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Despoil   Listen
verb
Despoil  v. t.  (past & past part. despoiled; pres. part. despoiling)  
1.
To strip, as of clothing; to divest or unclothe. (Obs.)
2.
To deprive for spoil; to plunder; to rob; to pillage; to strip; to divest; usually followed by of. "The clothed earth is then bare, Despoiled is the summer fair." "A law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled." "Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss."
Synonyms: To strip; deprive; rob; bereave; rifle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Despoil" Quotes from Famous Books



... victories had worked no change in their consciences, and they still persevered in that 'damnable state' in which they had lived. From his entire love and commiseration he forewarned them that if they did not come and join him against the enemies of God and 'our poor country,' he would not only despoil them of all their goods, but dispossess them of all their lands. The extirpation of heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, he declared could never be brought to any good pass without either the destruction or the help of the Catholics in the towns of the south ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... purest patriotism? What services have they not rendered to the public cause by their example and their sacrifices! Have they not themselves abjured all their titles for one only—that of citizen? and yet you propose to despoil them of it! When you suppressed the title of prince, what happened? The fugitive princes formed a league against the country; the others ranged themselves with you. If to-day the title of prince is re-established, we concede to the enemies of our country all they covet; we deprive the patriotic relatives ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... Crews of the scuttled vessels were set ashore, the dismantled ships sent drifting to open sea. The whole fiasco was conducted as harmlessly as a melodrama, with a moral thrown in; for were not these zealous Protestants despoiling these zealous Catholics, whose zeal, in turn, had led them to despoil the Indian? There was a moral; but it wore a coat ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... the desolation. Further on, tall facades rise suddenly up, the blue sky gleaming through their windows, the green moss already growing upon their naked stones and bricks. The Barbarini of the future, if any should arise, will not need to despoil the Colosseum to quarry material for their palaces. If, as the old pasquinade had it the Barbarini did what the Barbarians did not, how much worse than barbarians have these ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... things," he said, suffused with pleasure, but lowering his voice as though he feared his fellow-passengers might be in league to despoil him. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... settlements. Two different allowances of 15,000 pounds and of 10,000 pounds were moved for Mr. Gibbon; but, on the question being put, it was carried without a division for the smaller sum. On these ruins, with the skill and credit, of which parliament had not been able to despoil him, my grandfather at a mature age erected the edifice of a new fortune: the labours of sixteen years were amply rewarded; and I have reason to believe that the second structure was not much inferior to the first. He had realized a very considerable ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... any man else, writes with his pen, to despoil me of what I think my right, he shall seal with his ears; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... from death to life; and shall come in body and soul in judgment, before the face of our Lord in the Vale of Jehosaphat. And the doom shall be on Easter Day, such time as our Lord arose. And the doom shall begin, such hour as our Lord descended to hell and despoiled it. For at such hour shall he despoil the world and lead his chosen to bliss; and the other shall he condemn to perpetual pains. And then shall every man have after his desert, either good or evil, but if the mercy ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... Let him gloat over his diamonds while yet he had opportunity. He would not despoil him of his treasures, but he could not give up his scheme of vengeance. It should be ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... to the objects of the spoil. The instrument chosen by Mr. Hastings to despoil the relict of Sujah Dowlah was her own son, the reigning Nabob of Oude. It was the pious hand of a son that was selected to tear from his mother and grandmother the provision of their age, the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel, or more impressed with the importance of humoring the priestly power, were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity under which they found themselves of continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting in a system which was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all ecclesiastical discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil and to offer the Church compensation for their share in this evil to which it ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... waking the soft notes of her lute, she soothed his desponding spirit with music's gentlest sound. Fondly trusting that Francesco might be won to prize the simple enjoyments of which fortune could not despoil him, and to find his dearest happiness in an approving conscience, the light hearted girl indulged in delusive hopes of future felicity. But these expectations were soon damped; as Francesco's health returned he became restless and melancholy; he saw no prospect of arriving ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... do not take advantage of their weakness! Let their fears and blushes endear them. Let their confidence in you never be abused. But is it possible, that any of you can be such barbarians, so supremely wicked, as to abuse it? Can you find in your hearts* to despoil the gentle, trusting creatures of their treasure, or do any thing to strip them of their native robe of virtue? Curst be the impious hand that would dare to violate the unblemished form of Chastity! Thou wretch! thou ruffian! forbear; nor venture to provoke heaven's fiercest vengeance." I know ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... I confess that Joshua's remarks nettled me, "and ask him whether the Jews did not despoil the Egyptians of their ornaments of gold in the old days, and whether Solomon, whom he claims as a forefather, did not trade in gold to Ophir, and lastly whether he knows that most of his kindred in other lands make a very god ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... of his own, and the thoughts and opinions and feelings of ordinary men upon matters of life and conduct were so different from his that he could hardly comprehend the value they had in the eyes of their possessors. Born to rank and wealth, he desired to induce every rich man to despoil himself of superfluity, and to create a brotherhood of property and service, and was ready to be the first one to lay down the advantages of his birth. Born with the most fanatical love of liberty, he looked upon all the conventionalities of the world as tyranny, and defied ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... efforts of the Whig Ministry to despoil the Irish Church proved so strong, a writer in the Press caricatured Lord Grey, Lyttleton, Dan O'Connell, and Lord Brougham in the following nursery rhymes. The attempt was ingenious, but only of small value as showing the rhymes to be the ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... somewhat remarkable character. A pair of golden eagles, it appeared, had made a neighboring valley the scene of their frequent ravages and depredations among the cattle and game, and Hansel was about to organize an expedition to search for, and if possible despoil, the eyrie. Of late years these birds have become very rare. Switzerland is nearly, if not quite, cleared of them, while the Tyrol, affording greater solitude and a larger stock of game, can boast of eight or at the most ten couples. They are, as is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... the produce. Those who have not had intelligence enough, or any opportunity to acquire these things, have no right to take them away from one who has earned and deserved them by his labour. If the idle and ignorant were to despoil the industrious and the skilful, all works would be discouraged, and misery would become universal. It is alike more just and more useful that all those who have fallen behind either in wit or in good fortune, should lend their right arms to those ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... attraction of health and youth and shapeliness, it troubled him, and in its presence he felt as the Goths before the white marbles in the Roman Capitol, not knowing whether they were men or gods. At times he felt like uncovering his head before it, again the fury seized him to break and despoil, to find the clay in this spirit-thing and stamp upon it. Away from her, he longed to strike out with his arms, and take and hold; it maddened him that this woman whom he could break in his hands should be so much stronger than he. But near her, he never questioned ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... proposed plan, or anything in the nature of that plan, simply license for the materially unsuccessful to despoil the materially successful? ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn

... workman, who is at bottom an illiterate peasant with the old roots of serfdom still clinging to him, has seldom any bowels for his neighbor and none at all for his employer. "God Himself commands us to despoil such gentry," is one of his sayings. He is in a hurry to enrich himself, and he cares about nothing else. Nor can he realize that to beggar his neighbors is to impoverish himself. Hence he always takes and ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... inventor, had been boys together, and, in young manhood, chums. Hardy had fallen in love with Scott's sister, while he was still a young, romantic man. Cleave, developing an utterly malicious and unscrupulous nature, had deceived his friend Hardy, tried to despoil Miss Scott's very life, thereby ultimately causing her death, and Hardy had intervened only in time to save her from utter shame ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... not resist the opportunity to play double. Here was a property he could sell to England at a stiff price. Why not despoil the enemy, put the money in pocket, then return, steal the paper anew for the use of Germany, and collect the stipulated reward from that source? But he reckoned without Blensop's avarice, there; he showed Blensop too plainly the way to profit ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... closing our eyes on earth, reopens them in heaven, beneath the general warmth of the sun of righteousness. These flowers were sacred in the eyes of the villagers, and their children were charged not to despoil them; and too deep was their reverence for their minister, and too sacred was that little spot of earth, even to their uncultured eyes, for those commands ever to be disobeyed. But it was not to Mr. Myrvin's care alone that ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... brilliant and duplicate light! What did FERGUSSON say, blandly beaming Upon the tired House t'other night? He said he would make it all right. Ah, we safely may trust to his scheming— Be sure he will lead us aright— He won't let the damsel there dreaming Despoil us of what is our right— The monopoly plainly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various

... adorned with pictures, and with a few prefatory words by Dr. Garnett, has made its appearance. Mr. Blades himself has left this world for a better one, where—so piety bids us believe—neither fire nor water nor worm can despoil or destroy the pages of heavenly wisdom. But the book-collector must not be caught nursing mere sublunary hopes. There is every reason to believe that in the realms of the blessed the library, like that of Major Ponto, will be small ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... the tobacco and the loaf. Above all, I do not lose my self-respect or touch my pride when I go without the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf. And now, mademoiselle, since it is our scheme to rout my lady enemy in the morning, we will despoil her of her triumph now by not caring for her or it, and by snapping our ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... strength or weakness of those with whom it deals. I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality; that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one, and that even by indirection a strong power may with impunity despoil a weak one ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... protection as not to compel immigrants to be the unwilling witnesses to so much vice and misery; and, second, legislation to protect them upon their arrival at our seaports from the knaves who are ever ready to despoil them of the little all which they are able to bring with them. Such legislation will be in the interests of humanity, and seems to be fully justifiable. The immigrant is not a citizen of any State or Territory upon his arrival, but comes here to become a citizen of a great Republic, free to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... an appetizer. She reached in again. She did not wish to despoil the meritorious hen unnecessarily, so she held the egg up in her inclosing fingers and looked through it, as she had often seen the cook do at home. She was not sure, but the inside seemed muddy. She laid it to one side, tried ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... the prophet left Jerusalem when an angel descended upon the wall of the city and caused a breach to appear, at the same time crying out: "Let the enemy come and enter the house, for the Master of the house is no longer therein. The enemy has leave to despoil it and destroy it. Go ye into the vineyard and snap the vines asunder, for the Watchman hath gone away and abandoned it. But let no man boast and say, he and his have vanquished the city. Nay, a conquered city have ye conquered, a ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... Roman lore, Unconscious pass along each famous shore? They did: for in this desert, joyless soil, No flowers of genial science deign to smile; Sad Ocean's genius, in untimely hour, Withers the bloom of every springing flower; For native tempests here, with blasting breath, Despoil, and doom the vernal buds to death; 160 Here fancy droops, while sullen clouds and storm, The generous temper of the soul deform: Then if, among the wandering naval train, One stripling, exiled from the Aonian plain, Had e'er, entranced in fancy's soothing dream, Approach'd to taste the sweet Castalian ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... 19. So the whole country is left deserted, because the people have been destroyed by their enemies the Olomas and Manipos: these are a warlike people from the mountains, who descended every day to the plains to capture and despoil them, seeing that their towns and native country were left abandoned; and the most powerful among them ate the weaker, because they were all dying of starvation. 20. Having done this, the said captain returned ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... the Conqueror known, than the very nobles, who, but a few years previously, had been foremost as benefactors to the convent, assumed the opposite character, and did every thing in their power to despoil, and to destroy it. They had themselves subscribed the following denunciation:—"Si quis vero horum omnium, quae praedictae S. Trinitatis ecclesiae data ostensa sunt, temeraria praesumptione aliquando, (quod absit) violator effectus, in sua impudenti obstinatione ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... accumulating. I sat at a table near him on several occasions, when, after his banquet was half over, he used to reward the waiter with a five-hundred franc note ($100), but the proprietor was ever close at hand and would instantly despoil the garcon of his prize. He was companioned by a member of the demi-monde, who, when arrayed in male attire, as she was nightly, would cut up enough monkey tricks in one night at the Valentino or Mabille to have made the fortunes ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... we leave the Cossack to despoil us At once of glory and of booty both? We've made a truce with Tartar and with Turk, And from the Swedish power have naught to fear. Our martial spirit has been wasting long In slothful peace; our swords are red with ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... however, at length able to locate the spot where the cavern had been, and he took such elaborate and complete bearings of it that he felt sure he would one day, when things had quieted down a little, be able to get at the chests again and despoil them of their contents. But for the moment he had as much money as he actually needed; so, returning from Coroico, he bought an estate in a lovely spot near Quinteros Bay, and settled down comfortably there, with ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... under command Of his will, "All your fears in a storm of this kind. There is something uncanny and weird in the wind; Intangible, viewless, it speeds on its course, And forests and oceans must yield to its force. What art has constructed with patience and toil, The wind in one second of time can despoil. It carries destruction and death and despair, Yet no man can follow it into its lair And bind it or stay it—this thing without form. Ah! there comes the rain! we are caught in the storm. Put my coat on ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... returned, after so heavy expenses, without those barbarians having been willing to receive it. It sailed very late, since it gave the Dutch opportunity to believe, and to give that emperor to understand, that your Majesty's vassals were entering under pretense of religion to despoil them of their kingdoms. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... without the exercise of force, and force means war; war means blood. The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love, "Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not peace on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good will toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their fellow-men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ, I believe in the doctrine of peace; but, Mr. President, men must have liberty before there can come ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... that I knew the king's ill temper was cumulative, I had received a hint, coming through Castlemain's maid to Rochester, that if I remained in England, the king would despoil me. Then, too, I had other reasons for making the sale. I was sick of England's fawning on a poor weak creature, as cowardly as he was dull, and almost as dull as he was vicious, and longed to flee to the despotism of strength as I should find it in France under Louis ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... for the moment. He had failed to scare the men whom he meant to despoil of their property and some of the mutterings behind him showed that he lacked the unanimous support of ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... unimpressive! Compare this trial of the cause of the People against the mighty Atlantic and Pacific railroad corporation et al. with the trial of the robber baron dragged from his bleak castle perched above the highroad where he had laid in wait to despoil his fellow-men, weaker vessels, into the court of his Bishop,—there to be judged, to free himself if he might by grasping hot iron with his naked hand, by making oath over the bones of some saint, and if found guilty to be condemned to take the cross in the crusade for the Saviour's sepulchre. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... colonist you all laughed at was right. This is the first Garden of Eden, where man lived in complete innocence. Now man has been returned to it, to live again in complete innocence. You do not think straight because there is no reason. You will be cared for. Woe unto him who seeks to despoil it again by ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... every country in which their services may prove helpful. Diplomatists, journalists, bankers, contrabandists, social agitators, spies, incendiaries, assassins and courtesans, willing to offer up their energies and their lives in order to circumvent, despoil or slay the supposed enemies of their race, address themselves each one to his own allotted task and discharge ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... propaganda by the German interests which would be carried on secretly and boldly, in every conceivable way, to alienate the labor organizations, to bribe or menace the harvesters, to despoil crops, and particularly to put obstacles in the way of the raising and harvesting, the transporting and storing of wheat. It would take an army ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... Sub-Prior; "what are we to make of him? The heretic Lord James may take on him to dispone upon the goods and lands of the Halidome at his pleasure, because, doubtless, but for the protection of God, and the baronage which yet remain faithful to their creed, he may despoil us of them by force; but while they are the property of the Community, we may not take steadings from ancient and faithful vassals, to gratify the covetousness of those who serve God only ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... demanded his freedom. The proposed amount of the ransom had, indeed, not been fully paid. It may be doubted whether it ever would have been, considering the embarrassments thrown in the way by the guardians of the temples, who seemed disposed to secrete the treasures, rather than despoil these sacred depositories to satisfy the cupidity of the strangers. It was unlucky, too, for the Indian monarch, that much of the gold, and that of the best quality, consisted of flat plates or tiles, which, however valuable, lay in a compact form that did little towards swelling the heap. But an ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... often more likely to suffer from vandalism than private property. Some people will mar the walls of public buildings, or make their floors filthy with expectoration, when they would not think of doing so in private buildings. They will break shrubbery in public parks, or despoil public flower beds, when they would not think of entering private premises for such purpose. There seems to be a feeling that public property belongs to no one, or else that, since it is public, any one is at liberty to do as ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... where our blossoms early fade and die, Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers; Where song goes up to heaven, an anguished cry From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers; Where Love despairing waits, and weeps in vain His Psyche ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... within itself the germ of its own destruction. Very rarely the many despoil the few. In such a case the latter soon become so reduced that they can no longer satisfy the cupidity of the former, and spoliation ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... because I did not make a bargain with him as another man would have done, he denies me the fortune I had a right to expect with you. You know that the Israelites despoiled the Egyptians, and it was taken as a merit on their part. Your father is an Egyptian to me, and I will despoil him. You can tell him that I say so if ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... the nobility and from the best of the bourgeoisie have pretensions only, without being of the true ministry. The other, only having duties to fulfill without expectations and almost without income. . . can be recruited only from the lowest ranks of civil society," while the parasites who despoil the laborers "affect to subjugate them and to degrade them more and more." "I pity," said Voltaire, "the lot of a country curate, obliged to contend for a sheaf of wheat with his unfortunate parishioner, to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... things of the past, I shall have occasion to speak in the sequel. For the present I wish merely to say that they were thoroughly corrupt, and I hasten to add that Pavel Trophim'itch was by no means a judge of the worst kind. He had been known to protect widows and orphans against those who wished to despoil them, and no amount of money would induce him to give an unjust decision against a friend who had privately explained the case to him; but when he knew nothing of the case or of the parties he readily signed ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... to freemen the inheritance of their lands, and they were not able to sell them until the act QUIA EMPTORES of Edward I. was passed. The tendency of persons to spend the representative value of their lands and sell them was checked by the Mosaic law, which did not allow any man to despoil his children of their inheritance. The possessor could only mortgage them until the year of jubilee—the fiftieth year. In Switzerland and Belgium, where the nobles did not entirely get rid of the FREEMEN, the lands continued to be held in small estates. In Switzerland there are seventy-four ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher

... are wise. None can open the door and come in, unless we give consent; always provided that we keep watch and ward. If we leave wide open the doors of our houses, or neglect to fasten them in the night season, thieves and robbers will enter and despoil us at will. So if we leave the heart, unguarded, enemies will come in. But if we open the door only to good affections—which are guests—then we shall dwell in peace and safety. We have all opened the door for enemies; or let them enter through unguarded portals. ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... Pollnitz, laughing. "In the spirit he took leave of all the fine breweries, and artfully constructed never-smoking chimneys which he had built; he also took leave of the city exchanges, which he had not yet provided with royal commissioners, destined to despoil them of their riches; he bade adieu to his decoration and to his money-bags, and exclaiming, 'To the king I owe all that I am, it is therefore but proper that my back as well as my life should be at his service,' marched courageously ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... please my constant wont is! Yet I am vain that I'm the first star here To shine upon this Thespian hemisphere. And only hope that when I say "Adieu!" You'll grant the same I wish to you— May rich success reward your daily toil, Nor men nor measures present peace despoil, And may I nightly see your pleasant faces With these fair ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... been shown in his treatment of Piedmont. [78] They appealed to the Czar for protection. The Czar proposed a European Congress, at which the Powers might learn one another's real intentions. The proposal was not accepted by Austria; but, while disclaiming all desire to despoil the King of Sardinia, the Pope, or the King of Naples, Thugut admitted that Austria claimed an improvement of its Italian frontier, in other words, the annexation of a portion of Piedmont, and of the northern part of the Roman States. The Czar ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... France, but of all civilized countries. With what enjoyment would I hear my grandfather relate how great caravans of wealthy merchants would assemble for mutual protection, because of the audacious outlaws, often headed by some powerful baron, who lay in wait for them to despoil them of their merchandise, and often to carry them off prisoners and extort heavy ransom. My grandfather would tell hew long files of mules, laden with rich silks, cloths, serges, camlets, and furs, from Montpelier, from Narbonne, from Toulouse, from Carcassonne, ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning

... case, he did not despoil Pauline or Gardiner. For, after he had told her what Dumont did—and to protect himself he hastened to tell it—she said: "Whatever there may be, it's all for Gardiner. I waive my own rights, if I have any. But you must give me your word of honor ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... aroused heated feelings in this country, though on a subject of a wholly different kind. The result was that, while Dissenters peacefully agitated for permission to act as citizens, they were represented as endeavouring to despoil the Church, after the fashion of Talleyrand and Mirabeau. A work by a Manchester merchant, Thomas Walker, reveals the influence of this question on the political activities of the time. The Nonconformists of that town and county hoped ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... a great deal of it in flesh-meats, less in herbs. Besides, the Pure, by the force of their merits, despoil vegetables of that luminous spark, and it flies towards its source. The animals, by generation, imprison it in the ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... live, for I would fain speak with her or I died: for else my soul will be in great peril an I die. For[thwith] with great pain his varlet brought him to the castle, and there Sir Hemison fell down dead. When Morgan le Fay saw him dead she made great sorrow out of reason; and then she let despoil him unto his shirt, and so she let him put into a tomb. And about the tomb she let write: Here lieth Sir Hemison, slain by the hands ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... And other like confed'rate midnight hags, By force of potent spells, of bloody characters, And conjurations horrible to hear, Call fiends and spectres from the yawning deep, And set the ministers of hell at work, To torture and despoil me of my life. ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... HELL. The Harrowing of Hell was the mediaeval belief in the descent of Christ to hell to redeem the souls of Old Testament saints, and to despoil the powers of darkness. It is the subject of an old ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... and sculpture, we descend to inferior branches,—if, as we tried to do in the house of Pansa, we despoil the museum so as to restore their inmates to the homes of Pompeii, and put back in its place the fine candelabra with the carved panther bearing away the infant Bacchus at full speed; the precious scyphus, in which two centaurs take a bevy of little ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... furious, it was not long before I was overthrown. Then the Knight passed the shaft of his lance through the bridle rein of my horse, and rode off with the two horses, leaving me where I was. And he did not even bestow so much notice upon me as to imprison me, nor did he despoil me of my arms. So I returned along the road by which I had come. And when I reached the glade where the black man was, I confess to thee, Kai, it is a marvel that I did not melt down into a liquid pool, through the shame that ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... shall not need for that to despoil all citizens of their coats, to put all the garments in a heap and draw lots for them, as our critics, with equal wit and ingenuity, suggest. Let him who has a coat keep it still—nay, if he have ten coats it ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... of animals, birds and humans, all designed and carved out of the solid trunk of a single tree, meant a thousand times more to her than it did to the travellers who, in their great "Klondike rush," thronged the decks of the northern-bound steamboats; than it did even to those curio-hunters who despoil the Indian lodges of their ancient wares, leaving their white man's coin in lieu of old silver bracelets and rare carvings in black slate or finely woven ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... It was a munificence of the heart; an imperious desire to prove to her that he thought of her always; a pride in seeing her the most magnificent, the happiest, the most envied of women; a generosity more profound even, which impelled him to despoil himself of everything, of his money, of his life. And then, what a delight, when he saw he had given her a real pleasure, and she threw herself on his neck, blushing, thanking him with kisses. After the jewels, it was gowns, articles of dress, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... beyond my reach; for I have triremes that would overtake their vessel. But, by the gods, I shall certainly not pursue them; nor shall any one say, that as long as a man remains with me, I make use of his services, but that, when he desires to leave me, I seize and ill-treat his person, and despoil him of his property. But let them go, with the consciousness that they have acted a worse part towards us than we towards them. I have, indeed, their children and wives under guard at Tralles; but not even of them shall they be deprived, but shall receive ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon

... artificial hillock; but we do not hear, except in this passage, that they are burned in their armour, or that it is burned, or that it is buried with the ashes of the dead. The invariable practice is for the victor, if he can, to despoil the body of the fallen foe; but Achilles for some reason spared that indignity in the case of Eetion. [Footnote: German examples of burning the amis of the cremated dead and then burying them are given by Mr. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, vol. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... clothes. Sometimes the king, seeing him thus divested of his rich clothing, would take off his own cloak and girdle and give them to him, saying: 'It is not suitable that those who dwell for the world should be richly clad, and that those who despoil themselves for Christ should ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... gloomily. "The encounter will take place on the plain of Gilboa at the third hour of the third division. And may Saturn help us if thy might fails. Friend Nelson! For then surely will the hordes of Jarmuth despoil us and there will come a desolation and a darkness upon the Empire ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... of that year a highly religious Mussulman called Mohammed Damoor went forth into the market-place, crying with a loud voice, and prophesying that on the fifteenth of the following June the true Believers would rise up in just wrath against the Jews, and despoil them of their gold and their silver and their jewels. The earnestness of the prophet produced some impression at the time, but all went on as usual, until at last the fifteenth of June arrived. When that day dawned the whole Mussulman population of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... about with the smoking torches cleared the scene of the vicious little insects, those not stupefied by the smoke beating a hasty retreat back to their home in the hollow log which bruin had tried to despoil. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... for it was foretold by a certain soothsayer among them, that they should occupy the country to which they were sailing three hundred years, and half of that time, a hundred and fifty years, should plunder and despoil the same. They first landed on the eastern side of the island, by the invitation of the unlucky king, and there fixed their sharp talons, apparently to fight in favour of the island, but alas! more truly against it. Their mother-land, finding her first ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas

... base; The letters do not cheer; And 'tis far in the deeps of history, The voice that speaketh clear. Trade and the streets ensnare us, Our bodies are weak and worn; We plot and corrupt each other, And we despoil the unborn. ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... only ferreted out all the details of the matter involving the Washab and Roria railway and chimney-pot Liz, but he obtained proof, through a clerk in the solicitor's office, and a stain in a sheet of paper, and a half-finished signature, that the will by which Mr Lockhart intended to despoil Colonel Brentwood was a curiously-contrived forgery. As men in search of the true and beautiful frequently stumble by accident on truths for which they did not search, and beauties of which they had formed no conception, so our detective unearthed a considerable number of smaller crimes of which ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... of chestnut-brown, with a shabby hat in his hand. This gentleman's appearance would signify my debt, the bill I had drawn; the spectre would compel me to leave the table to speak to him, blight my spirits, despoil me of my cheerfulness, of my mistress, of all I possessed, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... 'To despoil thee,' replied the bishop, 'for it is I who cast the charm over thy lands, to avenge Gwawl the son of Clud my friend. And it was I who threw the spell upon Pryderi to avenge Gwawl for the trick that had been played on him in the game of Badger in the Bag. And not only was I wroth, but ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... cut-throats he had driven from the Derby hills, and though the barons would much rather have had all the rest than he, the peasants worshipped him as a deliverer from the lowborn murderers who had been wont to despoil the weak and lowly and on whose account the women of the huts and cottages had ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... protect them, but am not always successful, as the mischief is often done before I get within reach; I am not sure but that the robins think—if they think at all—that I am in league with the crows to despoil them. I was not in time to save the eggs of the wood thrush the other morning, when I heard the alarm calls of the birds, but I had the satisfaction of seeing the black marauder go limping over the hill, dropping quills ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... is overturned, just as all natural religion has been previously overturned. Revelation does not reveal God on this theory. We have no knowledge of God in the gospel, any more than we had in nature. Instead of knowledge, we have only law. But this seems to despoil Christianity of its vital force. Christ says, "This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God." But Mr. Mansel tells us that such knowledge of God is impossible. Therefore, instead of the gospel, he gives us the law; for it is ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... the nations have understood that God is a monstrous fable, and that hell, heaven, immortality, and all the other devilish things are states created by rascals to despoil and ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... some of these hills proves that she loves her little jokes. I have seen where she cut deep, fearsome gashes, with sides precipitous, as though she had some priceless treasure hidden away in the deep, where man cannot despoil it. And if you plot and plan, and try very hard, you may reach the bottom at last and find the treasure—nothing. Or, perhaps, a tiny little stream, as jealously guarded as ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... citizens. Rabble as these soldiers were, and poltroons as they generally proved themselves in every encounter with the Indians, they were accustomed to boast of being the country's protectors, for this "protection" assumed a sort of right to despoil ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... Jeanne, there are folks condemned to ten years' imprisonment, who would not have done like your husband; at least, they only despoil strangers." ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... won, and they levy regiments of the stubborn Switzers and hardy Germans to protect the treasures which they have amassed. And thus they are strong in their weakness; for the very wealth which tempts their masters to despoil them, arms strangers in ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... or love, Where only what they needs must do appear'd, Not what they would? what praise could they receive? What pleasure I from such obedience paid, When will and reason (reason also is choice) Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd, Made passive both, had serv'd necessity, Not me. They therefore, as to right belong'd, So were created, nor can justly accuse Their Maker, or their making, or their fate, As if predestination over-rul'd ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... child—he wished she would turn her face away, and not look upon him with that innocent compassion. She was too like her dead father, and his one best friend; whom in life he had really loved and in death had not scrupled to despoil. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... to preach the blessings of poverty and the damnable nature of wealth. This is what comes of eighteen hundred years of the "poor Carpenter's" religion. His texts of renunciation are idle verbiage. His name is used to bamboozle the people, to despoil them, and to make them patient ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... potato-kish, or fling the baby down on the floor, or occasionally will throw the few poor articles of furniture about the room with a strength and vigor altogether disproportioned to his diminutive size. But his mischievous pranks seldom go further than to drink up all the milk or despoil the proprietor's bottle of its poteen, sometimes, in sportiveness, filling the bottle with water, or, when very angry, leading the fire up to the thatch, and then startling the in-mates of the cabin with his laugh as they rise, frightened, to put ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... do not know—that it is counted a virtue in a Gypsy to deceive a Georgio—well, I am fancying myself a Gypsy. In the Mohammedan it is a virtue to deceive the Christian, and I am a Mohammedan for the moment. In the Christian it was counted for centuries a mark of special grace if he despoil the Jew, until generations of oppression showed the wanderer the real God held sacred by his foes—money, my child, which he proceeded to garner that he might purchase the privileges of other races. So, with my Jewish name as a foundation, I have ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... thus doubly of his spouse despoil'd, All stunn'd appear'd: not less than he who saw In wild affright the triple-headed dog, Chain'd by the midmost: fear him never fled, Till fled his former nature: sudden stone On all his body seizing. Or than he, Olenus, when ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... in the night, they seemed a little higher than the Green Mountains of Vermont, but lacking the thrifty forests of which I apprehend the proximity of Railroads is about to despoil that noble range. But the Apennines, though cultivated wherever they can be, are far more precipitous and sterile than their American counterpart, and seem to be in good degree composed of a whitish clay or marl ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... The wolfcub and the snake, The robber, swindler, hater, Are in your homes—awake! Nor let the cunning foeman Despoil your liberty; Yield weapon up to no man, While ye can strike and see, Awake, each gallant yeoman, If still ye ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... and learnt that the road was beset by two robbers. These he slew simply by charging them as they rushed covetously forth to despoil him. This done, loth to seem to have done any service to the soil of an enemy, he put timbers under the carcases of the slain, fastened them thereto, and stretched them so as to counterfeit an upright standing ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... us give them the points of our lances; for one whom we run through, three will jump out of their saddles; and Ramon Berenguer will then see whom he has overtaken to-day in the pine-forest of Tebar, thinking to despoil him of the booty which I have won from the enemies of God and of ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... church wardens as inferiors, and considered they had a right to do so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or good example be given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, and idle persons who only visit the village in order to insult, to despoil, and to terrorize? Olga remembered the pitiful, humiliated look of the old people when in the winter Kiryak had been taken to be flogged.... And now she felt sorry for all these people, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... him. And in view of the promise to his master he could do nothing to prevent the crime, the desecration as he felt it to be. He could do nothing but look on in silence while they searched, until they found—But stay! he might as well despoil the spoilers when he had ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... Far above, on the ridge of the hill, the fires of the King's army shone with red light, and some way off on the other side twinkled those of the Parliamentary forces. Glimmering lanterns or torches moved about the battlefield, those of the savage plunderers who crept about to despoil the dead. Whether the battle were won or lost, the father and son knew not, and the guard who watched them knew as little. Lord Lindsay himself murmured, 'If it please God I should survive, I never will fight in the same field with boys again!'— no doubt deeming that young Rupert ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is profanation to speak, nor let there be hereof any so dire example, if you despoil of its hair the head of any most transcendent and perfectly beautiful woman, and present her face thus denuded of its native loveliness, though it were even she, the descended from heaven, the born of the sea, the educated ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... Will not connive, or linger, thus provok'd, But will arise and his great name assert: Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him Of all these ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... shall you share the wealth, That earth may ne'er despoil, And the blest gospel's saving health Repay ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... blazed with jewels "to such an extent that the eye was blinded as it looked upon her." But the most unforgettable of all was on that dreadful day when the troops of Waller marched up the nave, some mounted and all in war array, to despoil the tombs of bishop and knight of their emblems of piety and honour and to destroy anything beautiful that could be reached ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... behold how devoted was their brotherhood unto the service of Satan. And it happened on a time that the blessed Patrick was journeying with his people through the place where lurked this band of evil-doers, waiting and watching for any traveller on whom they might rush forth to destroy and to despoil. And beholding the saint, they thought at first to slay him as the seducer of their souls and the destroyer of their gods: but suddenly their purpose being changed by the Divine will, they thought it shame to shed the blood of a peaceful, weak, and unarmed old man; ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... patriotic Germans it seemed a revolt against a foreign power—the Italian Papacy. To men of pious mind it offered the attractions of a simple faith which took the Bible as the rule of life. Worldly-minded princes saw in it an opportunity to despoil the Church of lands and revenues. For these reasons Luther's teachings found ready acceptance. Priests married, Luther himself setting the example, monks left their monasteries, and the "Reformed Religion" took the place of Roman Catholicism in most parts ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... see I am not alone in the traffic of skins," said Rend-your-Soul. "Truly we are brothers! If I despoil the bulls of their skins, you are not too proud to despoil one of the husbands of the widow. But we are now at the foot of the cliff. Take care, friend, one must have a sure foot and a true eye to climb this ascent unharmed! If you find it too rough, you need go no further; ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... acquired appetites is bound to be powerful. The Third Estate, which had supplanted the nobles, and the peasants, who had bought the national domains, would readily understand that the restoration of the ancien regime would despoil them of all their advantages. The energetic defence of the Revolution was merely the defence of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... that every country has the Jews it deserves. If you oppress them, trample them in the mud as was customary in pre-war Russia, they will turn and rend you when their turn comes round; this is happening in Russia at present. If you despoil a Jew by violence, he will do the same to you by guile, and you may or may not be left with your full complement of cuticle. If you treat the Jew as one entitled to equal rights with equal responsibilities, you will find him ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... against a soldier, as such, if believing all the doctrines of our Church, and complying with all our observances; far less would I condemn your Imperial Majesty's wise precautions, both for diminishing the power and thinning the ranks of those Latin heretics, who come hither to despoil us, and plunder perhaps both church and temple, under the vain pretext that Heaven would permit them, stained with so many heresies, to reconquer that Holy Land, which true orthodox Christians, your Majesty's sacred ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... never been bound to silence, but only imposed it on herself from motives of tenderness to one, whom she believed to be taken in the toils of a temptation. She, simple soul, knew nothing of manorial rights, nor wotted she that any could despoil her father of his money; but even if such thoughts had ever crossed her mind, she loathed the gold that had brought so much trouble on them all, and cared not how soon it was got rid of. Her father's health, honour, happiness, were obviously at stake; perhaps, also, her brother's very life: ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... his scholars; and, besides, the fine moral maxims which the author attributes to the Pagan divinities are not well placed in their mouth. Is not this rendering homage to the demons of the great truths which we receive from the Gospel, and to despoil J. C. to render respectable the annihilated gods of paganism? This prelate was a wretched divine, more familiar with the light of profane authors than with that of the fathers of the church. Phelipeaux has given us, in his narrative of Quietism, the portrait of the friend of Madame ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... of the king's thanes 3120 A seven together, the best to be gotten, And himself went the eighth in under the foe-roof; One man of the battlers in hand there he bare A gleam of the fire, of the first went he inward. It was nowise allotted who that hoard should despoil, Sithence without warden some deal that there was The men now beheld in the hall there a-wonning, Lying there fleeting; little mourn'd any, That they in all haste outward should ferry The dear treasures. But forthwith the ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... despoil the enemy's house and to bear away such few valuables as may be found. The house, or houses, are then burnt, and the victors, leaving the slain where they fell, hasten back with their captives to cheer the fond ones ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... rambler a century earlier than this, and in his Derbyshire hills must have passed many lonely gullies; but footpads were more likely to ambush the main roads. It would be a hardhearted bandit who would despoil the gentle angler of his basket of trouts. Goldsmith, too, was a lusty walker, and tramped it over the Continent for two years (1754-6) with little more baggage than a flute: he might have written "The Handy Guide for Beggars" long before Vachel Lindsay. But generally speaking, it is true that ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... If any State or Federal court presumes to exercise its legal jurisdiction by the trial of a malefactor without his special permission, he can break it up and punish the judges and jurors as being themselves malefactors. He can save his friends from justice, and despoil his enemies contrary ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... abandonment of the adventure. They saw the way clear before them. No guards protected the house. The massive ancestral plate, with which all English landed families are well provided, was unprotected by bolts or bars. They felt that, in retreating, they were throwing away a chance to despoil their enemy, and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... to brighter flame—the star behind which lay the throne. And Death followed them, shadowy, indistinct, like a spirit wrapt in mist. And Life mocked at Death, crying: "Behold the envious strumpet doth follow, to despoil me of mine own! Faugh! How uncanny and how cold! What lover would hang upon those ashen lips? Her bosom is marble, and in her stony heart there flames no fire. With her Ambition perishes and the Star of Hope forever fades. Her house is a ghastly tomb, her bed the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... blame, Who by the serpent was beguil'd) I past With step in cadence to the harmony Angelic. Onward had we mov'd, as far Perchance as arrow at three several flights Full wing'd had sped, when from her station down Descended Beatrice. With one voice All murmur'd "Adam," circling next a plant Despoil'd of flowers and leaf on every bough. Its tresses, spreading more as more they rose, Were such, as 'midst their forest wilds for height The Indians might have gaz'd at. "Blessed thou! Gryphon, whose beak hath never pluck'd that tree Pleasant to taste: for hence the appetite ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... Zein ul Asnam had taken up their abode. When he heard of their bounty and generosity and of the goodliness of their repute, envy get hold upon him and jealousy of them, and he fell to bethinking himself how he should do, so he might bring some calamity upon them and despoil them of that their fair fortune, for it is of the wont of envy that it falleth not but upon the rich. So, one day of the days, as he stood in the mosque, after the mid-afternoon prayer, he came forward into ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... the attacks of Vitovt of Lithuania, Vassili's father-in-law, who marched three times against Moscow. Both Vitovt and Vassili were indisposed to risk a decisive battle, fearing that, if defeated, their enemies would despoil them. In 1408 a treaty was signed whereby the Ouger was made the frontier between them. This gave Smolensk to Lithuania, ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... secret rivalry; to have a hand for all, and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, and nobody's friend; to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and to dread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honours and despoil fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping in darkness: these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'r Lady, have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his throat to the praise ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... hard to bear The sun and rain, the dust and dew; Though still attainment and despair Inter the old, despoil the new; There shall at length, be sure, O friends, Howe'er ye steer, whate'er ye do - At length, and at the end of ends, The golden city ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and mill, you men of property and business, you producers of the nation's wealth, forward into the carnage; burn the homes of thrift and industry, for commerce will be enriched thereby; ravage the fields and despoil the cities, for this will insure vigorous national life; impoverish happy peoples, spread famine and pestilence through fertile valleys, mark the sites of contented villages with smoldering ruins, defy your Christian God, and kindle the fires of hell in human breasts; ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... this, it seems to me, has the wrong end in view. The success of it depends upon the fact that every one is not so capable of rising, that the rank and file must be in the background, forming the material out of which the successful man makes his combinations, and whom he contrives to despoil. ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... great deal more of the monastic property of the Northern districts these valuables were appropriated by high-placed persons of the neighbourhood who employed their underlings, marked and disguised, to waylay and despoil the messengers entrusted to carry them Southward. N. B.—These foregoing remarks apply to the plate and jewels which appertained to the adjacent Priory of Mellerton, which were also ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... The fame that honoreth your house proclaims its lords, proclaims its district, so that he knows of them who never yet was there; and I swear to you, so may I go above, that your honored race doth not despoil itself of the praise of the purse and of the sword. Custom and nature so privilege it that though the guilty head turn the world awry, alone it goes right and scorns the evil road."[4] And he, "Now go, for the sun shall not lie seven times in ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri

... true," said Modernus, "but you may be sure that Robin, whom you drew out of the salting-tub, has made an arrangement with the Lombards of Pont-Vieux and the Jews of the Ghetto to despoil you, and that he is retaining the lion's share ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France

... Russia enslaves Poland by forcing the Russian language upon it, while Germany prohibits French in the conquered provinces, your government strives to preserve yours, and you in return, a remarkable people under an incredible government, you are trying to despoil yourselves of your own nationality! One and all you forget that while a people preserves its language, it preserves the marks of its liberty, as a man preserves his independence while he holds to his own way of thinking. Language is the thought of the peoples. Luckily, your independence is assured; ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... that Indians should monopolize the best lands. He was therefore a willing agent of the President when in 1804 and 1805 he took advantage of the necessities of certain chieftains, whom he called "the most depraved wretches on earth," to despoil whole tribes of their lands, under the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... first," said Dino, lifting his face from his crossed arms, "of seeing him and asking him whether he was resolved to despoil himself of his name and fortune. I would not have raised a hand to do either, but, if he himself did it, I thought that I might pick up what he threw away. Not for myself, but for the Church to which I belong. The Church should ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... pillage, ravage, depredate, despoil devastate, sack; corrupt, vitiate, debase, mar, demoralize, deprave, sophisticate, infect, defile, contaminate; disfigure, deface, damage; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... smile. His glance resulted from his will, and his smile from his nature. His first studies in his art had been directed to roofs. He had made great progress in the industry of the men who tear off lead, who plunder the roofs and despoil the gutters by ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... suffered to live? He came hither to murder and despoil my friends; this work he has, no doubt, performed. Nay, has he not borne his part in the destruction of my uncle and my sisters? He will live only to pursue the same sanguinary trade; to drink the blood and exult in the laments of his unhappy foes and ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... English origin, or of our own production; but many of the sweetest of them are free versions from the German hymnists. The Rationalists, not being content with their present laurels, began in great earnestness to despoil the hymn-books of the Protestant church of everything savoring of inspiration or of any of the vital doctrines already rejected. They looked upon those songs of devotion as composed during the iron age of truth, and therefore unfit to be sung by the congregations whose lot had been cast in the golden ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... Yamuna [two rivers of India, which are frequently used symbolically, probably for the right and the left stream of the breath of life, ingala and ida, cf. what follows] there sits the young widow [an interesting characterization of the kundalini] inspiring pity. He should despoil her forcibly, for it leads one to the supreme seat of Vishnu. Ida is the sacred Ganges and pingala the Yamuna. Between ida and pingala sits the young widow kundalini. You should awake the sleeping serpent [kundalini] by taking hold of its tail. That sakti, leaving off sleep, goes up forcibly." ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... ferocity; Reggio was given over to a legion of fiends that descended from the heights during the week of confusion. "They tore the rings and brooches off the dead," said a young officiai to me. "They strangled the wounded and dying, in order to despoil them more comfortably. Here, and at Messina, the mutilated corpses were past computation; but the Calabrians ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... disturbance in the Far East marked the clashing of the dreams, for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the Japanese can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese dream takes on substantiality. Japan's population is no larger because her people have continually pressed against the means of subsistence. But given poor, empty Korea for a breeding colony and Manchuria for a granary, and at once the ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... taught the arrogant Pharisees that, from the beginning, their father, the devil, was the would-be murderer of Truth. A right apprehension of the wonderful utterances of him who "spake as never man spake," would despoil error of its borrowed plumes, and transform the universe into a home of marvellous light,—"a consummation devoutly to ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy

... enemy is spoil of war, and it is always allowable to confiscate it if possible. However, in the old days there was not much plunder. Before the coming of the white man, there was in fact little temptation or opportunity to despoil the enemy; but in modern times the practice of "stealing horses" from hostile tribes has become common, and is ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... are about fifty Jews, at their head being R. Solomon and R. Jacob. The city is situated at the foot of the hills of Wallachia. The nation called Wallachians live in those mountains. They are as swift as hinds, and they sweep down from the mountains to despoil and ravage the land of Greece. No man can go up and do battle against them, and no king can rule over them. They do not hold fast to the faith of the Nazarenes, but ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... not say just now that the rhetoricians are like tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... power are reaching everywhere in Alaska. His agents swarm throughout the territory, and Soapy Smith was a gentleman outlaw compared with these men and their master. If men like John Graham are allowed to have their way, in ten years greed and graft will despoil what two hundred years of Rooseveltian conservation would not ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... Select Commission on the New Orleans Riots, Charles W. Gibbons testified that when the war broke out, the Confederacy called on all free people to do something for the seceding States, and if they did not a committee was appointed to look after them, to rob, kill, and despoil their property. Gibbons himself was advised by a policeman to enlist on the Confederate side or be lynched. This accounts for the seeming disloyalty of these free men of color.[94] The first victories of the South made their leaders overconfident thereafter ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... Empire was also guaranteed. These flat contradictions indicate something like panic on both sides, and duplicity at least on one and probably on both, for Thugut's correspondence indicates his firm purpose to despoil and destroy Venice. In any case Austria obtained the longed-for mainland of Venice as far as the river Oglio, together with Istria and Dalmatia, the Venetian dependencies beyond the Adriatic, while Venice herself ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... who suck the very life blood of your mother country under the guise of the development of her resources, are working in harmony with the rich brigands north of the border to plunder you further, and to despoil the fair land you have helped to win ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... when Ours have gone to make excursions into the country, and to despoil the enemy of his former possessions, there is one which Father Mateo Sanchez describes in a letter to the father vice-provincial, as follows: "The voyage of the fathers who were sailing for Ogmuc and Sebu proved to be unfortunate; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... they inspire fear, it is right for you to despise them. For their whole infantry is nothing more than a crowd of pitiable peasants who come into battle for no other purpose than to dig through walls and to despoil the slain and in general to serve the soldiers. For this reason they have no weapons at all with which they might trouble their opponents, and they only hold before themselves those enormous shields in order that ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... that at all events?" asked the Macdonald. "Man, Montagu, but you whiles have unco queer notions for so wise a lad. It's as natural for a Hielander to despoil a Southron as for a goose to gang barefit. What would Lochiel think gin we fashed wi' his clansmen at their ploy? Na, na! I wad be sweir to be sae upsitten (impertinent). It wadna be tellin' ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... opportunity for delivering them all a good lesson, which they should remember all their lives. He quoted Virgil and Cicero; he made many scientific allusions and ran his discourse to such a length that the little wretches were able to get all over the garden and despoil it ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine

... altar than the impulse which imperatively called men from the peaceful avocations of life to repel the threatened invasion of their homes and firesides. They were actuated by no spirit of hatred or revenge (then). They sought not to despoil, to lay waste. But, when justice was dethroned, her place usurped by the demon of hate and prejudice, when the policy of coercion and invasion was fully developed, with one heart and voice the South cried aloud, "Stand! The ground's your ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... those from whom he derives ever either overreached in a bargain or failed in a contract; but also, and much more, because whether a person be or be not the rightful owner of the wealth in his possession, no one can possibly be entitled to despoil him unless the wealth can be shown to have been ill-gotten. That right must be held to be complete with which no one can ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... traitor in your dream, foretells you will have enemies working to despoil you. If some one calls you one, or if you imagine yourself one, there will be unfavorable ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... eyes, and he crashed like a tower amid the press of fight. As he fell lord Elephenor caught him by the foot, Chalkodon's son, captain of the great-hearted Abantes, and dragged him from beneath the darts, eager with all speed to despoil him of his armour. Yet but for a little endured his essay; great-hearted Agenor saw him haling away the corpse, and where his side was left uncovered of his buckler as he bowed him down, there smote he him with bronze-tipped spear-shaft and unstrung his limbs. So his ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... say that they are no longer despoiled? By no means; they are robbed as much as ever, and, what is more, they despoil one another. The agent alone is changed; it is no longer by violence, but by stratagem, that the ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat



Words linked to "Despoil" :   strip, destroy, despoilment, plunder, foray, take, deplume, loot, despoiler, violate, despoliation, ruin, ransack, displume, pillage, reave



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