious contemporaries, we have the decline of the Roman Empire and the reign of Henry III. of France. But there are others not quite so vicious, who yet cannot look upon the world with perfect gravity, who have never taken the categorical imperative to wife, and have more ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the cows was a sight Mrs. Poyser loved, and at this hour on mild days she was usually standing at the house door, with her knitting in her hands, in quiet contemplation, only heightened to a keener interest when the vicious yellow cow, who had once kicked over a pailful of precious milk, was about to undergo the preventive punishment of ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... and superstitious feared it. The vicious, ambitious, and time-serving hated it, because it prevented the few from dominating and exploiting the many; liberating, as it does, the earnest seeker after truth and enlightenment from the bondage of ignorance, dogma, superstition, ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... and the probationary character of life on earth. In striking contrast with the pessimistic attitude of theologians toward human nature, social revolutionists like Rousseau have condemned social institutions as inherently vicious and optimistically placed reliance upon human nature ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... fellows!) get very much the best of it—still, we must admit that there is a very large class of thoroughly bad husbands, and that this class may be divided into the foolish, the careless, and the vicious sub-classes, each of which would require at least a volume to be devoted to their treatment and castigation. Nay, more than a volume. Archdeacon Paley notes that St. John, apologizing for the brevity and incompleteness of Gospel directions, states that, if ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... there is room and welcome, too, For there's land quite enough and to spare, But we pray that all the vicious crew To their homes o'er the ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... have some more. The Yankee could mew to perfection. He began, and Sylvanus called the strange cat. It would not come, so he climbed the ladder after it, and had almost reached the top, when, with vicious cries, the animal flew at him, seized him by the back of the neck, and drew blood that he could feel trickling down his back. Tugging ineffectually at the beast, he ran out to the kitchen, calling upon ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him with thanks for his excellent example. The histrionic mule was a melodramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation decidedly ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... father was. And, gentle Sophocles, in good time I recount Thy ancient saying, not so old as true, For saith [he], He that hath many children, Shall never be without some mirth, Nor die without some sorrow; for if they Be virtuous, he shall have cause to rejoice, But if vicious, stubborn, or disobedient, Ever to live in continual sadness. I am sorry, Philarchus, that my favours Have made thee insolent: well, I will see now if My frowns will make thee penitent. Now, father, see how ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... them, or jeering coarsely at their neatly brushed garments. When Budd broke a window in the Methodist parsonage with his slung-shot and tried to lie it on to Ralph Overton, he seemed to have given way utterly to his vicious nature. He was known soon thereafter to have drunk liquor and played a game called pin-pool with a "flashy stranger" at the tavern; hence no one was surprised when he presently ran off with a circus, became ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... about the time that the young mountaineers were beginning to look out for their second wind on the lower slope, Dangle came across in a vicious temper. ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... reflection, or any thing that may tend to give umbrage; but there is in this army from the southward a number called riflemen, who are as indifferent men as I ever served with. These privates are mutinous, and often deserting to the enemy; unwilling for duty of any kind; exceedingly vicious; and, I think, the army here would be as well without as with them. But to do justice to their officers, they are, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... they ran about in terror, they heard the distant lowing and bellowing of cattle. They knew somehow, as boys know everything, that the leader of the herd, which ranged those woods in a half-savage freedom, was a vicious bull, and as the lowing and bellowing sounded nearer, they huddled together in the wildest dismay. Some were for running, some for getting over a fence near by; but they could not tell which side of the fence the herd was on. In the primitive piety of childhood ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... agriculture. It may be, too, that as the sugar cultivation increased, they were tempted more and more, in the old hard drinking days, by the special poison of the West Indies—new rum, to the destruction both of soul and body. Be that as it may, their extirpation helped to make inevitable the vicious system of large estates cultivated by slaves; a system which is judged by its own results; for it was ruinate before emancipation; and emancipation only gave the coup de grace. The 'Latifundia perdidere' the Antilles, as they did Italy of old. The vicious system ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... think, be called two distinct Powers, but rather different Applications of one and the same Power lodged in the Soul. On the other hand, in such a depraved Creature, as Man under the Fall is said to be, the Power of choosing and refusing, of being virtuous or vicious, which he pleases, is altogether lost and destroyed; and such a Man, so far from having natural and moral Powers, has (properly speaking) no Power at all remaining: all his Thoughts and Actions, like those of a Machine, are merely involuntary; he is constantly impelled by ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... took the dog far up the trail. Stub was no blue-ribbon, petted dog of records and pedigree; he was a vicious-looking little yellow cur of mixed ancestry and bad habits—that is, he had been all this when Rathburn found him six months before and championed his cause in a quarrel with a crowd of roughs in Mike Swaney's saloon. Since then he had developed into a well-behaved little beast with ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... person is, the more rigorous should be the observance of this suggestion. Nor should the sick-room be opened to privileged classes; for the excitement caused by a visit from relations and the virtuous, will do as much injury to the sick, as that produced by strangers and the vicious. ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... succour. Women might swim more readily than men, and do so swim, in those portions of the world where the laws of nature are not counteracted by human conventions. Rose Budd, however, had received the vicious education which civilized society inflicts on her sex, and, as a matter of course, was totally helpless in an element in which it was the design of Divine Providence she should possess the common means of sustaining herself, like every other being ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... identify vicious pleasures with some form of error, and insists that the term false may be applied to them: in this he appears to be carrying out in a confused manner the Socratic doctrine, that virtue is knowledge, vice ignorance. He will allow of no distinction between the pleasures and the ...
— Philebus • Plato
... interesting phase of this speculation relates to the future of these qualities and instincts in human nature which we now call evil and vicious. Since these qualities are innate, they can never be eradicated, nor even modified in intensity or activity. They belong with us, nay, they are all there is of us, and with their disappearance, we ourselves should ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... beneath his breath. Then with a laugh he turned away. "I'm going to have some fun with that girl," he told himself; and on the way downstairs, her pretty face and figure in his mind, pleased himself with vicious anticipation. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... harmony with Socrates' system. Yet it is probably false. Virtue is not mere knowledge, nor vice ignorance. If they were, they would be intellectual qualities. They are rather moral attributes; experience soon proves that many enlightened persons are vicious and many ignorant people virtuous. The value of this dialogue is its insistence upon the unity of virtue. A good man is not a bundle of separate excellences; he is a whole. Possessing one virtue he potentially has ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... demonstratiue is: where in is praysed or dyspraysed / nat the persone but the dede. As if a thefe put hym selfe in ieo- p[ar]dy for the safegarde of a true ma[n] / against other theues and murderers / the p[er]son can nat be praysed for his vicious lyuyng / but yet the dede is worthy to be commended. Or if one shulde speake of Peters denyeng of Christ / he hath nothyng to disprayse y^e person saue onely for this dede. The thyrd kynde is: wherin is lauded or blamed no- ther person nor dede / but some ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox
... of a blow-hard," Helm interrupted with a laugh. "Barks loud, but his biting disposition is probably not vicious." ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... his brothers. The younger, Ernest, was twelve. He was a little ragamuffin, vicious and impudent, who spent his days with other rapscallions like himself, and from their company had caught not only deplorable manners, but shameful habits which good Jean-Christophe, who had never so much as suspected their existence, was horrified to see one day. The other, Rodolphe, the ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... If I do not return, you will remember my wishes, and my will may be found between the first leaves of our Holy Book. Get up, Klaus, and guide me to your master," and he administered a somewhat vicious kick to the ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... long, keen crack of his small-bore rifle splitting the air with a suggestion of vicious energy, and a lithe young warrior, who was outstripping all his fellows, leaped high and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... came into the room, and, noticing John's vicious frown and my troubled look, asked what was wrong. We told him the news, but he only laughed, and, turning to John, exclaimed, "Heh, John, don't fash yourself about the tobacco, mon; we'll find you a substitute. There's more kinds ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... the Major said later, "a dirty vicious war with no holds barred and no quarter given. Not a shooting war, of course, nothing out in the open ... but a war just the same, with the highest stakes of any ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... little child; Cinderella confuses him. Not one clarifies any relationship which will further his efforts to order the world. Nonsense when recognized and enjoyed as such is more than legitimate; it is a part of every one's heritage. But nonsense which is confused with reality is vicious,—the more so because its insinuations are subtle. So far as their content is concerned, it is chiefly as a protest against this confusing presentation of unreality, this substitution of excitement for legitimate interest, that these stories have been written. It is ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... have seen. It happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless. The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton—the wealthy uncle from whom he had had great expectations—had been so stirred to anger by Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that was his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad for the worthless boy. Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... be prepared to prove to your worships," the lawyer said, "that for the last six months the average of boys severely caned by this man has exceeded sixteen a day, putting aside such minor matters as one, two, or three vicious cuts with the cane given at random. It fortunately happened, as I find from my young friend in the dock, that one of the boys has, from motives of curiosity, kept an account for the last six months of the number of boys thrashed every day. I have sent round for him, and he is ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... theory of accepting salvation rather than working for it is based not so much upon the theory that in the presence of absolute and infinite perfection there is little difference between the life of the entirely virtuous and the entirely vicious man, as upon the fact that if one's limitations of circumstance and heredity are the gift of God, one's salvation must be his gift also. We do not know to what extent our power of choice and our freedom of action is limited; ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... From their connexion with blacks or whites spring all the various gradations of colour met with among the inhabitants of Brazil. The mulattoes and free negroes form the middle classes; the few whites found among them being the worst of characters, ignorant and vicious to the last degree; their repulsive exterior is worthy of their abandoned lives: they are usually retail slave dealers, and keep shops where these miserable beings are exposed to view, and may be examined and purchased like any other ware. About twenty thousand negroes are annually ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... continuance of the time of depression, when an unwarlike monarch was living in inglorious ease amid the luxuries and refinements of Nineveh, and the people, sunk in repose, gave the themselves up to vicious indulgences more hateful in the eye of God than even the pride and cruelty which they were want to exhibit in war, that the great capital was suddenly startled by a voice of warning in the streets—a voice which ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... say they are so: others deny it. Possibly the former may have the more sensitive imaginations, for unquestionably the buffalo is a far more terrible-looking fellow than his congener. His dark color and the form of the vicious-looking, crumply horn in great part contribute to this. But it seems to me that the expression of the eye produces the same effect to a yet greater degree. The buffalo's eye is smaller than that of the ordinary bull or cow, and often gleams out of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Eschenhagen replied, nodding her head darkly, "but I felt it my duty to make at least one appeal to your conscience. You are very young, and, consequently, are not altogether responsible; the heavier blame falls upon Dr. Volkmar for allowing his son's child to enter such a vicious career." ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... with his rumor. If he understood me as well as I understand him, he would know that he is more of an atheist than I am. I gave my boys the best education, spending on them more than double what is done by men with twice my means. My tastes were all simple, and were not specially vicious. I do not know that I have ever made any one unhappy. Then the estate became richer, but Mountjoy grew more and more expensive. I began to find that with all my economies the estate could not keep pace ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... who masqueraded as her protege. At some length he dwelt upon the well-laid plot of the spy and his accomplice. He told of their secret meetings, their outrages against the dignity of the court, and their unmistakable animosity toward Graustark. For each and every count in his vicious indictment against the girl he professed to have absolute proof by means of more than one ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the youth was always busy during his waking hours. He could not feel that there was cause for fear on account of his friends, for, as has already been shown, that portion of the enormous territory of Louisiana was peopled by Indians much less vicious in their hatred than were those who made Kentucky their hunting-ground. A fierce party of Shawanoes had followed the little party across the Mississippi the previous week, and they kept matters moving in a very lively manner, ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... this was rumor rather than fact: an uncharitable interpretation of pleasures which were inelegant, certainly, but possibly not quite vicious. Still, it seemed to be pretty well established that up to the time of Sylvia's marriage her father never worked, and that he always had money—and this condition, on any frontier, ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... once and ran to the foot of the tree barking viciously, daring the tree-climber to come down. His vicious eyes danced gleefully. He looked at his master between his snarls as much as to say: "Well, this is great, to tree the real live ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... attack, and a perverted and fantastic style of writing assigned to an epoch remarkable for the severity and precision of its taste? If Spain is meant, the attack is perfectly intelligible, as the epoch is exactly that when Spanish taste began to degenerate, and the style of Spanish writers to become vicious, inflated, and fantastic, in imitation of Gongora, who did so much to ruin the literature of his country; as other writers of much less ability, but who addressed themselves to a public far inferior ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... say, but what I want to know is whether this here varmint's dead or whether he isn't. I don't want to have him flying at my nose—and he looks vicious enough for anything." ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Oh, see here now, this is really too bad! The manner in which the great American Adapter is all the time making totally unexpected and vicious passes at the finest old cherished institutions of the age is simply frightful. PUNCHINELLO should prevent it?—Well, PUNCHINELLO did remonstrate at an early stage of the Adaptation; and the result was, that all ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... it now. You must go. If you ever had any regard for me—if you ever had any affection—if you ever had any friendship, please let me do this now. I want you to go—you can come back. Then you'll see—you'll know—only I want to try to make him understand that—that maybe if I am weak I'm not vicious. I want to let him know that I didn't want to do it, but I couldn't help it. Just give me the chance to be as good as I can be. [WILL gives her a look.] Oh, I promise you, I will tell him, and then—then I don't care what happens—only he ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... instance, the Louis XV style was inevitable for the fastidious, for the cerebrally morbid. Only the eighteenth century had succeeded in enveloping woman with a vicious atmosphere, imitating her contours in the undulations and twistings of wood and copper, accentuating the sugary languor of the blond with its clear and lively decors, attenuating the pungency of the brunette with its tapestries of ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... saw no reason for this[187]. "If nothing but the bright side of characters should be shewn, we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in any thing. The sacred writers (he observed) related the vicious as well as the virtuous actions of men; which had this moral effect, that it kept mankind from despair, into which otherwise they would naturally fall, were they not supported by the recollection that others had offended like themselves, and by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... a horse of better temper, vicious actions would be produced voluntarily; and with a horse of bad ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato
... starting time. But as the Mercury turned into the straight stretch of back road, on the second time around, there sounded a sharp report, the car staggered perilously, and a tire tore itself loose from a rear wheel to hurtle, a vicious projectile of rubber and steel, far across the stubble fields. Reeling, but held to its course by the driver's trained hand, the Mercury slackened its flight and was brought to a stop. Rupert was already leaning over the back, dragging ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... pensioner upon the real members of the Social Union for a chance to be useful, and that the work they let her do is the right of some one who needs it. She has thought of doing the work and giving the pay to another; but she sees that this would be pauperising and degrading another. So she dwells in a vicious circle, and waits, and mostly forgets, ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... to get ready!" muttered Miss Terry, giving the fire a vicious poke. She was alone in the house, on Christmas Eve, and not a man, woman, or child in the world cared. Well, it was what she wanted. It was of her own ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... not his mistress. It is just this point that ought to be emphasised, in order to give the right clue to Eleanor's character and conduct in regard to her treatment of Rosamond. Rosamond must be right and virtuous; Eleanor wrong and vicious; the King fond, weak, and capricious. To regard the whole story as one of a mere amour is to entirely miss the beauty of the gentle Rosamond's nature. She is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... he stepped nimbly aside to avoid a snap of white teeth. "I suppose she is, but she seems awfully vicious, and I can't say that she is exactly the style of horse that I most admire. Tell you what I'll do, Norris. I'll give her to you, seeing that you and she seem to hit it off so well. You've won ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... descended to the court for a ride on horseback. A page advanced to Rosette, leading a splendid black horse, which could scarcely be held by the grooms, it was so wild and vicious. ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... American army was the terror of his company. He was disobedient, quarrelsome, and vicious. As a result he was often punished, but there was no reformation. In due time a captain from another regiment was placed in command of that company, and was informed of the bad character of this soldier. Very soon the man broke out, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... compare together; their unhallowed secrets to disclose. The masters and the mistresses pass by them in review, and little deem they how oft the malignant glance or the malicious whisper follow their airy steps. To shorten such tedious hours, the servants familiarise themselves with every vicious indulgence, for even the occupation of such domestics is little more than a dissolute idleness. A cell in Newgate does not always contain more corruptors than a herd of servants congregated in our winter halls. It is ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... place a chair for her in the least cluttered and dusty part of the room. There she sat, looking up at him earnestly, a dainty contrast to the den in which Garrick was working out the capture of criminals, violent and vicious. ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... lord, rather let me try the gittern," she said. "See, now will I charm this snaily from its cell with the air that Rene taught me," and together the two heads bent over one of the vicious little "desert snails of Egypt," which young Isabelle of Tyre had found crawling along the casement of ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... engage With such a stupid vicious age), If honour I would here define, It answers faith in things divine. As natural life the body warms, And, scholars teach, the soul informs; So honour animates the whole, And is the spirit ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... earth. Nothing of what went on outside his screen ever penetrated his sacred ear; the imperial residence was profoundly secluded, and, naturally, unlike the outer world. Not more than a few court nobles were allowed to approach the throne, a practice most opposed to the principles of Heaven. This vicious practice has been common in all ages. But now, let pompous etiquette be done away with, and simplicity become our first object. Kioto is in an-out-of-the way position, and is unfit to be the seat of government! ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... children, who will fondle and tease it, ride on its back, or slide off over its head or tail. Soon they gain confidence, and find similar amusements with the full grown animals. These huge beasts are often surly or vicious, especially around white men, but they recognize their masters in the little brown folk, and submit meekly to their antics. In fact, the greater part of the care of these animals ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... then is the plume elevated to the head? and what must the present mode of female education and manners end in, but in more ignorance, dissipation, debauchery and luxury? and, at length, in national ruin. Thus it was at ROME, the mistress of the world; they became fond of the most vicious men, and such as meant to enslave them, who corrupted their hearts, by humouring and gratifying their follies, and encouraging, on all sides, idleness and dissolute manners, blinded by CAESAR's complaisance; from his almsmen, they became ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... of boys to whom she gave every luxury and every opportunity for vice and idleness. They did as they liked from morning to night and no restraint of any kind or description was placed upon them. Sophia hoped that they would all become worthless and vicious and that Peter would do the same. Perhaps, she thought, he might even weaken himself by drinking bouts and riotous orgies so that he would not even live to claim the actual power ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... of society on earth, it must come from simple obedience to the precepts of the Bible, obedience full and universal. No man can conceive of any thing more glorious and excellent than this. We may boldly challenge the unbeliever to name a corrupt passion in the heart or a vicious practice in the life that could remain. Let every man love God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, and bolts and bars, prisons and penitentiaries, would be unnecessary. One might safely ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... for other business. A huge "forty-four" hung at his waist, a short carbine swung at his saddle-bow; and there was something in the manner of his riding, in the hunch of his shoulders, and in the vicious sweep of his long mustaches, that satisfied Philip he was a man who could use them. He rode up alongside of him with a new confidence. They were coming to the top of a knoll; at the summit Billinger stopped and pointed down into a hollow ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... after him. It missed by inches, and went pitching into the gulf. In his haste he caught his foot on the interlaced thongs, stumbled and almost fell—which saved his life, for another spear streaked through the very spot he had been a second before. Then he was across, and his sword was flashing in vicious hacks at one of the two main supporting thongs of ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... sustained by four persons, who have little or no intercourse with each other; so that the Scene is not only in direct contradiction to the precept of Horace, excluding a fourth person, but is also otherwise vicious in its construction. Scenes of this kind are, I think, much too frequent in Terence, though, indeed, the form of the ancient Theatre was more adapted to the representation of them than the modern. The multiplicity of speeches {aside} is also the chief error in this dialogue; ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... dozen will be seen during the day; it has great vitality, and it will escape after severe wounds. The bushmen also brought a Shoke (Colubus Satanas), a small black monkey, remarkably large limbed: the little unfortunate was timid, but not vicious; it worried itself to death on the next day. They also showed me the head of the Njiwo antelope, which M. du Chaillu (chap, xii.) describes as "a singular animal of the size of a donkey, with shorter legs, no horns, and black, with a yellow spot ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... this attack is utterly impossible. I wakened covered with them: my hair was full of them. One by one they cut into the flesh, and the more they are disturbed, the more vicious are their bites; they become quite insolent. I went outside the hut, but there they swarmed everywhere; they covered the legs, biting furiously; it is only when they are tired that ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... in his breath with a vicious hiss. "At five minutes to eight I will tell you," he said, in a loud, ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... add another remark: naturalists continually assert that no important organ varies; but in saying this they unconsciously argue in a vicious circle; for if an organ, let it be what it may, is highly variable, it is regarded as unimportant, and under a systematic point of view this is quite correct. But as long as constancy is thus taken as the criterion of importance, it will indeed be long before an ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... was a time when Scranton passed a more peaceful night than on that occasion. Already great good was coming of the breaking up of the vicious gang that had held sway much too long. With two of the members locked up, being just as good as on their way to the Reform School, and the leader forsaking his former evil practices, it looked as though the police force of Scranton would ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep, and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... follows them. After taking this round, they advance by a steep course along the inner circumference of the heavenly vault and proceed to a banquet. The chariots of the gods, being well balanced and well driven, advance easily; others with difficulty; for the vicious horse, unless the charioteer has thoroughly broken him, weighs down the car by his proclivity towards the earth, whereupon the soul is put to the extremity of toil and effort. The souls of gods reach the summit, go outside and stand upon the surface ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda
... disease germs, has a tendency to develop the animal propensities to a greater or less degree, especially in the young, whose characters are unformed. Among animals we find the carnivorous the most vicious and destructive, while those which subsist upon vegetable foods are by nature gentle and tractable. There is little doubt that this law holds good among men as well as animals. If we study the character and lives of those who subsist largely upon animal ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... be laid upon the stones of a cold oven. In Tahiti and Samoa, while most of the gods were malevolent, a few were kindly disposed towards mortals; in Fiji, however, they were all dreaded as the most powerful, sordid, cruel and vicious cannibal ghosts that have ever been conjured into being in ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... able, though they would then have needed more, to give them so much pity as she did, for she had a great scorn of dishonesty. Her heart, which was full of compassion for the yielding, the weak, the erring, was not yet able to spend much on the actively vicious—the dishonest and lying and traitorous. The honor she paid the honesty of these women helped her much to pity the sunlessness of their existence, and the poor end for which they lived. It looked as if God had forgotten them—toiling for so little all day long, while the fact was they forgot ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... again. I have imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of wantonness nor cruelty; but from the best of motives; and therefore shall make her no apology for it when she returns back:—'Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has crept into thousands besides herself,—of reading straight forwards, more in quest of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly impart with them—The mind should be accustomed ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... sensible repeals he succeeded in allaying a little of the bitterness in the city. Lorenzo had one daughter, born in this palace, who was destined to make history—Catherine de' Medici—and no son. When therefore he died in 1519, at the age of twenty-seven, after a life of vicious selfishness (which, however, was no bar to his having the noblest tomb in the world, at S. Lorenzo), the succession should have passed to the other branch of the Medici family, the descendants of old Giovanni's second son Lorenzo, brother of Cosimo. But Giulio, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... intended to use this invention in the capture of St. Louis, exploding his torpedoes over the city, and raining destruction upon it until the army of occupation would gladly capitulate. He was unable to procure the Greek fire, but he constructed a vicious torpedo which would have answered the purpose, but the first one prematurely exploded in his wood-house, blowing it clean away, and setting fire to his house. The neighbors helped him put out the conflagration, but they discouraged any more ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pink-centred, white flowers, delicately fragrant, and compressed oval fruit, brilliantly scarlet. The tempting appearance of the fruit is all that may be said in its favour, for it is hard and bitter, and said to be vicious in its effects on the human system; hence the generic title, after the three-headed dog, guardian of the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... children of a larger growth. Hitherto there has been a sad deficiency in this matter in our manufacturing towns, and almost everywhere else. Can any thing be more lamentable to contemplate than a dull, grim, and vicious population, whose only amusement is sensuality? Yet, what can we expect, if we provide no means whatever of recreation; if we never share our own pleasures with our poorer brethren; and if the public buildings which invite them ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... sagacity in examining the witnesses, and making many shrewd and pertinent observations on the evidence which was given. These sentiments were conformable to the opinion of the peers, who unanimously declared him guilty.—After all, in examining the vicious actions of a man who has betrayed manifest and manifold symptoms of insanity, it is not easy to distinguish those which are committed during the lucid interval. The suggestions of madness are often momentary and transient: the determinations of a lunatic, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to a lost dog in time of drought; and with a vexation I could scarce conceal I noticed the hatred and distrust on all their faces. Though I had not cared to live among other men, I still had an affection for them; I knew that they were unfortunate rather than vicious; I had spent all my time in lamenting their woes and railing against those that caused them; and when for the first time I saw a possibility of doing something for some of them, these very men shut their doors the very ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... assimilation, or extinction. The Jews in attempting to satisfy the conditions by entering fully into all the activities of national life arouse through their success only greater hostility; and the situation becomes converted into a vicious circle. ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... flashed from behind a rock with a quick, vicious upward thrust, the clergyman fell upon his hands and knees, and the horde poured over him to seize their unresisting victims. Knives glimmered before their eyes, rude hands clutched at their wrists and at their throats, and then, with brutal and unreasoning violence, ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... de Guiscard there seems to have been a complication of ingredients for such an attempt: He had committed several enormities in France, was extremely prodigal and vicious; of a dark melancholy complexion, and cloudy countenance, such as in vulgar physiognomy is called an ill look. For the rest, his talents were very mean, having a sort of inferior cunning, but very small abilities; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... to supper when it was dark. A particularly fat and quiet pony was kept for Marcello's mother, who was no great rider, but the Contessa and Aurora rode anything that was brought them, as the men did. To tell the truth, the Campagna horse is rarely vicious, and, even when only half broken, can be ridden by a lady if ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... is a necessity; but there is in it a vicious extreme; that in which it is rendered so principal as, by want of subordination, to overlay the subject. There is also a negative excellence which consists in not always employing pleasing tints, but of sometimes taking advantage of the effects to be derived from impure ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... to Munich, And within the year Underneath his German tunic Stowed whole butts of beer. And he drank like fifty fishes, Drank till all was blue; For he felt extremely vicious— ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... and birds, and preached them sermons. Stretched for hours motionless on the bare rocks, coloured like them and rough like them in his brown peasant's serge, he prayed and meditated, saw the vision of Christ crucified, and planned his order to regenerate a vicious age. So still he lay, so long, so like a stone, so gentle were his eyes, so kind and low his voice, that the mice nibbled breadcrumbs from his wallet, lizards ran over him, and larks sang to him in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the playing of such criminal parts as the one he had had in view with my wife was unable to divert the ever- increasing attention of the outside world from his vicious and dissolute habits, does not seem to have escaped him; for those behind the scenes told me candidly that it was owing to the fear of very unpleasant revelations that he had suddenly decided to give up his position at Riga altogether. Even in much later years I heard about Holtei's bitter ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... owner's wife that other men enjoy Then most our trouble still when most admired And still the more we give the more required Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease, Sure some to vex, but never all to please, 'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun, By fools 'tis ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... those character-revealing episodes that are only real when handled by a supreme artist. Its involutions and undulations, its very recoil on itself as the pair face their memories, he haunted, she suspicious, touch the springs of desperate lives. As an etching of a vicious soul, the Eliza of Chance is arresting. We do not learn her last name, but we remember her brutal attack on little Flora, an attack that warped the poor child's nature. Whether the end of the book is justified is apart from my present purpose, which is chiefly exposition, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... not there to listen to such a world-old hypothesis—to such a time-worn, long-ago-refuted, bald, feeble, illogical, vicious, patent sophistry—to an ancient, baseless, wearisome, ragged, unfounded, insidious, falsehood originated by women themselves, and by them insinuated, foisted, thrust, spread, and ingeniously promulgated into the ears of mankind by underhanded, secret ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... that the brook, which had run red during the fight, had lost itself in this marsh. It did not increase his liking for this beautiful but blindly vicious animal at his side, and even his momentary pity for her was fading fast. She was incorrigible. They walked on for a few moments ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... and sympathy which now knit it together would everywhere be loosened, and a narrow, insulated, local feeling and policy would be proportionately increased.[12] Such was Burke's Imperialism, as evoked by an Irish measure which struck at the root of a frightful social evil and of a vicious political system. But the idea expressed by Burke—the spirit of his whole argument—went far beyond this particular absentee tax or any similar tax proposed, as happened in one instance, by a Colony. It was the superbly grandiose expression, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... to be used with checks. There is a play of the words used and abused. To abuse is, in our author, very frequently the same as to deceive. This construction is harsh and ungrammatical; Shakespeare perhaps thought it vicious, and chose to throw away the lines rather than correct them, nor would now thank the officiousness of his editors, who restore what they ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... mostly we make up our minds to say little about and to forget. The indifference which has made that ignorance possible, and has in its turn been fed by the ignorance, is in some respects a more shocking phenomenon than the vicious life which it has allowed to rot and to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... youth, who had lived the life of a Paris workingman from his childhood, felt a thrill of pleasure at finding himself once more in the midst of the animated scenes peculiar to that time and place. Upon all those faces, honest or vicious, was an expression of satisfaction that the week was at an end. You felt that, so far as they were concerned, Sunday began at seven o'clock Saturday evening, in front ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... yard, another, then came to earth with Joel's head snugly pillowed on his shoulder. A shout arose from the crowd. The field came up and Joel scrambled to his feet. Cloud, his face red with chagrin and anger, leaped to his feet, and stepping toward Joel aimed a vicious blow at his face. The latter ducked and involuntarily raised his fist; then, ere Greer and some of the others stepped between, turned and ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... him that the Jews were very ready to revolt about the statue, and that they seemed resolved to threaten war against the Romans, and nothing else. When therefore Caius was much displeased that any attempt should be made against his government as he was a slave to base and vicious actions on all occasions, and had no regard to What was virtuous and honorable, and against whomsoever he resolved to show his anger, and that for any cause whatsoever, he suffered not himself to be restrained by any admonition, but thought the indulging his anger to be a real pleasure, he ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... in the refined sense of the word), and, at last, took up with Thomas Killigrew. He had been, like Villiers, a royalist: first a page to Charles I., next a companion of Charles II., in exile. He married the fair Cecilia Croft; yet his morals were so vicious that even in the Court of Venice to which he was accredited, in order to borrow money from the merchants of that city, he was too profligate to remain. He came back with Charles II., and was Master of the Revels, or King's Jester, as the court considered him, though without ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the condition of Rome formerly with what it is to-day. Paralyzed by the necessary consequences of the Revolution, could she have risen again and maintained her position? A vicious government as to political matters has taken the place of the former Roman legislation, which, without being perfect, nevertheless contributed to form great men of every kind. Modern Rome has applied to its political government principles better suited to a religious order, and has ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... together and whenever she spoke he contradicted her with a sort of vicious playfulness. Tried to poke clumsy fun at her. Called her 'Lady Harman.' Only it was quite evident that what she said stuck in his mind.... ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... servants—and of these last, not a few—are there also. Even if there were no more evils and opportunity for wrong than for these women and children to be eyewitnesses of what happens in houses where there are people so vile, bold, vicious, and shameless—who are, although generous, covetous, cunning, and treacherous—these alone are sufficient evils and causes for Spaniards not to permit the Sangleys, or consent, as they do, to their staying in their houses. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... face is said to be the index and expression of an ugly mind. It certainly was so in the case of Miss Smellie. Not that she had an evil or vicious mind in any way—far from it, for she was a narrowly pious and dully conscientious woman. Her mind was ugly as a useful building may be very ugly—or as a room devoid of beautiful furniture or over-crowded with cheap ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... of the esophagus are by no means an uncommon accompaniment of the stagnation of food and secretions. From the irritation they produce, spastic stenosis may occur, thus constituting a vicious circle; the spasm of the esophagus increases the stagnation which in turn results in further inflammation and ultimate ulceration. Healing of such ulcers may result in cicatricial contraction and organic stenosis. Ulceration may follow trauma ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... sweet, so comely. "I have seen an end of all perfection," but none of thy law. "Thy word is sweeter to me than the honey, or the honey comb." If a soul be prepossessed with the love of the world, and the lusts of the world, it cannot savour and taste of them, that vicious quality in the mind will make the pleasant gospel unpleasant. "I piped unto you and ye have not danced." But however, the scriptures are then most profitable when they are least pleasant to our corruptions, and, therefore, it is an absolute and entire piece. Ut prodesse volunt et delectare. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... on Lord Russell's trial—Finch summed up the evidence against him. But ... shewed more of a vicious eloquence, in turning matters with some subtlety against the prisoners, than of solid or sincere reasoning.—Swift. Afterwards Earl of Aylesford, an ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... defined the art; those who having attended, and profited to the utmost by the course, will be grievously disappointed if they expect at its close to find themselves accomplished singers. The management of the voice is still required, and many vicious habits, contracted during the practice at the class, will have to be forgotten. This, however, cannot be felt by the million, to whom any musical instruction will be a gift of unspeakable value, in a social and moral point of view. The Committee of the Council well observe, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... white race their former control of society and government, and to destroy the baneful influence of the alien among the blacks. The people of the South were by law helpless to take steps towards setting up any kind of government in a land infested by a vicious element—Federal and Confederate deserters, bushwhackers, outlaws of every description, and Negroes, some of whom proved insolent and violent in their newly found freedom. Nowhere was property or person safe, and for a time many feared a Negro insurrection. General Hardee said ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming |
