"Vile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indeed the whole country suspects (Tho' the Editor often my best things rejects), That the verses signed so,[symbol: hand], which you now and then see In our County Gazette (vide last) are by me. But 'tis dreadful to think what provoking mistakes The vile country Press in one's prosody makes. For you know, dear—I may, without vanity, hint— Tho' an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print; And you can't think what havoc these demons sometimes ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and atmospheric literary essays, the best on d'Aurevilly to be found in English. When this book first appeared, Mr. Saltus informs me, a reviewer, "who contrived to be both amusing and complimentary," said that Barbey d'Aurevilly was a fictitious person and that this vile story was Saltus's own ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... and bloody wharf-side drinking-shops of Chili and Peru. The run of my ill-luck, the breach of my old friendship, this bubble fortune flaunted for a moment in my eyes and snatched again, had made me desperate and (in the expressive vulgarism) ugly. To drink vile spirits among vile companions by the flare of a pine-torch; to go burthened with my furtive treasure in a belt; to fight for it knife in hand, rolling on a clay floor; to flee perpetually in fresh ships and to be chased through the sea from isle to isle, seemed, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... love, and without a fierce note of selfishness love becomes as pale as friendship. She had been a wonder, a revelation, a great glory; she had become merely an attractive, handsome girl, rather exuberant in her affection. If Done were our villain we could show him unmanly, ignoble, and vile for all this, but not one voluntary impulse went to the making of his present attitude; it was a development entirely foreign to his will, and that much at least must be remembered in the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... several of the passers-by gathered round, and a more efficacious correction than mine was administered to the restive horse, who rose in a vile ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... there was no escape; then his conduct was most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential together, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of success which blinded a portion of the English press to the iniquities which were concealed beneath the Imperial purple has now disappeared. The publication of the papers discovered in the Tuileries has stripped despotism of its tinsel, and has revealed the vile and contemptible arts by which a gallant nation has been enslaved. The Government of Napoleon, as Mr. Gladstone said of that of Bomba, "was a negation of God upon earth." His councillors were bold bad men, ever plotting against each ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... his own vile desires, overruled the slight opposition of his superior; and, once entered on the affair, the latter found himself highly amused in carrying it out. The burlesque proclamations, the exaggerated stories of Indians, the terror of the citizens, their encomiums on his own energetic and valorous ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... upon her trial, the King's Counsel opened the indictment, setting forth the heinousness of the fact, the premeditated intentions, and inhuman method of acting it; that his Majesty for the more effectual prosecution of such vile offenders, and out of a tender regard to the peace and welfare of all his subjects, and that the actors and perpetrators of such unheard of barbarities might be brought to condign punishment, had given them directions to prosecute the prisoners. Then Richard ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... only left it six months ago. I have seen men and women saved in that mill, so that their whole life afterwards was a kind of ecstasy: I have seen others lost there, so that they became true children of the devil, and made those about them as vile and wretched as themselves. I have seen men grow rich there, and I have seen men die there; so if there is anything I know in this world it is how factory workers spend their time—at least, I think I know. But judge for yourselves—shout to me if I'm wrong. Isn't it somehow ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Francis and the sites of Benedictine monasteries, by explaining the value of natural beauty for monks who spent their life in studying death: 'If thy heart were right, then would every creature be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and vile that does not show forth the goodness of God.' With this sentence bound about their foreheads, walked Fra Angelico and S. Francis. To men like them the mountain valleys and the skies, and all that they contained, were full of deep significance. Though ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... good high Toby fashion; Surely in your bosom stirs, Constable, a like compassion For our two poor cylinders; All we have is vile and shoddy; See that low-hung touring brute— There's a bonnet! there's a body Worthy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... sensitive, as well as by the saturnine, quite seriously; for not many look abroad with their own eyes, fewer still have the habit of thinking for themselves. Life, we know too well, is not a Comedy, but something strangely mixed; nor is Comedy a vile mask. The corrupted importation from France was noxious; a noble entertainment spoilt to suit the wretched taste of a villanous age; and the later imitations of it, partly drained of its poison and made decorous, became tiresome, notwithstanding their fun, in the perpetual recurring of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had come to Lizzie and insisted on examining her head. And of course she had found something. "Them's only nits!" Lizzie had said; she had never heard of anybody who did not have "nits" in their hair. But the beautiful lady had called her a vile creature, and ordered her to pack up her things and get out of the house at once. And so Lizzie had had to wait until she became an inmate of a brothel before anybody took the trouble to teach her how to get the "nits" out of her hair, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... one of the vile old prisons of Italy, and a part of it was below the waters of the harbour. The place of his confinement was an arched under-ground and under-water gallery, with a grill-gate at the entrance, through which it received such light and air as it got. Its condition was insufferably foul, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... him look not unlike a stall-fed beast)—"yes, food and raiment, victuals and drink, to the meanest subject in the realm. Nor is this all; it is a constitution peculiarly English: and who is there so base, so vile, so untrue to himself, to his fathers, to his descendants, as to turn his back on a constitution that is thoroughly and inherently English, a constitution that he has inherited from his ancestors, and which by every obligation both human ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... twenty-first. I am sure I heard long ago of some new fashion that was to be introduced,—some Italian style, tiles, or mosaic-work, or something of the sort. I should welcome anything that would dispense with these vile rags. I sigh over the good old sanded floors that our grandmothers rejoiced in,—and so, apotheosizing the past and anathematizing the present, I pull away, and the tacks tear my fingers, and the hammer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was not as one Who takes love in, like some sweet bird, and holds The winged fluttering stranger to his breast, Till, after transient stay, all unaware It leaves him: it has flown. No; this may live In memory,—loved till death. He was not vile; For who by choice would part with that pure bird, And lose the exaltation of its song? He had not strength of will to keep it fast, Nor warmth of heart to keep it warm, nor life Of thought to make the echo sound for him After the song was done. Pity that man: His music is all ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... his pace. He was infinitely relieved, but it was not only relief that he felt; it was disappointment too; he was seized with horror of himself. Would he never be free from that passion? At the bottom of his heart, notwithstanding everything, he felt that a strange, desperate thirst for that vile woman would always linger. That love had caused him so much suffering that he knew he would never, never quite be free of it. Only death could finally assuage ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... with Michelangelo, I never once heard issue from that mouth words that were not of the truest honesty, and such as had virtue to extinguish in the heart of youth any disordered and uncurbed desire which might assail it. I am sure, too, that no vile thoughts were born in him, by this token, that he loved not only the beauty of human beings, but in general all fair things, as a beautiful horse, a beautiful dog, a beautiful piece of country, a beautiful ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... now; I don't feel equal to the encounter; besides, I must dress. But what shall I do? Since that vile woman's gone I can't dress myself. I never did such a thing in my life, and I am sure it's impossible that I can," almost weeping at the hardships she was doomed to experience in ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... nor on any other healthy race of the North, either by the luxury of Rome, or by her art, whether constructive or imitative. The Saxon builds no aqueducts—designs no roads, rounds no theatres in imitation of her,—envies none of her vile pleasures,—admires, so far as I can judge, none of her far-carried realistic art. I suppose that it needs intelligence of a more advanced kind to see the qualities of complete sculpture: and that we may think of the Northern intellect as still like that of a child, who ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... Schuster-gasse; and a vile, ill-conditioned, uncleanly den it is; nor, I am sorry to say, are its occupants, in appearance at least, unworthy of their abode. But we must not be uncharitable; it is a hard task this tramping through the length ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... Shaw's, delivered shortly after our arrival on the island, on the multifarious uses of the cocoa-palm. He told how the juice from the unexpanded flower-spathes is drawn off to form a potent toddy, so that where every prospect pleases man may still be vile. Cookie, experimentally disposed, set to work. Mr. Vane, also experimentally, sampled the results of Cookie's efforts. The liquor had merely been allowed to ferment, whereas a complicated process is necessary for the manufacture of the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... looks at himself in the vile portrait which he holds outstretched in his right hand, while his left hand feels in his purse. Monsieur Plumet looks very stiff, very unhappy, and very nervous. He evidently wants to get ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from whose benevolence they derive the comforts and pleasure of their political life, who has taken the tenderest care of their infancy and relieves their necessities without offending their delicacy. But if it were possible for their integrity to be degraded to a condition so vile and abject that, compared with it, the present estimation they stand in is a state of honour and respect, consider, Sir, in what manner you will afterwards proceed. Can you conceive that the people of this country will long submit to be governed by so flexible a House of ...
— English Satires • Various
... that foe, whate'er men say, From out your chamber, decked so gay, Where, ingrate vile, with murderous knife, Bold she ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... not," said the tortured Earl; "it is written in characters of burning light, as if they were branded on my very eyeballs! I see her infamy-I can see nought else; and—gracious Heaven!—for this vile woman was I about to commit to danger the lives of so many noble friends, shake the foundation of a lawful throne, carry the sword and torch through the bosom of a peaceful land, wrong the kind mistress who made me what I am, and would, but for that hell-framed marriage, have made me all that man ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and fascinating tales. If justice counted on their shameful gibbets hundreds of the innocent dead, they could still say that for them death was more hopeful than life for the heathen. If the new daylight discovered their vile tortures, there had lingered in the darkness some dim memory that they were tortures of Purgatory and not, like those which Parisian and Prussian diabolists showed shameless in the sunshine, of naked hell. ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... could recover she had run into the house, through the hall, up the stairs into her bedroom. Down she sat on the side of the bed. "How vile, odious, abominable, vulgar," muttered Isabel. She pressed her eyes with her knuckles and rocked to and fro. And again she saw them, but not four, more like forty, laughing, sneering, jeering, stretching ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... I must think!" cried his host. "For you to go alone would be to rush into the very evils we are warned against. I am pained and humiliated beyond measure by this communication. Mr. Graham, do not judge us harshly. There is, I suppose, a vile sediment in every community, and there is here a class that won't enlist in open, honorable warfare, but prowl around, chiefly at night, intent ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... Spaniards barricade themselves. Grief of Spanish woman over corpse of murdered man. Miners arrive from Rich Bar. Wild cry for vengeance, and for expulsion of Spaniards. The author prevailed upon to retire to place of safety. Accidental discharge of gun when drunken owner of vile resort attempts to force way through armed guard. Two seriously wounded. Sobering effect of the accident. Vigilance committee organized. Suspected Spaniards arrested. Trial of the Mexicana. Always wore male attire, was foremost in fray, and, armed ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... who entered into that war from motives of virtue. Legioni Vipstanius Messala praeerat, claris majoribus, egregius ipse, et qui solus ad id bellum artes bonas attulisset. Hist. lib. iii. s. 9. He was brother to Regulus, the vile informer, who has been mentioned. See Life of Agricola, section 2. note a, and this tract, s. xii. note [b]. Messala, we are told by Tacitus, before he had attained the senatorian age, acquired great fame by pleading the cause of his profligate brother with extraordinary ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... angry, admittedly not without cause. Forgetting his conversation to a belief in the reality of Menzi's magic, he talked in a loud voice about the disgrace of being infected with vile, heathen superstitions, such as he had never thought to hear uttered by his wife's Christian lips. Dorcas, however, stuck to her point, and enforced it by a domestic example, adding that the creatures which in polite ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... mauve-tinted lights, with one cold white radiance hanging over the invisible Piccadilly Circus)—"Well, go ahead! Follow your star! I can be confident of one thing, you won't do anything mean or disgraceful. Deceiving Man while his vile laws and restrictions remain in force is no crime. Be prudent, so far as compromising our poor little firm here is concerned, because if you bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave we shall lose a valuable source ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... the fact that only by her own consent or invitation, could any man reach a point so near to any woman that he could coolly breathe in her ear a base pro position. Yet, with all her self-loathing and self-condemnation, was mingled a hatred of the vile man who had insulted her, which would have half killed him had it been possible for him to know and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... queer thing was, 'at atween hit an' the tree it grippit a buik, an' I kent it for the buik o' ballants. An' I gaed nearer, luikin' an' luikin', an' some frichtit. But I wadna stan' for that, for that wad be to be caitiff vile, an' no true man: I gaed nearer an' nearer, till I had gotten within a yaird o' the tree, whan a' at ance, wi' a swing an' a swirl, I was three-fauld aboot the tree, an' the laithly worm was me mesel'; an' I was the laithly worm. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... us with the promptness of his learning. "As long as the importance of hurrying buckwheat pancakes from the griddle to the table," says he, with a fine air of annotation, "is impressed upon the American mind, this vile slang will need no explanation. But the fame,"—mark this dry light of philosophy, and the delicacy of the humor through which it plays,—"but the fame of the Rebel march into Pennsylvania, and of the victory of Gettysburg, will probably outlive even the taste for these alluring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... here!" hissed the rat-faced man, and he added a vile name. He gripped Peter by the lapel of his coat and half jerked him to his feet, still keeping the muzzle of the revolver in Peter's face. And poor Peter, trying desperately to get his wits together, thought of half a dozen wild guesses one ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... stumps I frequently found a saprophyte (hymenophallus), much larger than its English representative, indeed a monster in comparison, and possessing a vile and most odious smell, yet attractive to ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... onset was by Julian, and 'occidere presbyterium,' that was his province. To shut up public schools, to force Christians to ignorance, to impoverish and disgrace the clergy, to make them vile and dishonorable, these are his arts; and he did the devil more service in this fineness of undermining, than all the open battery of ten great ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... it. As we were going downstairs I caught a glimpse of a newspaper in my girl's pocket. She gave it to me reluctantly, and said "Melissy" had lent it to her. I told her to help her mother prepare supper while I went to find Merton. Opening the paper under a street lamp, I found it to be a cheap, vile journal, full of flashy pictures that so often offend the eye on news-stands. With a chill of fear I thought, "Another problem." The Daggett children had had the scarlet fever a few months before. "But here's ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... think how a Man that had committed such vile Actions, could argue so well on such Moral Topicks. At the proper Hour, after an Entertainment, not only instructive, but ev'ry way agreeable, their Host conducted them to their Bed-chamber, thanking Heaven for directing two such ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... Hundson, the English wardens, and so make peace with their vassals and with England at once. Fairest Molinara, I will for once walk by thy rede, and if thou dost contrive to extricate me from this vile kennel, I will so celebrate thy wit and beauty, that the Baker's nymph of Raphael d'Urbino shall seem but a gipsey in comparison ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of the dragoons of Entrechat for an entire fortnight, so that I return not in submission, but, like Caesar and Coriolanus and other exiled captains of antiquity, at the head of a glorious army. We will harry the Taunenfels, we will hang the vile bandit more high than Haman of old, we will, in a word, enjoy the supreme pleasure of the chase, enhanced by the knowledge we pursue a note-worthy quarry. Homicide is, after all, the most satisfying recreation life affords us, since man alone knows how thoroughly man deserves to ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... understanding that he is, as Monsieur de Camps said just now, the accomplice of the shameful attack which is going on, and that he has not, like those who started it, the excuse of ignorance, he actually seems to take delight in this wickedness. Just now he brought me that vile paper triumphantly, and I could scarcely prevent his being very angry with me for not agreeing with his opinion that it ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Renaissance's horrible anomaly of improvement and degradation, had not that anomaly returned and returned to make me wretched with its loathsome mixture of good and evil; its detestable alternative of endurance of vile solidarities in the souls of our intellectual forefathers, or of unjust turning away from the men and the times whose moral degradation paid the price of our moral dignity. I also have the further certainty of its having been this long-endured moral sickening at the sight of this moral ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... one's life out; thirty years Have I had dinning in my ears— Ireland wants this and that and t'other; And to this hour one nothing hears But the same vile eternal bother. While of those countless things she wanted, Thank God, but ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... its dead horses and vehicular entanglements, its vile concert saloons, the alternate meanness and magnificence of its architecture, the fragile character of its theatrical structures, and their limited and hazardous means of exit,—despite falling walls and the necessity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... willing to do anything for money. Miss Corelli has said herself that there is a vile conspiracy to blacken her, and for my part I am quite prepared to believe it. They're all afraid of her because she dares ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... hurry, Adam, and you'll see what you will see!' And with a pleasant salute, his handsome face twitching between frowns and smiles, Sir Henry rode on. 'What trade unionists we all are—high and low! That man's as good a farmer as Gregson's a vile one. But he stands by his like, ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... only tried by fire; It is atonement made, a birth to higher life, Which, purified, flies back to him from whom it came, And plays a guileless child upon its father's knee. Alas! that all the best is found beyond the grave,— That gate of green which Gimle opens; vile is all, Contaminated all that dwells beneath the stars. And yet there is atonement found in life itself,— A humble prelude to the peace of heaven above. 'Tis like the broken chords the minstrel strikes upon The harp, when he with skillful ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... yourself, Midas; none believe the tale, Some impious man or gamesome faun dares feign In vile contempt of your most royal ears. Off with your crown, & shew the ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... think I ought to be. The benefit of the doubt! You certainly have given it me. It's been nothing but doubt with you, Walter, ever since I knew you. You always thought awful things about me. I know you have. I could see you thinking them. You thought vile things about me, and vile things about Jimmy. You came rushing out to Belgium because you thought them. And the other day you thought the same thing of me and Charlie Thesiger, and you came rushing after me again and giving me away, and ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... They'll learn to love your name; When many a deed may wake in praise That long hath slept in blame. And when they tread the ruined isle, Where rest, at length, the lord and slave, They'll wondering ask, how hands so vile Could ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... afraid. He has been starved and suffocated in that vile schooner. Good heavens! How can ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... the God-lent crown, Shall these vile creatures dare Murmur against thee where The knees of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... potsherd—the womb of the snow; partly the sense of motion and the goings of the wind through the etherial mass; partly the delight that always comes from contest with nature, a contest in which no vile passions are aroused, and no weak enemy goes helpless to the ground. I presume that in a right condition of our nervous nature, instead of our being, as some would tell us, less exposed to the influences of nature, we should in fact be altogether open ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... me, whence or whither dost thou journey? What is thy road? What thy desire? Who thy father? What thy lineage? Those have strength beyond others who have never left their own homes, and the Luck of kings is their houseluck. For the things of a vile man are acceptable unto few, and seldom are the deeds of the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... once). I hate those simpering Madonnas. I declare that the "Jardiniere" is a puking, smirking miss, with nothing heavenly about her. I vow that the "Saint Elizabeth" is a bad picture,—a bad composition, badly drawn, badly colored, in a bad imitation of Titian,—a piece of vile affectation. I say, that when Raphael painted this picture two years before his death, the spirit of painting had gone from out of him; he was no longer inspired; IT WAS TIME ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than by ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... that no wrong can right a wrong, I almost grieve that I cried shame upon the counsel of Metem. Sweet lady, be sure of this, that I will give all I have, even to my life, to protect you from the vile fate you dread—yes, all I ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... a shame to be treated in this way. We have paid for every one of these compartments, and you know it. The young masters will not go in those vile-smelling staterooms for the night. It's no place for them. I will go ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... aloud, "Then I aspired to be renowned and great; now, how is it that, so advanced in my career, all that seemed lofty in the end has vanished from me, and the only means that I contemplate are those which my childhood would have called poor and vile? Ah, is it that I then read but books, and now my knowledge has passed onward, and men contaminate more than books? But," he continued, in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, "if power is only so to be won,—and of what use is knowledge ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... squirrel, "I almost let the secret out. Goodness! I hope nobody heard me. And pray, Bevis dear, don't repeat it—oh, pray don't!—or it will be sure to be traced to me. I wish I had never heard it. If I had not listened to that vile old crow; if I had not been so curious, and overheard him muttering to himself, and suggesting doubts at night! Bevis dear, don't you ever be curious, and don't you ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... confiding, now she became serious and reserved. She had always been gracious and compassionate, and rather the equal than the queen of those about her,—according to Boccaccio's description,—but treachery had come so near to her, and her trusted Philippa had proved so vile a character, that she never after gave her entire confidence to any ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... by him, the kind and respectful tone he used to her, and the intense interest he appeared to take in the welfare of her children, were such that she never imagined, for a moment, he was using this means to cloak a vile and unmanly purpose. Once, and only once, was she made aware that the scandal tongues of her neighbors were being used detrimental to her honor; and then the information was given by her slave Elsy, who overheard a conversation ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... a moment, then he reflected that there was nothing to be done but to submit to the bites of the iron teeth of the police routine in which he was suddenly entangled. They searched his pockets and he felt their vile hands graze his skin. He experienced a strongly rebellious sentiment and notwithstanding his present enforced calm, from time to time he demanded to see the Prefect of Police, the Chief of the Municipal Police, the Juge d'Instruction, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... such care have the members one for another, that the comely parts cover, serve, and honor the uncomely; as it is beautifully set forth in I. Corinthians vi.[65] others as though they were my own; and they are truly my own when I find joy and pleasure therein. Let me, then, be base and vile; yet they whom I love and admire are fair and beautiful. And by my love I make not only their blessings, but their very selves my own; so that by their honor my shame is made honorable, by their abundance my ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... which his superior mental abilities, no less than his haughty temper and powerful frame, combined to support. A young man of two-and-twenty owning to no friends, and existing among them but by the fact of his criminality, he was respected and admired. The vilest of all the vile horde penned between decks, if they laughed at his "fine airs" behind his back, cringed and submitted when they met him face to face—for in a convict ship the greatest villain is the greatest hero, and the only ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... ere the ears of the Pilgrims were filled with the clamors which their injustice and violence raised from the outraged Indians. The Weymouth miscreants stole their corn, insulted their females, and treated them with every vile indignity. The Indians at last became exasperated beyond endurance, and threatened the total destruction of the dissolute crew. At last starvation stares them in the face, and they send in October to Plymouth begging for food. The Pilgrims have not more than enough to meet ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... clearly see till one day there called at the ranch that had 'secured his services,' as he put it, one, Bill Smith, more usually known as Horseshoe Billy, from his cattle-brand. While the excellent fresh beef and bread and the vile coffee, dried peaches and molasses were being consumed, he of the horseshoe remarked, in tones which percolated through a ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the parental strength, and the native fortune—the wonder is, not that species should sometimes be confused, but that the greater number of them remain so splendidly, so manifestly, so eternally distinct; and that the vile industries and vicious curiosities of modern science, while they have robbed the fields of England of a thousand living creatures, have not ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... and he took his meals there, knowing very well that the truckman would not be back till late at night. Dolores did his washing and even rifled tio Paella's pockets to get money for her lover; and that made the teamster vomit mouthfuls of vile oaths on the subject of false friendship, because he thought his tavern companions had robbed him while he was drunk. One thing at a time, Tonet was moving all his belongings from the tavern-boat to the truckman's ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... vile Jilts are met, Foolish, uncertain, false, Coquette. Love is her constant welcome Guest, And still the newest pleases best. Quickly she likes, then leaves as soon; Her Life on Woman's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... her relations. Altercations between the Kuduseea Begum and the King were not uncommon; but, on the 21st of August, 1834, the King became unusually excited, and told her that he had raised her from bondage to the throne, and could as easily cast her back into the same vile condition. Her proud spirit could not brook this, and she instantly swallowed arsenic. The King relented, and every remedy was tried, but in vain. The King watched over her agonies till she was about ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... enough you plot treason, you must also turn against your Gods? You know the Croen powers, you know what she would do to us all, you included. But so that you can overcome the Schrees, nothing else to you is sacred, nothing too vile for you to do. Away with them, let them become the ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... Pericles and Aspasia, who were friends even more than lovers, their intellectual companionship and common pursuit of culture being one of the precious traditions of humanity. Grote, whose learning, ability, and fairness give weight to his opinion, affirms his belief that the vile charges brought against Aspasia were the offspring of lying gossip and scandal. The estimate of her talents and accomplishments was so high that the authorship of the greatest speech ever delivered by Pericles was attributed to her. She is also particularly interesting to us ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... shillings as it would change for."—"Not to preserve my life from starving, nor to redeem it from a robber, would I part with this dear piece!" answered Joseph. "What," says Mrs Tow-wouse, "I suppose it was given you by some vile trollop, some miss or other; if it had been the present of a virtuous woman, you would not have had such a value for it. My husband is a fool if he parts with the horse without being paid for him."—"No, no, I can't part with the horse, indeed, till I have the money," ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... before the Greeks showed the Romans a thing or two in cookery. The methods of fattening fowl introduced from Greece was something unheard-of! It was outrageous, sacrilegious! Senators, orators and other self-appointed saviors of humanity thundered against the vile methods of tickling the human palate, deftly employing all the picturesque tam-tam and elan still the stock in trade of ever so many modern colleagues in any civilized parliament. The speeches, to be sure, passed into oblivion, the fat capons, however, stayed ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... worse than nothing. Several of his unpaid bills to eastern houses were placed in suit, and as he lived in a state where imprisonment for debt still existed, he was compelled to go through the forms required by the insolvent laws, to keep clear of durance vile. ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... The bulwarks of full many a city low, 140 And more shall level, matchless in his might. That such a numerous host of Greeks as we, Warring with fewer than ourselves, should find No fruit of all our toil, (and none appears) Will make us vile with ages yet to come. 145 For should we now strike truce, till Greece and Troy Might number each her own, and were the Greeks Distributed in bands, ten Greeks in each, Our banded decads should exceed so far Their units, that all Troy could ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... of the sentence was drowned by gin; and after they had finished the bottle, which was only a pint one however, these two men sat down together to count their ill-gotten gains; for both of them were vile impostors, who had never been on the salt water in the whole course of ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... most severe privations, not indeed in ascetic devotion, but in abhorrence of mankind. Yet no man's words and actions have been at such a wide difference, nor has any hypocritical wretch ever been more ingenious in assigning good motives for his vile actions, than this unfortunate in reconciling to his abstract principles of misanthropy, a conduct which flows from his natural generosity and ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always wanting to be men and women, and the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... treachery, but a mischance. The divine prince who is dead, as all of you saw, grew drunken after the fashion of his people, and in his drunkenness he struck a high-born man, a Count of Egypt and an officer of Pharaoh, who to do him greater honour was set to wait upon him, calling him by vile names, and drew his sword upon him to kill him. Am I right? Did you see and ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... no look or smile, no contraction of the brow or expression of displeasure, did she show her emotion, but she listened to these vile and dangerous words; she let the poison of the tempter enter her heart; she had neither the strength nor will to reject his counsel, or banish him from her presence; she had only the power to be silent, and to conceal from Pollnitz that her better ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... But it seems to be certainly one of the frightful figures of which Caesar speaks, on which captives were bound with twisted osiers, and burnt to death for a Druidical sacrifice. The thing is grotesque, vile, horrible; the very stones of the place seemed soaked with terror, cruelty and death. Even recently foul and barbarous traditions were practised there, it is said, by villagers, who were Christian only in name. Yet it lay peacefully enough ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... desert hordes it will only be to fall by the hands of the truculent Amir of Harar." Nothing, however, could dash Burton's confidence in his star, and like Dante, he applied to Fear no epithets but "vile" and "base." ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... it was somebody,—somebody that stood between me an' God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' says I, 'Who's this that stands between me an' God? Is it old Cato?' He was a pious old preacher; but then I seemed to see Cato in the light, an' he was all polluted an' vile, like me; an' I said, 'Is it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an' she seemed jes' so. An' then says I, 'Who is this?' An' then, honey, for a while it was like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it moves up an' down; for I begun ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the details of the episode were very fresh in his mind yet. He had escaped a similar fate only because he was so big that the fussy little aunt could no longer force him to take her vile doses. ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... spirit, and zeal with which you embarked into the cause, were only equalled by the liberality, judgment, and decision you evinced in the accomplishment of the end you had in view. The restoration of the oppressed to liberty, and a full refutation of the vile calumnies brought against our faith—both these great objects, by the aid of Gracious Providence, have been attained. The grateful thanksgivings of the liberated prisoners pronounce you their deliverer. ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... genere.—Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii. c. 39, 40. Flaminius, even before the event, had compared the army of Antiochus to a supper in which the flesh of one vile animal was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the Life ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... question publicly with the Bishop of Paris. That worthy was no match for Bruno in point of oratory, but when we can not answer a man's reasons, all is not lost, for we can at least call him vile names, and this is often ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... of their conscience. I protest, before the great God, and, since I am here as vpon my testament, it is no place for me to lie in, that ye shall never find with any Hie-land, or Border theeves, greater ingratitude, and more lies and vile perjuries: ye may keep them for trying your patience, as Socrates did ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... had produced but one effect on him. His hatchet-face softened for a moment, as if he was sorry for her. As to shaking him in his own conviction, it was plain to see that she had not moved him by a single inch. He settled himself in his chair; and he began his vile attack on Miss Rachel's character ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... a vile thing to do!" exclaimed Mrs. Rover, her eyes showing her displeasure. "Why, that Gabe Werner is nothing but a criminal! You can be thankful, Jack, that you escaped as you did. But are you sure poor Ruth's eyes are not ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... knowledge of skilled labour; they have to take the lowest occupations and bring up their children in vile surroundings: they are ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... nineteenth of January, 1773. In that letter, he declared that he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men who would act steadily together on any question. "But it is all alike," he added, "vile and contemptible. You have never flinched that I know of; and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity." These were the last words of Junius. In a year from that time, Philip Francis was on ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Flora. "What has become of Charles Holland? Has he been murdered by some secret enemy, and then these most vile fabrications made up in his name? Oh, Charles, Charles, are you ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... of justifying your vile calumny against my wife," says he. "Her milliner's bill for the past year is on my file of receipted ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... if his early life could be traced it would probably be found that he was brought up in an atmosphere of conspiracy—perhaps under the influence of some vile revolutionary living in London under the protection ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... men have supposed, for the founder of our faith to have granted light, casually or indirectly, upon questions of curiosity. One sole revelation was made by Him, as to the nature of the intercourse and the relations in another world; but that was for the purpose of forestalling a vile, unspiritual notion, already current amongst the childish Jews, and sure to propagate itself even to our own days, unless an utter averruncatio were applied to it. This was its purpose, and not any purpose of gratification ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... vile conditions of humanity, send out, in your writings, vials of vileness. "Like cures like." If any part of the church cries, "poison, poison!" you may justify yourself by the fact that the so-called "poison" in your productions will only neutralize the poison so prevalent in society, ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... [*]The vile custom of exposing unwelcome female babies probably created a certain preponderance of males in Attica, and made it relatively easy to marry off a desirable ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... with great respect; or again, they may be ornamented with gold and precious stones. It was noted that the breast ornaments, which they call guanines were made of copper rather than gold, and it was surmised that they dealt with tricky strangers who sold them these guanines, palming off upon them vile metal for gold. Neither did the Spaniards discover the trick till they melted these ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... also have sheltered himself under the example of Charles James Fox, who consented to accept a provision made for him by the leaders of his party. But Moore detested all eleemosynary aid. He speaks in one of his most vigorous poems with contempt of that class of "patriots" (to what vile uses can language ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... with disinterested generosity. But she had an end in view—I must say it once for all. She wanted to make use of me to bring shame on Marcus and grief on his mother. You surely must know it; for why should you have thought me too vile to sing with you if you did not believe that I was a good-for-nothing hussy, and quite ready to do your dead grandmother's bidding? Everybody, of course, looked down upon us all and thought we must be wicked because we were singers; but you knew better; ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you vile beggar?" he cried; and he gave him a kick that sent him into some bushes which grew by the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... month to collect their hundred and twenty francs, and they were angry with their neighbors, because Mother Tuvache grossly insulted them, repeating without ceasing from door to door, that one must be unnatural to sell one's child; that it was horrible, nasty, and many other vile expressions. Sometimes she would take her Chariot in her arms with ostentation, exclaiming, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... and untractable; courts have taught thee ill manners, and polite conversation has finished thee a pedant. Besides, a greater coward burdeneth not the army. But never despond; I pass my word, whatever spoil thou takest shall certainly be thy own; though I hope that vile carcase will first become a ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... and my three children were uninjured. I found them, cowering and terrified, in an inner chamber. But the infidels had searched every room in their quarters, scattering the contents of chests on the floors. And at sight of this vile desecration the iron of revenge even then ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... learn that her one desire is everything to her, her divine, beautiful country nothing. I wish that a man had spoken those words to me, Dolores, so that I might have put this sword you speak of to one good use before breaking it and flinging it from me like the vile thing it is! Would to God the earth would open and swallow up this land for ever, though I sank down into hell with it for the detestable crime of taking ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... for Sergeant Craig, if I lose my stripes for it," shouted the corporal again, who was as intoxicated with excitement as if he had partaken of drink—the vile arrack that ruins so many of ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... We, the remainder, formed the rearguard, and a long, wearisome job it was. Oh, how those waggons broke down and stuck in dongas and spruits! At last we got into camp, to my infinite relief, for the sun had, for once, given me a vile head. All through the day we heard guns firing, first near us and then distant. The next day we were again rearguard, and had a rare harassing. The end of that beastly convoy seemed to lag even more than on the preceding day! And we of the rearguard, on the kopjes ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... strength of his hold she liked him, and, as she ran, and her blood quickened, she liked him better. She did not understand herself, for she had imagined horror at his nearness, but not horror pierced through with a delight that shrank. She thought there must be something vile in her, and while she ran she felt, in her desperate youth, that she was altogether worthless since she could not control her pleasure to this swift movement supported by his hand. She ran, leaping over stones and heather and, for a short time ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Lawton, "your claims will be indisputable; while all these vile Tories who live at home peaceably, to take care of their farms, will be held in the contempt they merit. You have ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... patience would be at an end, and I would scatter your vile frame to the four winds ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... younger brother should crush the elder, when the elder has been unworthy of his name. To do this I would suffer hell, here and hereafter; to do this I would allow myself to be buffeted, scorned, hated; I would be as I have been, the vile plotter and cunning villain. And why? I hate you, partly because you have stepped into the place I longed for, but more because my mother taught me to do so. Ay, and I will hate you, ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... hailed the marriage of Carr with the divorced Lady Essex, and the proudest of England's nobility vied with each other in doing honour to the two vile persons thus unpropitiously united. The chief-justice, Coke, and the illustrious Bacon, bowed in the general crowd before their ascendancy. It has been maintained that Ben Jonson, in his rough independence, refused to write a masque for the occasion of these wicked nuptials; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... very impatient boy and was scolding, in a loud angry tone, against the burrs. He did not see, he said, what in the world chestnuts were made to grow so for. They ought to grow right out in the open air, like apples, and not have such vile porcupine skins on them,—just to plague the boys. So saying he struck with all his might a fine large burr, crushed it to pieces, and then jumped up, using at the same time profane and wicked words. As soon as he turned round ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... charge of her niece, Mary, she removed herself up to a small house in Botolph Lane, in which she could live decently on her L300 a year. It must not be surmised that Botolph Lane was a squalid place, vile, or dirty, or even unfashionable. It was narrow and old, having been inhabited by decent people long before the Crescent, or even Mr. Balfour himself, had been in existence; but it was narrow and old, and the rents were cheap, and here Miss Marrable was able to live, and occasionally ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... you refuse? Can you support vile life A moment on such terms? Why then, I pray, Dispatch me with the weapon, or dismiss me. [He holds the sword to NAPOLEON, who shakes his head.] I live no longer under ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... unless we would pay him first. He said he would do it for ten pesos—then five—and then three. And when we kept telling him that we had no money he told us to go out and borrow it, or he would leave the little Maria to die as she was. He said she was a vile sinner anyway—that she had not made her Easter duty—that she could not have the Sacrament—and her soul would go straight to hell—and there was no redemption! Then he came again this afternoon and said she must die; but he would shrive her for two pesos. And when we told ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... they each order whatever medicine they want to try. If Mrs. Edmonson's doesn't seem to help her, Grandpa takes it and she takes his,—that is their idea of economy. They would spend hours telling you about their different remedies and would offer you spoonful after spoonful of vile-looking liquid, and be mildly grieved when you refused to take it. Grandma's hands are so bent and twisted that she can't sew, so dear old ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... poor women, as the world goes. And so if I was wicked enough, he would keep me till I was undone, and till his mind changed; for even wicked men, I have read, soon grow weary of wickedness with the same person, and love variety. Well, then, poor Pamela must be turned off, and looked upon as a vile abandoned creature, and every body would despise her; ay, and justly too, Mrs. Jervis; for she that can't keep her virtue, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... no part is but a vile thing habits there; Snake and wasp haunt root and blossom; on the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... is vile! it is a cheat!' exclaimed the Frenchman, beginning to stalk up and down the cabin, to grind his teeth, and to pull out his hair. 'I say it is a cheat; give me back my ship, send on board my men, and I will fight you bravely. You ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... when but a little one, that manifested him to be notoriously infected with Or[i]ginal corruption; for I dare say he learned none of them of his Father or Mother; nor was he admitted to go much abroad among other Children, that were vile, to learn to sin of them: Nay, contrariwise, if at any time he did get abroad amongst others, he would be as the Inventer of bad words, and an example in bad actions. To them all he used to be, as we say, the Ring- leader, and Master-sinner ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... off from all hopes of Repentance; this surely, in a Christian Prince, is such a Piece of Revenge, as no Tenderness for any Parent can justify. To put the Usurper to Death, to deprive him of the Fruits of his vile Crime, and to rescue the Throne of Denmark from Pollution, was highly requisite: But there our young Prince's Desires should have stop'd, nor should he have wished to pursue the Criminal in the other World, but rather have hoped for his Conversion, before his putting him to Death; for even with ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... islands of the Pacific, when I saw the fearful and needless havoc created by traders and natives using vile dynamite cartridges and so destroying thousands of young fish by one explosion, I tried hard to get them to use either the futu nut or the oap plant, both of which under many names are known to the various peoples ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... girl, for all commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. And through his pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. Mr. Carker, his confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends, first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into large and unsound business ventures. The second wife, whom he marries, certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her birth and connections, and because ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... a moment to perceive that there can be but one solution. Jahveh makes a long and crushing reply to Job, gradually merges into fine descriptive but irrelevant poetry, and then suddenly calls for a rejoinder. The hero, humbled to the dust, exclaims[48] that he is vile and conscious of his impotence, and will lay his hand upon his mouth and open his lips no more. Here the matter should end, for Job has confessed himself vanquished. But no, Jahveh, instead of being ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... informer was really Judas, although the Buddhistic version is silent on this point. As to the pangs of conscience which are said to have impelled the informer to suicide, I must say that I give no credence to them. A man capable of committing so vile and cowardly an action as that of making an infamously false accusation against his friend, and this, not out of a spirit of jealousy, or for revenge, but to gain a handful of shekels! such a man is, from the psychic point ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... a god, and she as his kinswoman had been brought up to worship in him not the man—that might be vile—but the supreme power in the Empire which he represented. She did not pause to think if he were base, tyrannical, a half-crazy despot without mind or heart or sensibilities. She knew what was said about him, she had even seen at times things from which ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... greater portion of the latter being "women of the town,"[103] were embarked on "The Nautilus," Capt. Thompson, and landed at Sierra Leone on the 9th of May, 1787. The climate was severe, the sanitary condition of the place vile, and the habits of the people immoral. The African fever, with its black death-stroke, reaped a harvest; while the irregularities and indolence of the majority of the colonists, added to the deeds of plunder perpetrated by predatory bands of savages, reduced the number of the colonists ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... its threshold; in this world, he never would call to God for vengeance. Palmer knew these things were true. Yet Dode should not for this sink to low notions about the war. She did: she talked plain Saxon of it, and what it made of men; said no cause could sanctify a deed so vile,—nothing could be holy which turned honest men into thieves and assassins. Her notions were low to degradation, Palmer thought, with the quickening cause at his heart; they had talked of it the last time he was here. She thought they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... the wrong way in this world! I never saw anything like it. You know that night-dress bag I was working for mother, Peggy? Well, I only got two skeins of the blue silk, and then if I didn't run short, and they hadn't any more in the shop. The other shades don't match at all, and it looks simply vile. I am going to give it to—ahem! I mean that's the sort of thing that always happens to me—it makes me mad! You can't sew at all, I suppose? What do you do with yourself all day long, now that you ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... paper. In fact, I did not read anything in those days; and I do not believe that Magnus and Rowena knew for some time anything more about this vile and slanderous item than I did. It was only by the way we were treated that we felt that the cold shoulder of the little world of Vandemark Township and Monterey County was turned toward us. Of course Magnus and Rowena expected this; but I was hurt more deeply ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... would be at the abject misery and degradation such conduct on the part of half his caste must inevitably imply for thousands of innocent young girls of lower station, whose lives he now knew were remorselessly sacrificed in vile dens of tainted London to the supposed social necessity that young men of a certain class should marry late in a certain style, and "keep a wife in the way she's been accustomed to." He remembered with a checked ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... man is often unjustly reproached. Truly I have been a ship without a sail and without a rudder, borne to divers ports and lands and shores by the dry wind which blows from doleful poverty; and I have appeared vile in the eyes of many, who perhaps through some report may have imaged me in other form. In the sight of whom not only my person became vile, but each work already completed was held to be of less value than that might again be which remained ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... good countreymen let vs (I pray you) consider what honour or policy can move vs to imitate the barbarous and beastly maneres of the wilde, Godlesse and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and stinking a custome? Shall wee that disdaine to imitate the manners of our neighbour France.... Shall wee, I say without blushing abase ourselves so farre as to imitate these beastly Indians, slaves to the Spaniards, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... was like an Electrical shock to me. I rushed upstairs to my room where, without restraint, I could give vent to my tears. She said the same as that I had been the cause of the great obstruction in the school. If I am such a vile sinner, I would that I might feel it myself. Indeed I do consider myself such a bad creature that I can not see any who seems worse.—And we had a new scholar to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... and inculcation of false precepts, has too long been basely submitted to? Is it not the duty of a father to preserve his only son from imbibing these dangerous and debasing errors, which will render him only one of a vile herd who are content to suffer, provided that they live? And yet are not these very errors inculcated at school, and impressed upon their mind inversely by the birch? Do not they there receive their first ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vill be sixpence, an' tees cloas vill pe von shillin'; an' (speaking with warmth) I vill not gif you von penny more for tem—not von penny." "I'll be blessed if I'll take that" said I, also speaking with some fervour; "You vile dog of a Jew! No wonder that your race is hated in every clime, for you would rob a saint of his shoe strings!" But the Jew had been tempered to these oft repeated "blessings," as was proved by the ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... to be won at all! The only virtue that a Gypsy prizes Is chastity. That is her only virtue. Dearer than life she holds it. I remember A Gypsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd, Whose craft was to betray the young and fair; And yet this woman was above all bribes. And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty, The wild and wizard beauty of her race, Offered her gold to be what she made others, She turned upon him, with a look of scorn, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... another, the reek of the Limbourgs, the Port Saluts, the Geromes, the Marolles, the Livarots, and the Pont l'Eveques uniting in one general, overpowering stench sufficient to provoke asphyxia. And yet it almost seemed as though it were not the cheeses but the vile words of Madame Lecoeur and Mademoiselle Saget that ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... gave him an introduction to its lady, in a letter to whom he afterwards disclosed his secret motive. "My dear Cousin,—You sent my friend Unwin home to us charmed, with your kind reception of him, and with everything he saw at the Park. Shall I once more give you a peep into my vile and deceitful heart? What motive do you think lay at the bottom of my conduct when I desired him to call upon you? I did not suspect, at first, that pride and vainglory had any share in it, but quickly after I had recommended the visit to him, I discovered, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... of victories is for a man to conquer himself: to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful and vile. —PLATO. ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... but with the very best of intentions, dear little brother Leo crossed the bridge over the chasm, which you may see to this day, and entered into St. Francis's cell. There he found him in ecstasy, saying, 'Who art Thou, O most sweet, my God? What am I, most vile worm, and Thine unprofitable servant?' Again and again brother Leo heard him repeat these words, and wondering thereat, he lifted his eyes to the sky, and saw there among the stars, for it was dark, a torch of flame very beautiful and bright, which, coming down ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... vile custom," said Germain, "and I'd rather be poor than live in fear like that. Adieu, girl! adieu ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand |
