"Flay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Etas is to kill and flay horses, oxen, and other beasts, to stretch drums and make shoes; and if they are very poor, they wander from house to house, working as cobblers, mending old shoes and leather, and so earn a scanty livelihood. Besides this, their daughters and young married ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... precious girl! Can you not see? You will come into focus. You, my love, my wife, but, nevertheless, a woman! a trained nurse! Hapgood would flay you alive, not because he has anything against you, but professional honour and discipline would be at stake. Between such a man as Hapgood and—Priscilla Glynn—oh! can you not ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... Al-Mutanabbi for me,—neither of us could forego his hobby,—and Im-Hanna, affectionate, devoted as our mothers,—these were the joys of our Saturday nights in our underground diggings. We were absolutely happy. And we never tried to measure our happiness in those days, or gauge it, or flay it to see if it be dead or alive, false or real. Ah, the blessedness of that supreme unconsciousness which wrapped us as a mother would her babe, warming and caressing our hearts. We did not know then that happiness was a thing to be sought. We ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the fierce heads whereof retained life enough to seize and devour that which was near them. There were some who, half hanging down, agonized themselves by attempting, with their upper limbs, to flay the lower moiety of their bodies, which drooped from the columns, or were attached to the pedestals; and others, who, in their fight with each other, were dragged along by morsels of flesh,—grasping ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... satirise a scribbler? He seems to go out of his way to do so; for verse has naturally better associations. But the personal aggression on the wit by the dunce, may fairly instigate the wit to flay the dunce. Now he finds the object of his satire in the way. The fact is, that Dryden's poem and Pope's were both moved in this way. The grew out of personal quarrels. Are they on that account to be blamed? Not if the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... whipped out her hunting knife and was proceeding to flay the carcass, when she was attracted by a low rumbling sound which shook the earth, and looking up the steep bluff at the foot of which she stood, saw a herd which must have contained ten thousand bison, plunging madly down ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... himself say, that we should never strike our unnecessary blow at a victim over whom providence holds the scourge of its resentment.'—'You are right, Sophy,' cried my son Moses, 'and one of the ancients finely represents so malicious a conduct, by the attempts of a rustic to flay Marsyas, whose skin, the fable tells us, had been wholly stript off by another.' Besides, I don't know if this poor man's situation be so bad as my father would represent it. We are not to judge of the feelings of others by what we might feel if in their place. However ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... the merciless heretic slays, Yet some that have laboured to land with their treasure are trustful, and give God praise. And the kernes of murderous Ireland, athirst with a greed everlasting of blood, Unslakable ever with slaughter and spoil, rage down as a ravening flood, To slay and to flay of their shining apparel their brethren whom shipwreck spares; Such faith and such mercy, such love and such manhood, such hands and such hearts are theirs. Short shrift to her foes gives England, but shorter doth Ireland to friends; and worse Fare they that ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... geht nit unter." But he is brought gradually to the realisation that something is amiss. Can it be that the vice crusaders have been at work? Have the militant moralists and the professional women hunters, in their heated yearnings to flay the transgressor, fallen foul ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... then Phoebus said, 'That you, a little child, born yesterday, 540 A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed, Could two prodigious heifers ever flay? Even I myself may well hereafter dread Your prowess, offspring of Cyllenian May, When you grow strong and tall.'—He spoke, and bound 545 Stiff withy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... be of great authoritie: close with him, giue him Gold; and though Authoritie be a stubborne Beare, yet hee is oft led by the Nose with Gold: shew the in-side of your Purse to the out-side of his hand, and no more adoe. Remember ston'd, and flay'd aliue ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... and grief unending and pitiless pain and misery. Their life shall be as bitter to them as my death has been to me. Their music shall fill the world with sweetness and ravish the ears of listening nations, but to them it shall bring no joy; for life like a cruel blade shall flay and lay bare their hearts, and sorrow like a searching wind shall play upon their souls and make them tremble, even as the scabbard of my body trembled in the breeze; and just as from that trembling husk of what was once myself there came forth sweet sounds, so shall it be with their souls, shivering ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... I'll be late for trigonometry, but I don't know when I've had such a tidy little fight with a girl, and I don't enjoy feeling that I have been worsted. I propose another session. May I come out to Lilac Valley Saturday afternoon and flay you alive to pay up ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... them secretly be assured that no consideration should induce him to abandon them on their trial, and that he would grasp the first opportunity of being revenged on his and their enemies—"for there were some among them whom he would flay alive; whom he would never spare for all the gold in the land." Northumberland was then sworn to the observance of the conditions. He took his oath on the host; and, "like Judas," says the writer, "perjured himself on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and I am fair ashamed. While the fighting kept to the North it did not grind so keen; but now, with the redcoats at our doors, and the Tories sacking and burning in every settlement, 'tis enough to flay an honest man alive. God-a-mercy, Jack! I'll go; I've got to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Paul, substituted for Saint Matthias, chosen to succeed Judas; he carried a sword; Saint John, bearing his Gospel; Saint James the Great, with a sword; Saint James the Less, with a fuller's club; Saint Bartholomew, with the knife that served to flay him, and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... tongue to say, "I do not know." Hospitality is an expression of Divine worship. Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend; be discreet. Attend no auctions if thou hast no money. Rather flay a carcass, than be idly dependent on charity. The place honors not the man, 'tis the man who gives honor to the place. Drain not the waters of thy well while other people may desire them. The rose grows among thorns. Two pieces of ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Berry bitterly. "Or would you rather gouge out my eyes? Will you flay me alive? Because if so, I'll go and get the knives and things. What about after tea? Or would you ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... (comes from the hall with a large sword). See, here's a real good wolf's-tooth to flay the blood-suckers' lackeys with! ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... guard then against Assyria," continued the Chaldean, "for her hour is the present. The Assyrians are a dreadful people! They despise labor, they live by war. They conquer, they impale on stakes or flay living people, they destroy captured cities and lead away their inhabitants to bondage. For them to kill savage beasts is repose; to pierce prisoners with arrows or scoop out their eyes is amusement. Temples they turn into ruins, the vessels of the gods they use at their banquets, and make ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... daily almost merciless fights for existence. These death-struggles occur not only in the daytime, but in the night. Mice, rats, and rabbits destroy millions of young trees. These bold animals often flay baby trees in the daylight, and while at their deadly feast many a time have they been surprised by hawks, and then they are at a banquet where they themselves are eaten. The owl, the faithful nightwatchman of trees, often swoops down at ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... greater esteem with the King than before, and Red was all the more discontented. One day he came to the King and said, 'If Ring is such a mighty man, I think you might ask him to kill the wild oxen in the wood here, and flay them the same day, and bring you the horns and the hides in ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... Fatal Maryage, MS. play Father-in-law Feare no colours Feeres Felt locks Feltham's Resolves Fend ( make shift with) Fins (a very doubtful correction for sins) Fisguigge Flat cap Flea ( flay) Fletcher, John, MS. copy of his Elder Brother; his share in the authorship of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt Flewd Fly boat (see Addenda to vol. i.) Fool (play on the words fool and fowl) Fooles paradysse For I did but ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... when I come into my kingdom I'll devise a worse punishment than physical pain. A soul is an immaterial thing. You cannot flay it with aspic's fangs nor kerosene it and set it on fire. A material hell for immaterial mind were too ridiculous for a progressive devil. But it is not necessary to be a son of Satan to build a hell in which demons dance and sulphur-fumes asphyxiate the soul. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and dead, they've summoned (With Hell to aid, that hears them pray) New legions of an army dread, Now down the blue sky flames the day; The dew dies off; the foul array Of obscene ravens gathers and goes, With wings that flap and beaks that flay: This is King Louis' ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... Granite says? He forbids our union. If I married you without his consent, he would flay me alive, dip me in boiling oil and read me aloud his History of Renaissance Morals. So I'm afraid ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... in an Englishman's heart to give in without a fight," he said gruffly, "and I'm not in the habit of asking any man's advice about my own business, but from what this man says that —— villain over yonder can flay us to pieces at his pleasure and we can't touch him;" and he ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... ruffianly way of being insolent to her mistress. Then, violently ringing a bell which stood on the table, he summoned a negro lad into the room, and at once despatched him to a neighbour's house to borrow a new raw-hide whip, threatening all the while to flay her alive. In vain the terrified creature pleaded innocence; he would take no excuse, and, although I begged earnestly for him to pass over the offence, and the poor slave fell on her knees in the greatest terror, he vowed ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... that the memory of Cressingham was so odious to the Scots, they did indeed flay his dead body, and made saddles and girths and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... care to swim back, for the excitement was out of him. He was trembling with cold, and afraid of cramp. "A mother-naked man," in a wilderness, with a flood between him and his raiment, was in a pitiable position. It did not occur to him to flay the stag, and dress in the hide, and, indeed, he would have been frozen before he could have accomplished that ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... one who will pay him, and do not you fear! In this you must please Jurand. It is his affair and not yours. Jurand may do it, but you must not; he did not capture him but will receive him as a present from you; he can even flay him alive and none will blame him for it. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... dear, I do not understand Why ever you are injuring that hatchet in your hand?' He said, "It is intended for to lacerate and flay The neck of that unmitigated ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the tree, Alive, sir, flay me, if I did not see You on the verdant lawn my lady lay, And kiss, and toy, and ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... the poet, there is a far deeper subject for reflection in revolutions, these tempests of the social atmosphere which drench the earth with blood, and crush an entire generation of men, than in those upheavals of nature which deluge a harvest, or flay the vineyards with hail—that is to say, the fruits of a single harvest, wreaking an injury, which can at the worst be repaired the ensuing year; unless the Lord be ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... pretty head, as much as to say Latin was beyond her; and he was kind enough to translate. "It is the part of a good shepherd to shear, not flay, the sheep." ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... The bulls and rams all pure, We proceed to the winter and autumnal sacrifices. Some flay (the victims); some cook (their flesh); Some arrange (the meat); some adjust (the pieces of it). The officer of prayer sacrifices inside the temple gate[1], And all the sacrificial service is complete and brilliant. Grandly ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... much increased by his domestics, who told us of many of his cruelties. This is certain, that some time before, he had used some poor pagan merchants in that manner, and had caused the executioner to begin to flay them, when some Brahmin, touched with compassion, generously contributed the sum demanded for their ransom. We had no reason to hope for so much kindness, and, having nothing of our own, could ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... lack, they say, the vital heat, By age extreme become effete. Drawn from a living wolf, the hide Should warm and smoking be applied. Sir Wolf, here, won't refuse to give His hide to cure you, as I live." The king was pleased with this advice. Flay'd, jointed, served up in a trice, Sir Wolf first wrapped the monarch up, Then furnish'd him whereon ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... python. Not so bad for one night's work, is it? And I came in, Sir Reginald, at the professor's request, to suggest that we should move the ship over to the lake forthwith, to give you all a chance to see the beasts before we start to flay them, and also to place them under the protection of the ship, so to speak. For now that we have them, the professor is afraid to take his eyes off them for a moment lest something should get at them and spoil ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... curious to know how they had attained such success with such scanty means. They gave him to understand that they had chased the buffalo at full speed, until they tired them down, when they easily dispatched them with the spear, and made use of the same weapon to flay the carcasses. To carry through their lessons to their Christian friends, the poor savages were as charitable as they had been pious, and generously shared with them the spoils of their hunting, giving them food enough to ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... how much heavier the work. To water the horses and fetter them for the night, to pitch the tent, build zarebas, watch during the journey that none of the supplies and packets with things were lost, to flay and dress the slain animals, all this for want of the young negro was to fall upon him and he admitted in his soul that as to some of these employments, flaying the hides of animals, for instance, he did not have ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... difficulties you would meet with. You would begin by looking for a lot of leather. Imagine yourself setting off to South America, for example, to get leather; beginning at the very beginning by setting to work to kill and flay a herd of cattle. You find at once you are interrupted. Along comes your first obstacle in the shape of a man who tells you the cattle and the leather belong to him. You explain that the leather is wanted for people who have no decent boots ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... talk!" cries Lyashkevsky in indignation, angrily wrapping his dressing gown round him. "Supposing he has no job and no trade, why doesn't he work in his own home, the devil flay him! I say! Is there no work for you at home? Just look, you brute! Your steps have come to pieces, the plankway is falling into the ditch, the fence is rotten; you had better set to and mend it all, or if ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cried the old man. 'He lets Jack ride him to the water. Here, Jack! Get thee upon the hog-back of Beelzebub, and mind the bristles do not flay thee, and let master Richard see what ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... head alone could not have produced this state of things; it was rather over-excitement, added to some great mental shock, the nature of which he could not divine, the doctor said to Tom, who in his wrath at Peterkin was ready to flay him alive, or at least to ride him on a rail ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... an apoplectick hue; His cheeks turn'd purple, and his nose turn'd blue; He swore with this mock Saint he'd soon be even;— He'd have him flay'd, like Saint Bartholomew;— And, now again, he'd ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... nor ha' me mun" he said, "aw'm nut ovver handsome aw know, but ther's nowt abaght me to flay onybody." ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... what shining fetters, gilded miseries, and painted happiness thrones and sceptres were there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of them; there would be more principalities than princes; for a prince is the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots." A man may milk a beast till the blood come; churn milk and it ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... with the human body it had caused gangrenous spots and sores. Some persons had both their hands swelled, and one his face, in consequence of the blood coming upon it. Many people had lost their lives by the disease, insomuch that nobody would now venture to flay any more of the cattle, but contrived ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... tigerish look upon me and tried out the whip. His muscles swelled when he drew back his arms, and made the whip hiss through the air. I was bound like Marsyas while Apollo was getting ready to flay me. ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... then, Mr. P., any person's works whose sacrifice you may require. I will cut him up, sir; I will flay him—flagellate him—finish him! You had better not send me (unless you have a private grudge against the authors, when I am of course at your service)—you had better not send me any works of real merit; for I am infallibly prepared to show that there is not any merit in them. I have not been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... where the fine snow drives and drifts so terribly. In such a place the best of men have little chance when it is very cold and the storm lasts. And, if you recall it, the nor'wester was blowing for three days on end, stiff enough-to flay you." ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... Nazarene." Whereupon all present, gentle and simple, wondered at the King's skill in hitting upon the truth by geomancy, and said, "Verily this King is a diviner, whose like there is not in the world." Thereupon Queen Zumurrud bade flay the Nazarene and stuff his skin with straw and hang it over the gate of the race-course. Moreover, she commended to dig a pit without the city and burn therein his flesh and bones and throw over his ashes offal and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... be a regular keen hunter," observed Martin. "I dare say old Bone has taught him to flay an animal. However I'll go and help him, for it's a real good skin." So saying, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... begun: "P'rhaps, Master Razor rogue, to you 'tis fun, That people flay themselves out of their lives: You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing, Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing, With razors just like oyster knives. Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave, To cry up razors ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... veins on his forehead and neck stood out like cords. "You are mad, I tell you. I won't allow it. The purse is here! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... important business in hand, I'd stop and flay you for your insolence," his snarl said. "I'll do it now, if ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... reflections that must have been raised by the perusal of this letter upon thy yet unclosed eyelet-holes? Will not some serious thoughts mingle with thy melilot, and tear off the callus of thy mind, as that may flay the leather from thy back, and as thy epispastics may strip the parchment from thy plotting head? If not, then indeed is thy conscience seared, and no hopes will ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... prospect of gardens, woods, and meadows. Its territory extends above twenty leagues in length, and grazes a great number of wild bulls and cows. In this village scarce dwell any others than hunters and butchers, who flay the beasts that are killed. These are for the most part a mongrel sort of people; some of which are born of white European people and negroes, and called mulattoes: others of Indians and white people, and termed mesticos: but others come of negroes and Indians, and are called ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... he was convinced the poor beast had run many long miles, until, in fact, wholly exhausted, before the panther had finished the work of the huntsman. This circumstance removing his uneasiness, he helped himself to the choicest portion of the animal, amputated a hind leg without stopping to flay it, and clapping this upon his shoulder in a very business-like way, left the remainder of the carcass to be despatched by ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... Yours excel them in space and altitude; your ornaments are equally chaste and beautiful, with more variety and invention, more airiness and light. But why, among the Loves and Graces, does Apollo flay Marsyas?—and why may not the tiara still cover the ears of Midas? Cannot you, who detest kings and courtiers, keep away from them? If I must be with them, let me be in good humour and good spirits. If ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... is that Mrs. McKay used no such stately language. No doubt she walked up to Brown, shook her finger in his face, and exclaimed, "You miserable villain! I can't get at you now; but if the day ever comes, I'll flay you alive for the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... had the heart to wing a partridge,—to "wing it," a pretty phrase in the mouth of a polite sportsman, who, if a poacher were to break the bones of his leg, would, in his own case, think it a little different. Yes, Dewhurst might have been supposed to be able to "wing a partridge,"—not to "flay a gull." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... wooden cloak, all made of strips of lath; that you must put on, and go up to the castle and say your name is "Katie Woodencloak", and ask for a place. But before you go, you must take your penknife and cut my head off, and then you must flay me, and roll up the hide, and lay it under the wall of rock yonder, and under the hide you must lay the copper leaf, and the silver leaf, and the golden apple. Yonder, up against the rock, stands a stick; and when you want anything, you've only got to knock ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... (cover) &c 223; denude, bare, strip; disfurnish^; undress, disrobe &c (dress, enrobe) &c 225; uncoif^; dismantle; put off, take off, cast off; doff; peel, pare, decorticate, excoriate, skin, scalp, flay; expose, lay open; exfoliate, molt, mew; cast the skin. Adj. divested &c v.; bare, naked, nude; undressed, undraped; denuded; exposed; in dishabille; bald, threadbare, ragged, callow, roofless. in a state of nature, in nature's garb, in the buff, in native buff, in birthday suit; in puris naturalibus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... we circumvented the peril, and came upon the river flowing fair and free. The trappers said adieu, and launched us. Back then they went to consult their traps and flay their fragrant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... out of here, Mariano; I'm tired of it, I'm dying. This life is killing me. My husband! He doesn't count. My friends! Fools that flay me as soon as I leave them. The doctor! as untrustworthy as a weathercock. All those men in my coterie, idiots. Master, have pity on me. Take me far away from here. You must know some other ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to the stables and tell every man there that if either of them allows a horse to be brought out for the use of Miss Black to-day. I'll flay them alive and break every bone in their skins. ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... I thank thee, friend Gregory. Thou art a true man. I will so belabour and flay any of the cyder-blooded rascals, an thy bitch shall hold him; 'twill do a man ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... "Flay me!" I ordered. "I should be torn raw from neck to hips. The worse I am scored and ripped the more protection the scars will be. Lay on furiously. If I faint, finish the job before you ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... was blooming here and there. He broke off a stalk and stuck it in his hat; he determined to be merry and of good cheer, for he was going into the wide world—"a little way outside the door, in front of the hay," as the young eels had said. "Beware of bad people, who will catch you and flay you, cut you in two, and put you in the frying-pan!" he repeated in his mind, and smiled, for he thought he should find his way through the world—good courage is a ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... lost a vote—I put it to you plainly—or the shadow of a vote by an occasional resort to spectacular advertising? It pays to advertise in politics, we all know that!—but it was honest advertising since I never failed to deliver the goods. I started out to prove my strength and to flay my opponents, and you tell me, you group of black-coated conservatives, that I make myself ridiculous because I strike an attitude. The people laughed—but, by George, they laughed with me! Oh, I know you think ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... with his hands closed and full of blood; if he did not rip open pregnant women, like Caesar Borgia, Duke of Valentinois; if he did not scourge women on the breasts, testibusque viros, like Ferdinand of Toledo; if he did not break on the wheel alive, burn alive, boil alive, flay alive, crucify, impale, and quarter, blame him not, the fault was not his; the age obstinately refuses to allow it. He has done all that was humanly or inhumanly possible. Given the nineteenth century, a century of ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... is added in this connection, it is sadly eloquent! The poor whom she visited were basely ungrateful for her doles, and when she approached empty-handed, took the occasion to pay a visit to a neighbour's back yard, leaving her to flay her knuckles on ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Mrs. Kobbe tried to flay out those locks to their former attitude with the hotel brush and comb, which ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... so much as got any food, except fish and turtles; and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I must have perished first: that I should have lived, if I had not perished, like a mere savage: that if I had killed a goat or a fowl by any contrivance, I had no way to flay or open them, or part the flesh from the skin and the bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth, and pull it with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Padella, who was now perfectly LIVID with rage. "Do they indeed? So much the worse for Bulbo. I've twenty sons as lovely each as Bulbo. Not one but is as fit to reign as Bulbo. Whip, whack, flog, starve, rack, punish, torture Bulbo—break all his bones—roast him or flay him alive—pull all his pretty teeth out one by one! But justly dear as Bulbo is to me,—joy of my eyes, fond treasure of my soul!—Ha, ha, ha, ha! revenge is dearer still. Ho! tortures, rack-men, executioners—light ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... punished the King for the caprice he took into his head, by making him first the judge of his brother, and afterwards the executioner of his children. But as I have wished only to shear and not to flay you, I desire now that all the poison may turn into sweetmeats for you. Therefore, go, take again your children and my grandchildren, who are more beautiful than ever. And you, Milluccio, embrace me. I receive you as my son-in-law ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... she had made with great care and cost, it is easy to imagine her vexation and rage. She raised a storm of thunder and lightning that lasted eight hundred and four years; and having conjured up an army of two thousand devils, she ordered them to flay the elephant alive, and dress it for her supper with anchovy sauce. Nothing could have saved the poor beast, if, struggling to get loose from the chimney, he had not happily broken wind, which it seems is a great preservative against devils. They all flew a thousand ways, and in their ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... front door and ring the bell," suggested George promptly. "Say we are benighted travellers and have lost our way. The bonde can but flay us. The operation, I believe, is painful, but it ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... devils in hell!' cried I, 'it shall be I who will pay. I would sooner cut my hand off than flay people.' ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... meeting her in a hallway where he had no business to be, and trying to look as if he had not known she was coming. "Father Feeny was in this morning and I tackled him. He's got a lot of students—fellows studying for the priesthood—and he says any daughter of the church shall have skin if he has to flay 'em alive." ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... th' street he langed to goa up to owd Molly's agean, but thowts o'th' neet afoor kept him back, and varry weel it wor soa, for Jim o' Long wor dooin his best to flay th' owd woman woll shoo'd be glad to have him and shut up th' wisht shop,—an' be shot he managed, for shoo promised shoo'd wed him in a month, an' shoo wor as gooid as ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... young beggar," said Wraysford, as the boy entered, "if you don't have my tea piping hot to-night, and fresh herrings for three done to a regular turn, I'll flay you alive, my boy. And now, if you're good, you may come ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... had planned, not for himself, but for his country. And because he was thinking clearly, in spite of his grief, he saw that his very ambition for the boy had been his undoing. In the alliance with Karnia he had given the Terrorists a scourge to flay the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... conjurer's charm upon a serpent. In an instant the monitor turned and ran to his room and searched it. Seeing no one there, he sank into his chair, and groaned: 'Wicked, depraved children! Those gallows-birds, I'll mangle their flesh, and flay the skin from their bones!' and he kept on mumbling to himself in this strain, until sleep fell upon his eyelids shaded by long eyebrows white as snow, and his head dropped into his hands resting upon ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... carry to Philip de Malvoisin, begging him to send assistance with all the speed he could. He promised the friar a large reward for doing the errand, and as they parted at the postern door he thrust into Cedric's reluctant hand a piece of gold, adding, "Remember, I will flay off thy cowl and skin if thou ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... may despise that sign and live. To Pylos they hastened and to the broad stream of Alpheios, and from the fold Hermes drove forth the cattle. But as he stood apart, Apollo beheld the hides flung on the rock, and he asked Hermes, "How wast thou able, cunning rogue, to flay two cows, thou a child but one day old? I fear thy might in time to come, and I can not let thee live." Again he seized the child, and bound him fast with willow bands; but the child tore them from his body like flax, so that Phoebus marveled greatly. In vain Hermes sought a place wherein to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... woke at morn with a head forlorn And a taste like a last-year swallow's nest, He would kneel and pray, then rise and flay His ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... start after me. It was you he wanted. But he found out you weren't in town and took me instead. All the way down he talked about you—boasted how he would marry me in spite of you and how he would take you and have Pasquale flay you alive." ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... however, put an end to the fray. Flay- pole and Burke were lying prostrate in a drunken stupor, and Jynxstrop was soon overpowered, and lashed tightly to the foot of the mast. The carpenter and boatswain seized hold ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... aunt has not complied with your request, see if I don't flay you alive, you little imp ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat |
