"Abominable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... throat specialist, and had asked him to tell him of a good piano teacher and direct him to a good boarding-house. Dr. Evans said he could easily tell him who was the best piano teacher in Chicago, but that most students' boarding-houses were "abominable places, where girls got poor food for body and mind." He gave Dr. Archie several addresses, however, and the doctor went to look the places over. He left Thea in her room, for she seemed tired and was not at all like herself. His inspection of boardinghouses ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... pleasantest moments of my life was at a grand gala at the Electoral Palace, where I had the honour of walking a polonaise with no other than the Margravine of Bayreuth, old Fritz's own sister: old Fritz's, whose hateful blue-baize livery I had worn, whose belts I had pipeclayed, and whose abominable rations of small beer and sauerkraut I had swallowed for ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not read to a woman of so fine a mind; since four parts out of six of thy letters, which I thought entertaining as I read them to myself, appeared to me, when I should have read them to her, most abominable stuff, and gave me a very contemptible idea of thy talents, and ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Popish', he used to exclaim, 'Christ's Mass!' pursing up his lips with the gesture of one who tastes assafoetida by accident. Then he would adduce the antiquity of the so-called feast, adapted from horrible heathen rites, and itself a soiled relic of the abominable Yule-Tide. He would denounce the horrors of Christmas until it almost made me blush to look at ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... his part the harder to perform, the men were most inveterate grumblers: Ballantrae's discipline, little as it was, was yet irksome to their love of licence; and, what was worse, being kept sober they had time to think. Some of them accordingly would fall to repenting their abominable crimes; one in particular, who was a good Catholic, and with whom I would sometimes steal apart for prayer; above all in bad weather, fogs, lashing rain, and the like, when we would be the less observed; and I am sure no two criminals in the cart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Petticoat for the one, and a Jerkin for the other, is one of the most beautiful of the Kind I ever met with; and will shew all the World what have been the true Views and Intentions of the Houses of Bourbon and Austria in this abominable Coalition,—I might have called it Whoredom:—Nay, says the Alderman, 'tis downright Adulterydom, ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... We cannot but, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honorable rulers, to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying, that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... Mary, God bless you. I feel for you, as I know you will for me, in this unpleasant affair. I hope your beautiful Ellen will not take to heart this abominable marriage. Mr. Middleton was perfectly right in preventing her from throwing herself away on that worthless brother of yours; but I wish with all my heart ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... native and foreign merchants have been known to obtain loans of several hundred thousand dollars from one banker. Many of their daily operations are for very considerable amounts, and are adjusted in credits or in silver. Although they are cursed with as abominable a currency as any nation in the world, they do not appear to experience any great difficulty in settlements, every merchant having his balance, and weighing off the proper amount of silver, larger payments being made in sycee. This want of a currency arises from their utter lack of confidence in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... confidentially, that it would be well to hasten this marriage if it was possible, because all sorts of horrible things were invented to prevent it; and without waiting to be too much pressed, she told me that the most abominable stories were in circulation as to the friendship of father and daughter. The hair of my head stood on end. I now felt more heavily than ever with what demons we had to do; and how necessary it was to hurry on matters. For this reason, after we had walked about a good deal after dark, I again ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade." ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of recent legislation looking to the prevention and punishment of polygamy in that Territory. I still believe that if that abominable practice can be suppressed by law it can only be by the most radical legislation consistent with the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... this abominable railway carriage which exacted the first display of agitation from Marjory. She flushed rosily, and her eyes wavered over the cornpartment. Nora Black laughed in a way that was a shock to the nerves. Coke seemed very angry, indeed, and Peter Tounley was in pitiful distress. Everything ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... careful not to leave the grindstone in water. I have traced three broken stones in one wheel to that abominable ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... full and perfect knowledge of the facts, that it was the dishonest policy of Mr Dillon, Mr T.P. O'Connor and the men who, blindly and weakly, and with an abominable lack of moral courage, followed their leadership, which has kept one hundred thousand tenants still under the heel of landlordism in Ireland. These men, in driving a nail into the policy of Conciliation, drove a nail far more deeply into their own coffin. In burying the Land Act of 1903 ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... on trying to demolish me. I was going to say that I had only thought of the demoralization, from the betting side; but yesterday it was as if you had fascinated my eyes to look behind the scenes. I could not move a step without falling on something abominable. Roughs, with every passion up to fever-pitch, ferocity barely kept down by fear of the police, gambling everywhere, innocent young things looking on at coarseness as part of the humour of the day, foul language, swarms of vagabond ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 71: If occasion served)—Ver. 479. The Aposiopesis in this line is very aptly introduced, on account of the presence of the female; but it admirably illustrates the abominable turpitude of the speaker, and perhaps in a somewhat more decent manner than that in which Plautus attributes a similar tendency to his Braggart Captain, ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... forgetfulness. With me a lie is always fresh in my mind; it is a matter of absorbing interest, hence I do not forget myself. Heaven knows the excitement of nursing an innocent deceit and of seeing it grow and flower under my care will be most welcome, for the monotony of this abominable confinement—But I must inquire, do ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Paranoya? Have you ever been there? Have you the remotest idea what sort of life a King of Paranoya leads? I have tried it, and I can assure you that a coal-heaver is happy by comparison. In the first place, the climate of the country is abominable. I always had a cold in the head. Secondly, there is a small but energetic section of the populace whose sole recreation it seems to be to use their monarch as a target for bombs. They are not very good bombs, it is true, but one in, say, ten explodes, and even an occasional bomb is unpleasant ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... abominable!" she cried. "I am too horrid to live! It wasn't kind of me, cherie, and I love you for standing up for your mother. There's no one to do as much for me, when I'm down and out—no one!" Sorrow swept over her flexible face like a veil, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... why I am so anxious to bring this subject before the British public—why I do not confine my efforts to the United States? My answer is, first, that slavery is the common enemy of mankind, and all mankind should be made acquainted with its abominable character. My next answer is, that the slave is a man, and, as such, is entitled to your sympathy as a brother. All the feelings, all the susceptibilities, all the capacities, which you have, he has. He is a part of the human family. He has been the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... His Book is an inexplicable Enigma, a meer Chimera; It has a Woman's Face, with the Feet and Tail of a Serpent, or some Beast more deform'd. 'Tis a Monstrous Collection of Political and Ingenious Morality, with a Mixture of Beastliness; where 'tis bad 'tis abominable, and fit for the Diversion of the Rabble, and where 'tis good 'tis exquisite, and ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... delivering them to slaughter.(107) They were not accused as idlers, or dishonest, or disorderly; but it was declared that they had an appearance of piety and sanctity that seduced "the sheep of the true fold." Therefore the pope ordered "that malicious and abominable sect of malignants," if they "refuse to abjure, to be crushed like venomous snakes."(108) Did this haughty potentate expect to meet those words again? Did he know that they were registered in the books of heaven, to confront him at the judgment? "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... legibly inscribed on a visible stone inserted above the doorway, a thing altogether as objectionable to the eyes of a Church of England parish clergyman as the imagination of any friend or enemy could devise. We all know the abominable adjuncts of a new building,—the squalid half-used heaps of bad mortar, the eradicated grass, the truculent mud, the scattered brickbats, the remnants of timber, the debris of the workmen's dinners, the morsels of paper scattered through the dirt! ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... harm. This was me told and taught, - In muckle speaking, sinning wanteth nought. Know'st thou for what a tongue that's hasty serveth? Right as a sword forecutteth and forecarveth An arm in two, my dear son, even so A tongue clean-cutteth friendship at a blow. A jangler is to God abominable: Read Solomon, so wise and honourable; Read David in his Psalms, read Seneca; My son, a nod is better than a say; Be deaf, when folk speak matter perilous; Small prate, sound pate,—guardeth the Fleming's house. My son, if thou no wicked word hast spoken, Thou never ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... abominable, but it has certainly fastened itself on us—sternly and securely. And it may be said for the Pullman car that there, at least, the tip comes to a single servitor—the black autocrat who smiles genially no matter how ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. 3. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: 4. Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: 5. Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... do with them. The Chateau is no longer a ruin, however. It was purchased, rebuilt, refitted by the Comtesse Susanne de la Tour, Mr. Cleek, and she and her brother live there. So do we, Athalie, Baron de Carjorac, and I. So, also, does the creature—the thing—the abominable horror known as ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... sisters too, what do you say, now, of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and about five foot seven in height, as set forth in this degrading and disgusting document, this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this abominable advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you crush the viper, who would bring this stain and shame upon the God-like race that happily has cast him out for ever! Yes, my compatriots, happily cast him out and sent him forth! ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... deviseth new punishment in hell for tyrants: nor yet by philosophy, which teacheth "occidentes esse:" but, no doubt, by skill in history; for that, indeed, can afford you Cypselus, Periander, Phalaris, Dionysius, and I know not how many more of the same kennel, that speed well enough in their abominable injustice of usurpation. ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... the noiseless tenor of our way, finding in life if not great and gaudy pleasures, at least content and relief from many of the vexations that gnaw away the lives of the multitude. Though it was acknowledged a long time ago to be—indecorous—an abominable thing for a man to commend his ways; though his mode of living may not commend itself to others; though it may seem blank and colourless, thin and watery, devoid of expectation, and the hope of fame, name, and that kind of success which ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... columns, denominated in marine architecture "Bowsprit Bitts." They were about a foot apart, and between them, by a rusty chain, swung the forecastle lamp, burning day and night, and forever casting two long black shadows. Lower down, between the bitts, was a locker, or sailors' pantry, kept in abominable disorder, and sometimes requiring ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... were glorifying virginity, the Church, bent on governing the body as well as the soul, condemned opinions denying the lawfulness of marriage, which she had constituted a sacrament. Those who would anathematise all works of the flesh she held to be abominable and impious. A maid deserved praise for preserving her virginity, provided always that her motives were praiseworthy. Two hundred years before the reign of Charles VII, a young girl of Reims realised ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... one,... thou lean sow, famine-stricken and most impure,... thou wrinkled beast, thou mangy beast, thou beast of all beasts the most beastly,... thou mad spirit,... thou bestial and foolish drunkard,... most greedy wolf,... most abominable whisperer,... thou sooty spirit from Tartarus!... I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor,... into the infernal kitchen!... Loathsome cobbler,... dingy collier,... filthy sow (scrofa stercorata),... perfidious ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... two or three days. The strange man X enlivened our journey with diabolical songs and with crude wit, which sent his companions into fits of laughter. When they were in a merry mood or excited, I noticed that they paddled along much quicker and better, so I did not try to put a check to the abominable language which would have jarred the feelings of any one not born and bred in ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... strong grounds for revenge on the murdered man. The prosecution, however, was not concerned in defending what the murdered man had done, but in establishing the guilt of the man who had murdered him. Godfrey Mills, had, as could be proved by witnesses, slandered the prisoner in an abominable manner, and the prosecution were not intending for a moment to attempt to establish the truth of his slander. But this slander they put forward as a motive that gave rise to a murderous impulse on the part of the prisoner. The jury would hear from one of ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... Forecasted. For this abominable word we are indebted to the weather bureau—at least it was not sent upon us until that affliction was with us. Let us hope that it may some day be losted from ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... officer. The consul said, Master! I believe the cooper to be a very good quiet man, and I dare say will take it as the men do, but sooner than this be an objection, I will pay the money out of my own pocket. The boatswain then began at me, abusing me in a very scandalous and abominable manner, saying, among other things, that the cooper was got among the rest of the pirates, for so he term'd me and the rest of the officers. When the money was paid, we acquainted the consul, that we had, till now, been separated from the boatswain, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... Brownbies lived, they were not very scrupulous themselves; and it perhaps served them to have within their ken neighbours whose morality was lower even than their own. But to such a one as Harry Heathcote the Brownbies were utterly abominable. He was for the law and justice at any cost. To his thinking, the Colonial Government was grossly at fault, because it did not weed out and extirpate not only the identical Brownbies, but all Brownbieism wherever it might be found. A dishonest ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... had just said, and he began to pray with Gottfried. But blood boiled, and as he repeated the words of servile humility and resignation there was in his inmost heart a feeling of passionate revolt and horror of the abominable thing and the monstrous Being who had been ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... could not command that calmness which was the first essential in such an interview. Besides, he was broken down by anxiety and want of sleep. His sorrow for Beatrice had disturbed all his thoughts. Food and sleep were alike abominable to him. His fine-strung nerves and delicate organization, in which every feeling had been rendered more acute by his mode of life, were of that kind which could feel intensely wherever the affections were concerned. His material frame was too weak for the presence ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... wife of Ahasuerus the abominable. The time had come for her to present a petition to her infamous husband in behalf of the Jewish nation, to which she had once belonged. She was afraid to undertake the work, lest she should lose her own life; ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... up furiously against us with a really devilish force. We even went in fear of our lives, and were often warned by kind-hearted people to turn back, when we were walking towards secluded spots, or had struck along the outlying paths amongst the mountains. To what abominable means this spirit of bigotry resorted, the following example may ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... terrible!"—"How abominable!" were exclamations naturally uttered on every side, and those who, on Matilda's innocent triumph, had in the first instance pressed around her, now withdrew from her side, shrinking as from something monstrous and loathsome in nature; ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... "have you been drinking? Your language to me is abominable. Why I permit myself to remain here ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the verge of deformity, and wearing invariably the abominable smirk that disgusted others but amused ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... to borrow the expression of the Gospellers, the abominable thing was once more set up in England. For the first time for six years, an old priest sang the Latin mass in Saint Bartholomew's Church, to the awakening of such burning indignation on the part of his ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... to sterility and sorrow, unless some potent voice can say to it,thus far shalt thou go, and no farther. Slavery engenders pride and indolence in him who commands, and inflicts intellectual and moral degradation on him who serves. Slavery, in fine, is unchristian and abominable. Sir, I shall not stop to deny that slavery is all this and more; but I shall not think myself the less authorized to deny that it is for you to stay the course of this dark torrent, by opposing to it a mound raised up by the labors of this portentous discretion on the domain of others—a mound ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... through dinner, which I had at a restaurant in Jermyn Street. I was no longer hungry, and let several courses pass untasted. I drank the best part of a bottle of Burgundy, but it did nothing to cheer me. An abominable restlessness had taken possession of me. Here was I, a very ordinary fellow, with no particular brains, and yet I was convinced that somehow I was needed to help this business through—that without me it would all go ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... undertaken a task you are not fit for, sir; to hide a secret you must be able to tell fibs: and you can't: not for want of badness, but cleverness to tell them smoothly; you know it, you know it; and so out of your abominable slyness you won't say a word. There, it is no use my trying to provoke him. I wish you were not so good-tempered; so apathetic I mean, of course." Then, with one of her old rapid transitions, she began to caress him and fawn on him: she seated him in an arm-chair ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... man fell into an indistinguishable heap upon and across the dead figure stretched out upon the floor, while at the same time a pungent and blinding cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the apartment. For a few moments the hands twitched convulsively; the neck stretched itself to an abominable length; the long, lean legs slowly and gradually relaxed, and every fibre of the body gradually collapsed into the lassitude of death. A spot of blood appeared and grew upon the collar at the throat, and in the same degree the color ebbed from ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... exclaimed Riccabocca. "What then? 'Da cattiva Donna guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente,' (from the bad woman, guard thyself; to the good woman, trust nothing.) And if you must trust," added the abominable man, "trust her with any ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... abominable was the way in which the wages of the unfortunate seamen were kept back. On the 7th of October, 1665, he writes: "Did business, though not much, at the office, because of the horrible crowd and lamentable ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... unwise to expend very much upon alterations beyond those of paint and paper. With the prospect of a sale the owner had unwillingly consented to replace the gingerbread porch with one in better style, but refused to do more. The big window, with its abominable topping of cheap coloured glass, was to remain for ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... now accuse him [Godfrey Isaacs] of any abominable business—I mean in relation to obtaining ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... must offer to it all the resistance in my power. But if I despaired of successful resistance, I would certainly remove myself from under such a 'government's' actual authority; that I do not exile myself is a proof that I hope to witness the overthrow, and assist in the overthrow, of the most abominable tyranny the world now groans under—the British Imperial system. To gain permission for the Irish people to care for their own lives, their own happiness and dignity—to abolish the political conditions which compel the classes of our people to hate and to murder ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... nurse of cares, and with the darkness her boldness increases. The first slumbers are now come, in which sleep takes possession of the breast wearied with the cares of the day. She silently enters the chamber of her father, and ({O abominable} crime!) the daughter despoils the father of his fatal lock, and having got the prize of crime, carries with her the spoil of her impiety; and issuing forth by the gate, she goes through the midst of the enemy, (so great is her confidence in her deserts) to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... army—the citizen Rakitnikov belonged to the international group. I affirm that her sincere and matured testimony cannot be suspected of partizanship or of dogmatic partiality against the Bolsheviki, who, as you know, tried to cover their follies and their abominable crimes against the plan of the Russian people, and against all the other Socialist parties, under the lying pretext of internationalist ideas, ideas which they have, in reality, trampled ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... revolutionary committees. Poor liberty, thou art not in this world!... The abuse of power preached and practised by the revolutionaries revolted Christophe and Olivier. They had little regard for the blacklegs who refuse to suffer for the common cause. But it seemed abominable to them that the others should claim the right to use force against them.—And yet it is necessary to take sides. Nowadays the choice in fact lies not between imperialism and liberty, but between one imperialism and ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... impress upon them what you are and who you are, and who your mother was, and what is the end of the base man who imagines lies and the end of all the workers of iniquity. You will ask me to tell them that it is all false, all abominable intrigue and treachery and I shall demand in your name and in my own as your only near relative and a minister of the Gospel, an apology. It is but jealousy, cousin. Forgive me, but you are too beautiful and too young to live alone ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... may become of my bridal trip! I mean to see you safe through this abominable conspiracy—for a conspiracy it certainly is, whoever may be the conspirators!" said Joseph ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... fashions, their language composed of muttering and whistling sounds. By day they prowled around the camp, and fought with the dogs for the offal and the bones. If they found a skin, they roasted it on ashes, and danced around it in glee, wriggling their bodies and uttering abominable cries. When the feast was over, they cowered together on their hams, and fixed their gloating eyes upon the city, and expanded their blubber-lips and showed their white fangs. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... converters marched from province to province till they reached the northern frontier, carrying everywhere the same terror. Metz, where the Protestants were numerous, was particularly the theatre of abominable excesses. Paris and Alsace were alone, to a certain extent, preserved. Louvois did not dare to show such spectacles to the society of Versailles and Paris; the King would not have endured it. The people of Paris demolished the Protestant church of Charenton, an object ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... and came and leaned against a verandah-post beside her with folded arms, looking down. "But that is what you won't see; how should you? You will only see dusty, upstart towns, with horrible corrugated-iron hotels, where you will swelter in heat and flies and eat abominable tinned stuffs. It is a barren, comfortless land at present, with a possibility of being useful some day. They want money, energy, brains to develop it thoroughly; and they won't accept them when they are offered, because a few stiff-necked ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... first, o' th' first: The inward man, And outward, like a clan and clan, Have always been at daggers-drawing, And one another clapper-clawing. 80 Not that they really cuff, or fence, But in a Spiritual Mystick sense; Which to mistake, and make 'em squabble In literal fray's abominable. 'Tis heathenish, in frequent use 85 With Pagans and apostate Jews, To offer sacrifice of bridewells, Like modern Indians to their idols; And mongrel Christians of our times, That expiate less with greater crimes, 90 And call ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... dare put on airs with me, then," she said mutinously. "Now, what ailed them all? It couldn't have been the advent of the Mayos. I've launched more ticklish craft than they. Nor could it have been that abominable Brian Beck, who would spoil Paradise and be the utter ruin of a respectable funeral. Every one seemed to conspire to ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... point, as he instantly recognised, was whether in the changed condition of circumstances Sylvia would consent to marry him. Might she not, after the experiences of that abominable dinner of his the night before, connect him in some way with her poor father's transformation? She might even suspect him of employing this means of compelling the Professor to renew their engagement; and, indeed, Horace was by no means certain himself that the Jinnee might not ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... wondered if, in all our motions, we were betraying the suspicious conduct of the professional embezzler. Perhaps the courteous banker was putting us through some Freudian third degree ... in these days when the workings of the unconscious are so shrewdly canvassed, was there anything abominable in the cellar of our soul which we were giving away without realizing ... had we not thought to ourself, as we entered the door, well, this is a fairly decent cheque to start an account with, but we won't keep our balance anywhere ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... was an abominable invention which Pierre had taught his comrades. A cow was tied to a stake, and a huge ship's lantern fastened to its horns. This the animal tossed about in the hope of disengaging himself, and in so doing presented ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... believe this, for although it was too dark in this narrow lane to see anything, the abominable odour of the place told me pretty well what its condition must be. We plodded on for nearly ten minutes, winding hither and thither, and penetrating deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of dark, crooked lanes, but gradually ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... afternoon. The custom that the cockpit brings to the shop more than repays the proprietor for the expense and trouble of keeping it. In Cuba, the spurs of the cock are artificially pointed by paring with a penknife, but the Mexican way of arming them is even more abominable. ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... King and Court were never in the world so bad as they are now for gaming, swearing, whoring, and drinking, and the most abominable vices that ever were in the world; so that all must come to nought. He told me that Sir G. Carteret was at this end of the town; so I went to visit him in Broad Street; and there he and I together: ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... an extravagance, such an ungainly absurdity, (oh, I shall abuse it just as I shall choose!) can it be 'to your surprise?' can it? Ought you to say such things, when in the first place they are unfit in themselves and inapplicable, and in the second place, abominable in my eyes? The qualification for Hanwell Asylum is different peradventure from what you take it to be—we had better not examine it too nearly. You never will say such words again? It is your promise to me? Not those words—and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... I. Chap. V. Sec. 12 (note,) with the simple ugliness of idiotic distortion in the meaningless terrorless monsters of Bronzino in the large picture of the Uffizii, where the painter, utterly uninventive, having assembled all that is abominable of hanging flesh, bony limbs, crane necks, staring eyes, and straggling hair, cannot yet by the sum and substance of all obtain as much real fearfulness as an imaginative painter could throw into the turn of a lip or the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... fifteen years, was permitted to be more plain-spoken and ruder than her sisters; "I hate to hear you telling of doing everything you like with such enjoyment. I think, if you had been a man, you would have been an abominable fellow, and you are only harmless ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... pricked through the very reins and kidneys with that skewer. Alas! he is my goad, my thorn in the flesh, the messenger of satan sent to buffet me. He is the mosquitto that stings my knuckles; the little, black, abominable fly that will insist to assail my nose; he is my bruise, my blain, my blister, my settled, ceaseless source of irritation: the cause, the cause—of what is he the cause? Alas! that I should ever have been the cause of such a foul effect! But let it be so; the whitest skins have moles, the sun ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... genius,—but a genius that ever needed the hand of a master to guide its efforts. Without this, she could do nothing: and Samson was forever behind her, directing her steps. Mme. Allan, who weighed almost three hundred pounds and had an abominable voice, was infinitely her superior in the power of creating a part. But Rachel had the voice of an angel. In the expression of disdain or terror she was unapproachable. In the softer passions she was feeble. We all looked upon her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... eligible spot some fifty yards nearer, we stole along to reach it. We were not, however, destined to take this unfair advantage of the enemy. Just as we had half crossed the distance, an ill-fated, abominable little fragment of rock suddenly broke off, and at its first bound away went the herd like lightning over the precipitous rocks, and with a little chirrupping noise like sparrows, were in a few seconds well out of range of bullets. As the ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... procession it was, with such heads as are seen on meerschaum pipes, and profiles instinct with hatred and suffering. There was the head master, who ruined himself in giving parties, in order to marry his daughters—two tall, elegant girls, the butt of constant and abominable insults, written and sketched on every wall; there was the comptroller Pifard, whose wonderful nose betrayed his presence behind every door, when he went eavesdropping; and there were all the teachers, each befouled ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... there was a brisk passage of arms between the two men of opposite party in the group by the fire, and Mrs. Cricklander incited them to further exertions. It had arisen because Mr. Derringham had launched forth the abominable and preposterous theory that the only thing the Radicals would bring England to would be the necessity of returning to barbarism and importing slaves—then their schemes applied to the present inhabitants of the country might all work. The denizens in the casual wards, having a vote ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... mortified, in Fear for our human Sufficiency, compar'd with our Aptness to blunder! For, here, 'tis plain, this Director of Another's Discernment is quite blind, Himself, to an Elegance,} one wou'd have thought it impossible not to be struck by?—-Faulty, wicked, abominable, scandalous, (which are the angry Adjectives, he prefers to that sweet one) wou'd have carried Marks of her Rage, not Affliction—whereas naughty contains, in One single significant Petulance, [5th: "a Variety of"] {twenty thousand} inexpressible Delicacies!—-It insinuates, ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... throwing down shawls and scarves, bareheaded, I went into the garden in the rain and wind repeating gently "I am going to be cured, I shall have no more neuritis, it is going away, it will not come back, etc. . . ." The next day I was cured and never any more since have I suffered from this abominable complaint, which did not allow me to take a step out of doors and made life unbearable. It was an immense joy. The incredulous will say: "It was all nervous." Obviously, and I give them this first point. But, delighted with the result, I tried the Coue Method for an oedema of the ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... the noise, the dust, the braying of an abominable band, the overwhelming smell of lamp-oil, and the clatter, not only of heavy walking-boots, but even of several pairs of sabots upon an uneven floor of loosely-joined planks—ma tante, being disposed of in a safe corner, went ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... and with these words attention won. Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers, 460 For in possession such, not onely of right, I call ye and declare ye now, returnd Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth Triumphant out of this infernal Pit Abominable, accurst, the house of woe, And Dungeon of our Tyrant: Now possess, As Lords, a spacious World, to our native Heaven Little inferiour, by my adventure hard With peril great atchiev'd. Long were to tell What I have don, what sufferd, with what paine 470 Voyag'd the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... would have felt himself an awful owl were he to say it, but it somehow suited the tall, pink boy, and did not sound one particle "dudish," or offensive, and during the ten-mile drive across the Kamloops Hills Banty decided that Con was a first-rate fellow, notwithstanding his abominable clothes and "swagger" English accent. At the ranch house door they were greeted by Banty's parents and a couple of range riders, and Eena, who, Indian-like, never revealed the fact by word or look that he had observed the patent leather shoes, and the wonderful high collar; ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... requested permission to mention to his lordship that his young friend had made a particular branch of theology his study, of which he thought it his duty to acquaint his lordship. In these days of doubt, rank infidelity, and abominable schism, the danger of the church was felt by every good and pious divine; and her most active defenders were her best friends. His lordship would therefore perhaps be glad to hear that Mr. Trevor had particularly ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Jones, and Jones is not present, she assumes a tone of injured asperity on his account towards Brown or Smith, or any other innocent person whom she happens to be addressing. "Now, this is really too bad, Hubert," she burst out, as if I were the culprit. "Disgraceful! Abominable! I'm sure I can't make out what the young fellow means by it. Here he comes dangling after Daphne every day and all day long—and never once says whether he means anything by it or not. In MY young days, such conduct as that would ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... could find food where the vegetation is luxuriant. I think it is artificial to live in a place where one's own skin is not sufficient protection against the weather. I think the whole organization of everything is abominable and I don't believe it is a necessary stage of development. Most ordinary lives are the quintessence of artificiality and the grossest waste of time. I am more than ever against the 'me' in myself. It is the source ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... to know better than to play the tragic-sentimental with me at his time of life! I thought he would accept the situation reasonably and help me to tackle it. Of course it will be simply abominable if I am to meet that girl at every big society function—I don't know what I shall do about it! Why didn't she stay in her old farm-house!—who could ever have imagined her becoming famous! I shall go abroad, I think— that will be the best thing to do. If Blythe leaves me as ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... "Some abominable job!" I exclaimed, stamping with rage. "It's too bad, after all I have gone through, to deprive me of the credit I ought to have gained. ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... baptism as "an abominable idolatry." He taught: Children are incapable of making the public confession required by Baptism; there is no Scriptural reason for infant baptism; it robs us of the true baptism, since people believe ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... burst out crying. The memory of the events of that morning and of her trip to the pawn-place tore from her the sobs that had been choking her throat. That abominable trip to the pawn-place was the thing that hurt most in all her sorrow and despair. Tears were streaming down her face but she didn't think ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... associate with the highest ministers of the law, the Roman judices were often canvassed, bribed, or intimidated. So flagitious had the practice become, that Cicero mentions a whole bench having been induced by indulgences of the most abominable kind to acquit Clodius, though manifestly guilty. We know also that Pompey and Antony resorted to the practice of packing the forum with hired troops and assassins; and we learn from Cicero that it was the usual plan for provincial governors to extort enough not ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... Henry the Eighth's time, but long before, to judge them rightly. There are weak and foolish people, at present, urged on by designing men, who wish for their restoration, and have actually established not a few of these abominable institutions in our free England, where girls are incarcerated and strictly kept from communicating with their friends, and where foolish youths play the part of the monks of the dark ages. I am not afraid ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... more interesting mildness of manners, a greater brilliancy of coloring, more simple delineations, greater exactness of proportion, or more antique simplicity in general, notwithstanding the horror of the subject which in itself is abominable, so that besides every other merit I had still that of a difficulty conquered. If the Levite of Ephraim be not the best of my works, it will ever be that most esteemed. I have never read, nor shall I ever read it again without feeling interiorly the applause of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them; when, indeed, only ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... case of attempted Slave-catching at Wilkesbarre, in Pennsylvania, the Deputy Marshal, Wyncoop and his assistants, had behaved with such atrocious and abominable cruelty, that the citizens felt that justice demanded their punishment for the outrage. They were, accordingly, arrested on a warrant issued by a most respectable magistrate, on the oath of one of the principal inhabitants of the place. A writ of habeas ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a long letter? But 'tis nothing to what I shall have to say to you. I shall scold you for never telling us any news, public or private, no deaths, marriages, or mishaps; no account of new books: Oh, you are abominable! I could find it in my heart to hate you, if I did not love you so well; but we will quarrel now, that we may be the better friends when we meet: there is no danger of that, is there? Good-night, whether friend or foe! I am ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... plagues deviseth new punishments in hell for tyrants: nor yet by philosophy, which teacheth occidendos esse: but no doubt by skill in history: for that indeed can afford your Cypselus, Periander, Phalaris, Dionysius, and I know not how many more of the same kennel, that speed well enough in their abominable unjustice or usurpation. I conclude therefore that he excelleth history, not only in furnishing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it forward, to that which deserveth to be called and accounted good: which setting forward, and moving to well-doing, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... it, otherwise the negro sovereigns of Sudan will never be induced to relinquish so great a source of profit. Every naval officer in His Majesty's service knows, that if we were to have thirty sail of the line continually off the coast of Guinea, it would not be sufficient to annihilate this abominable traffic, or to deter people from embarking in a trade that yields such extraordinary profits. This being admitted, as it certainly will be by every intelligent man, it follows, that the system now in operation by the British government for the abolition of the slave-trade, will be attended ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... sacraments and grace and indulgences of the church to aid you. You had the minister of God to preach to you, to call you back when you had strayed, to forgive you your sins, no matter how many, how abominable, if only you had confessed and repented. No. You would not. You flouted the ministers of holy religion, you turned your back on the confessional, you wallowed deeper and deeper in the mire of sin. God appealed to you, threatened ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... The honest burgomaster, however, was nearly frightened into a fit of apoplexy at seeing the man whose death he had sincerely mourned standing alive and well at the door of his studio. Meinherr Six obliged him to promise that he would in future abstain from such abominable deceptions. One day he was employed in painting in a group the likenesses of the whole family of a rich citizen. He had nearly finished it, when intelligence was brought him of the death of a tame ape which he greatly loved. The creature had fallen ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... station to new Merv is not great. But what an abominable dust! The commercial town is built on the left of the river—a town in the American style, which would please Ephrinell, wide streets straight as a line crossing at right angles; straight boulevards with rows of trees; much bustle and movement among the merchants in Oriental costume, in ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... If, for instance, I were obliged to live with M. Ramon, that abominable griping miser, I should certainly ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... and what do you see? Enter the priest, the peasant, and the housewife, and in a moment empty a sack into the caldron. Lo! a head rolls out, dives into the water, and floats to the surface, now showing its nape and now its face. The Lord help us! It is an abominable spectacle; this poor head, with its ashy, open lips, seems to say, Give me again my Christian burial! That is enough. Only take note that in Tuscany, in the beautiful middle of the nineteenth century, a sepulchre was violated, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... further, are you Christians in heart and affection? S. Paul says that in his time there were some who were Christians in profession, that is, in understanding, and there their Christianity came to an end. "They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." Is it in ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... abominable selfishness that I thought I had left at my Master's feet ten minutes before now came trooping back in ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... disappointment, and weary from a long railway journey, to spell through the rhythm of the My Queen Waltz and the jangle of L'Esprit Francais was to her an odious and, when the object of it was considered, an abominable duty to perform. She had to keep her whole attention fixed on the page before her, but when she raised her eyes the picture she saw engraved itself on her mind. It was a long time before she could forget Olive's blond, cameo-like profile seen leaning over the old beau's ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... ejaculated, as I entered the pokey little place and got my first whiff of its close, reeking, smoke-laden atmosphere; "put out that abominable lamp and light a candle or two, somebody, for pity's sake. How the dickens you fellows can manage to breathe down here I can't understand. And, boy," to the messenger outside, "pass the word for Cupid to bring us along some cocoa from ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... covered me in my ways. First I went to London, to a physician of our people, who sold me certain drugs that I needed. You shall see why. Thence I went swiftly to Pevensey. Men fought all around me, for there were neither rulers nor judges in the abominable land. Yet when I walked by them they cried out that I was one Ahasuerus, a Jew, condemned, as they believe, to live for ever, and they fled from me everyways. Thus the Lord saved me for my work, and at Pevensey ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... private enemy, who boldly invaded the solitude of the palace. Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a vile habit, and loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat to the Imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes of his abominable reign. "Wilt thou govern better?" were the last words of the despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of insult and torture, his head was severed from his body, the mangled trunk was cast into the flames, and the same treatment was inflicted on the statues of the vain usurper, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... 'That abominable habit of drinking!' added Mr. Whiston austerely. He himself had quaffed water, as always. 'Their ale, indeed! See the coarse, gross creatures ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... of God, were consumed for their wickednesse with Fire and Brimstone, and together with them the countrey about made a stinking bituminous Lake; the place of the Damned is sometimes expressed by Fire, and a Fiery Lake: as in the Apocalypse ch.21.8. "But the timorous, incredulous, and abominable, and Murderers, and Whoremongers, and Sorcerers, and Idolators, and all Lyars, shall have their part in the Lake that burneth with Fire, and Brimstone; which is the second Death." So that it is manifest, that Hell Fire, which is here expressed by Metaphor, from the reall Fire of Sodome, signifieth ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... measure," exclaimed our friend, in an exceedingly vexed tone. "So much as I had hoped from the boy,—that he, too, could not keep from the silly snare! It is shameful, abominable;—she is always in my way, upsetting all my plans, interfering with everything I undertake. Would you believe it? at the death of one of her sisters, the fools were not content with giving her a funeral good enough for a man, but they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... the troupe should be in Cologne. There was no doubt of it—I saw it in the smile that permeated his face and the bow that bent his back as the man passed him. This kind of petty bribery is, of course, abominable, and should ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith |
