"Detestable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Bad—detestable. You will give the letters—you will receive them. Oh! we must have no pride in this affair, otherwise M. Malicorne and Mademoiselle Aure, not transacting their own affairs themselves, will have to make up their minds to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... directly I got home I telegraphed to Polly Cobb, as the best-natured girl I knew at Mauleverer, asking where you were, and why you had left. I had such a letter from her next day—spelling bad, but full of kind feeling—giving me a full account of the row, and old Pew's detestable conduct. She told me that Fraeulein vouched for your having behaved with the most perfect propriety, and never having seen Brian out of her presence; but Brian's meanness in not having told me about the trouble he had brought upon you is more ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... which has only heard of thee but has never seen thee, would teach us to know thy being in itself, and sets before us an inconsistent monster which it gives out for thine image, ridiculous to the merely knowing, hateful and detestable to ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... then; I did not understand what he did, but I think he was continually at a gambling house, though he was careful always about taking me to the theatre. I was very miserable. The plays I acted in were detestable to me. Men came about us and wanted to talk to me: women and men seemed to look at me with a sneering smile; it was no better than a fiery furnace. Perhaps I make it worse than it was—you don't know that life: ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... subsist indeed as a lonely savage, but could never attain that improved and happy state to which his progressive nature invariably tends. Perfected by the offices and duties of social life, man is the best; but, rude and undisciplined, he is the very worst, of animals. For nothing is more detestable than armed improbity; and man is armed with craft and courage, which, uncontrolled by justice, he will most wickedly pervert, and become at once the most impious and fiercest of monsters, the most abominable in gluttony, and shameless in personality. But justice is the fundamental ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... and two hundred of these simple gentlemen cooped up at night in one great chamber! What a concert of barrel-organs in this great resounding saloon! And then their plan of marriage! The very birds of the air choose their mates from preference and inclination; but this detestable system of lot! The sentiment of love may be, and is, in a great measure, a fostered growth of poetry and romance, and balder-dashed with false sentiment; but with all its vitiations, it is the beauty and the charm, the flavor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... impossible to find in St James's Street, or in certain buildings at no great distance from the Thames, the exact counterparts of Don Matthias de Silva and his companions? Gongora, indeed, in spite of his detestable taste, was a man of genius; and therefore to find his type among us would be difficult, if not impossible, unless an excess of the former quality, for which he was conspicuous, might counterbalance a deficiency in the latter. Are our employes less pompous and empty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... detestable traffic is the smallness and often the unseaworthiness of the vessels in which it was carried on. Few such picayune craft now venture outside the landlocked waters of Long Island Sound, or beyond the capes of the Delaware ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... you are capable of calm judgment. Here the atmosphere is simply detestable. Everybody has knuckled under to sentiment. Perhaps your deliberate opinion could influence . ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... it. Just so, the most industrious critics get the most admiration. They think it unjust to rest in their instinctive natural horror; they overcome it, and angry nature gives them over to ugly poems and marries them to detestable stanzas. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Miss Coventry!" said he, with his detestable leer. "Of course you smoke; any one who can tool 'em along as you do must be able to smoke. Mine are very mild, let me choose ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... my great Mortification, amusing, moral, philosophical, and fit to be read, even by those who have an utter Aversion to Romances; for which Reason, I have depretiated it, as it deserves, and have in direct Terms told the CADI-LESQUIER, that 'tis a most detestable Performance. ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... faith, or previous good works, in order to fit us for the mercy of God. Nor indeed could any thing be said. Christ knew that, without His grace, man's nature could not bear any good fruit, for from above is every good gift. Far from it. Any such notion of man's unassisted strength is wholly detestable, contrary to the very first principles of all true religion, whether Jewish, Christian, or even Pagan. We are miserably fallen creatures, we are by nature corrupt,—we dare not talk even of children ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... dainties, and vast fortunes, of her ministers. Surely those things, which savour so strongly of this world, become not the servants of one who professed His kingdom was not of it. But when he began to call nonsense and enthusiasm to his aid, and set up the detestable doctrine of faith against good works, I was his friend no longer; for surely that doctrine was coined in hell; and one would think none but the devil himself could have the confidence to preach it. ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Parents. 'Tis indeed the Property of a wary self-interested Man, to measure his Kindness for his Country by his own particular Advantages: But such a sort of Carelesness and Indifferency seems a Part of that Barbarity which was attributed to the Cynicks and Epicureans; whence that detestable Saying proceeded, When I am dead, let the whole World be a Fire. Which is not unlike the Old Tyrannical Axiom; Let my Friends perish, so my Enemies fall along with them. [Footnote: Me mortuo terra misceatur ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... Prince will withdraw his suit. The King may or may not forgive me; but I will risk it. He is still somewhat fond of me, notwithstanding the worry I have caused him. This way is the only method by which I may convince him how detestable this engagement is to me. Yet, my freedom is more to me than my principality. Let the King bestow it upon whom he will. I shall become a teacher of languages, or something of that sort. I shall be free and happy. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... Bixiou in his most ironical tones. "Rastignac was not of your way of thinking. To take without repaying is detestable, and even rather bad form; but to take that you may render a hundred-fold, like the Lord, is a chivalrous deed. This was Rastignac's view. He felt profoundly humiliated by his community of interests with Delphine de Nucingen; I can tell you that he regretted it; I have seen him deploring ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... the list of my pupils, if you dare to utter a remark! You can do very well when you wish! But every now and then you are subject to certain eccentric flights. You sometimes imitate X—— well enough to be mistaken for him; then you are detestable, for you change your nature, and I will not permit it. Besides, it is a vulgar type. Stay, you looked like him just then, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... ethics of your trade Confuse no judgment and no cheating aid,— The Court of Honest Souls, where you in vain May plead your right to falsify for gain, Sternly reminded if a man engage To serve assassins for the liar's wage, His mouth with vilifying falsehoods crammed, He's twice detestable and doubly damned! ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... Shakespear and Ben Johnson, were they, now living, would be wholly at a Loss in the Composure of a Play suitable to the Taste of the Town; without a promiscuous heap of Scurrility to expose a Party, or, what is more detestable, perhaps a particular Person, no Play will succeed, and the most execrable Language, in a Comedy, produc'd at this Time, shall be more applauded than the most beautiful Turns in a Love for Love: Such ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... emerged into a yard with a detestable pavement of broken bricks and mud, with high, towering houses surmounting it all around, and a number of broken outhouses and privies covering a large portion of the ground surface of the yard. Turning around, we could see the back of the tenement ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... other where there existed the least love of freedom, nor could anything be more destructive to the tranquillity and happiness of Europe. Were we to join Dumourier in a declaration not to rest until we had put to death those detestable regicides, calling themselves philosophers, and all the miscreants who had destroyed all lawful authority in France? If we were, he would venture to say, this would be a war for a purpose entirely new in the history of mankind; and as it was called a war of vengeance, he must say, that ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... horticulturist's point of view, the climate of pretty nearly the whole of this country is simply detestable. We may arrange to withstand very well the severity of our northern winters; we expect an entire shutting-up of all garden industries, and long cold seasons are an accustomed matter of necessity: but we have never yet learned to accept ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... informant of our author, is but an indication of dislike to a caste degraded by servitude and ignorance; and it is not perceived how it proves the despotism of a majority over the freedom and independence of opinion. If it be true, it proves a detestable tyranny over acts, over the exercise of an acknowledged right. The apprehensions of a mob committing violence deterred the colored voters from approaching the polls. Are instances unknown in England or even in France, of ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... detestable of plotters! how have I deserved from you the shocking indignities—but no more—only for your own sake, wish not, at least for a week ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... house to wash his hands, and, coming back, sat down at his ease in a wicker arm-chair near the table. He felt happy, and in a good temper. The verdure, the sunlight and the blue sky filled him with a keener sense of the joy of life. Large towns with their bustle and din were to him detestable. Around him were sunlight and freedom; the future gave him no anxiety; for he was disposed to accept from life whatever it could offer him. Sanine shut his eyes tight, and stretched himself; the tension of his sound, strong muscles ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the family name and dropped his title in order to go gallivanting about the country with this young person.... An American, I am told—and with that detestable creature, Mrs. Devar! Nice thing! No wonder Lady Porthcawl was shocked. May I ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... ghouls who saw this were likely to desist from their detestable work, unless they valued spoils more ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... While out on this little pleasure excursion we ate horse, mule, wolf, wild-cat, mountain sheep, rose seed buds, raw-hide, a squirrel, fatty matter from the sockets of the mule's eyes and the marrow from his bones; but that ham of wild-cat was certainly the most detestable thing that I ever undertook to eat. The marrow from the mule's bones was ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... as most people see in a twelvemonth. It was observable in this gentleman, that he had an insurmountable distaste to the insides of buildings, and that he was perfectly acquainted with the merits of all shows, in respect of which there was any charge for admission, which it seemed were every one detestable, and of the very lowest grade of merit. He was so thoroughly possessed with this opinion, that when Miss Charity happened to mention the circumstance of their having been twice or thrice to the theatre with Mr Jinkins and party, he inquired, as a matter of course, 'where the orders came from?' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... are somewhat sluggish and slow in their flight, and thus fall an easy prey to either the gun or the murderous and detestable 'shanghai.'" ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... for another feeling. I belong, in habits of thinking and acting, rather to your sex, with which I have always been brought up, than to my own. Besides, the fatal veil was wrapt round me in my cradle; for you may easily believe I have never thought of the detestable condition under which I may remove it. The time," she added, "for expressing my final determination is not arrived, and I would fain have the freedom of wild heath and open air with the other commoners ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... come grouching back to the clubhouse and I took 'em home to breakfast. When we got down to the table old Judge Ballard says: 'What might have been an evening of rare enjoyment was converted into a detestable failure by that cur. I saw from the very beginning that he was determined ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... officers, "They are boasters of the highest order, and when they are confronted with the duty of defending hearth and home, their courage ends in vapour." He avers that they "cannot lose honour, as they have none to lose," and yet he makes no serious effort to unshackle himself from a detestable position. Emma, the Queen, and King of Naples, and others, have a deep-rooted hold on him, and he cannot give up the cheap popularity of the Neapolitans. He persuades himself that the whole thought of his soul is "Down, down, with the French," and that it shall be his "constant ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... of Jesuitism, Fred, which teaches the detestable doctrine that you may do evil if good is ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... know, Monsieur Le Capitaine (he always called my father so), I am a Frenchman, fond of liberty and change, and this detestable prison became so very irksome to me, with its scanty food and straw beds on the floor, that I had for some time determined to make my escape and go to Ireland, where I believe sympathies are strong towards the French nation. I am, as you know, acquainted with Monsieur ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... and fifteenth centuries, and even, though in a minor degree, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth, causing a permanent disorder of the mind, and exhibiting, in those cities to whose inhabitants it was a novelty, scenes as strange as they were detestable. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... do not think that it ought to be counted at all," said Madame Phoebus; "and there is nothing to me so detestable in Europe as the quantity of ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there was a slight smarting sensation, and my body felt clammy and glutinous, but the bath was rather ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... "That's detestable; that shall never be played; the Bastille must be destroyed before the license to act this play can be any other than an act of the most dangerous inconsistency. This man scoffs at everything that should be ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... attempt to prove Theobald the greatest of Shakespearean editors, has said that "if in this copy, which we have not had the opportunity of inspecting, Warburton has laid claim to more than Theobald has assigned to him, we believe him to be guilty of dishonesty even more detestable than that of which the proofs are, as we have shown, indisputable."(33) An inspection of the Cambridge volume is not necessary to show that a passage in the Preface has been conveyed from one of Warburton's letters published by Nichols and ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... "That capricious and detestable spirit of Detraction, which on Earth never fails to persecute superior Virtue, has not scrupled to assert that the affliction, to which I allude, was the mere consequence of paternal austerity. The Earth itself, though frequently accused of being eager to receive ideas that may abase the eminent, ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... fight like a Dator. But for your detestable yellow hair and your white skin you would be an honour to the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a man to have the right spirit and the right motives, unless he does that which is right in itself. Conscience may be warped by malevolence, selfishness, prejudice, or education, until the man is led to do that which is detestable in the sight of God. The time may come when this man will regret his foolishness, and see that he was wrong, ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... influences of the Spirit to the dead, and his reviving influences to the dormant; for revival presupposes life. Their "works were not perfect before God," however they might appear to men. The majority were in a languishing condition, had "given themselves over to a detestable neutrality" in the Lord's cause. And as the whole body is justly characterized by the major part; this church is described as "dead." "Be watchful,—remember,—repent." These duties point out the prevailing sins, namely, slothfulness, forgetfulness ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... also very numerous. They were the coffee-houses of the ancient day. Hot drinks were sold there, boiled and perfumed wine, and all sorts of mixtures, which must have been detestable, but for which the ancients seem to have had a special fancy. "A thousand and a thousand times more respectable than the wine-shops of our day, these bathing-houses of ages gone by, where men did not assemble to ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... after having solemnly promised to go, as they had done, they now failed to make the attempt, they would, in effect, brand themselves with cowardice, and might as well sit down, fold their arms, and acknowledge themselves as fit only to be slaves. This detestable character, all were unwilling to assume. Every man except Sandy (he, much to our regret, withdrew) stood firm; and at our last meeting we pledged ourselves afresh, and in the most solemn manner, that, at the time appointed, we would certainly start on our long journey for a free ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... straw in my boyhood, and I never doubted that this would be as dulcet, but finer and more ethereal; as much more delectable, in short, as these grapes are better than puckery cider apples. Positively, I never tasted anything so detestable, such a sour and bitter juice, still lukewarm with fermentation; it was a wail of woe, squeezed out of the wine-press of tribulation, and the more a man drinks of such, the sorrier he ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Madame de Sevigne very judiciously observes, in one of her letters upon the choice of books for her grand-daughter. We refer for more detailed observations upon this subject to the chapter upon Books. But we cannot help here reiterating our advice to preceptors, not to force the detestable characters, which are sometimes held up to admiration in ancient and modern history, upon the common sense, or, if they please, the moral feelings, of their pupils. The bad actions of great characters, should not be palliated by eloquence, and fraud and villainy should never be explained ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... master should think that my silence was either neglect or want of duty; but, in reality, my situation is such that I have nothing to say but imprecations against the fatality of being born in such a detestable age." An unhappy and uncongenial marriage tended still more to embitter his existence; and if at last he yielded to frailties, which inevitably insure degradation, it must be remembered that his lot ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... affection by the cost of postage-stamps, you have a right to be sarcastic. If you measure it in any other way, you are wrong. I could not help loving any one so like myself as my son. It would show a detestable lack of appreciation of my ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... with great simplicity of tone. "And I don't mind telling you, Mr. Razumov, that if he had not come with his tale to such a staunch and loyal Russian as you, he would have disappeared like a stone in the water... which would have had a detestable effect," he added, with a bright, cruel smile under his stony stare. "So you see, there can be no ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... conceive any actual connection between a harmless schoolboy and an apparently cold-blooded crime. He resisted the idea on more grounds than he felt disposed to urge in argument with his now strangely animated factotum. It was still a wide jump to a detestable conclusion, but he confined his criticism to the width of the jump. The cork and the cigarette might be stepping-stones, but at least one more was wanted to justify the slightest suspicion against the missing boy. Let it be shown that he had carried firearms ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... education was began: he is getting very bad habits here, he obeys no one, he thinks himself perfectly free to do as he likes, he hits everybody and nobody dares to hit him back. He ought to be placed in the midst of his equals, or he will grow up with the most detestable temper." ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... had little enough to say in the guidance of her boy. He set himself square like a pugilist, which was his notion of resistance. Mr. May looked on with a curious mixture of feelings. His own sudden and foolish hope was over, and what did it matter to him whether the detestable father or the coarse son should win? He turned away from them with contempt, which was made sharp by their utter uselessness to himself. Had it been possible that he might have what he wanted from Mr. Copperhead, his patience would have held out against any trial; but the moment that ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... child Julio, or Bosola heaps torments upon the Duchess of Malfi, we turn away with loathing because the deed is either cruelly undeserved or utterly unwarranted by the gain expected from it. Alice Arden's murder of her husband is mainly detestable because her ulterior motive is detestable. Again, the ghosts which Marston and Chapman give us are absurd creatures of 'too, too solid flesh', who will sit on the bed to talk comfortably to one, draw the curtains when one wishes to sleep, or play the scout and call out in warning whenever ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... woman. His affair with Mrs Basil, which was now all that she had to bring, in her heart, against him, she could not find it in her to call an intrigue. It was a love affair—a pure enough thing in its way. But this seemed to her to be a horror—a wantonness, all the more detestable to her, because she so detested ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... trade in most young girls in qualifying their conversation. The use of that tinsel gives a wholly unreal tone to what is being said and is so pregnant with affectation as to be tiresome. Between slang and adjectives, it is hard to choose, both are so detestable from a woman's lips. The difference is that the adjective insidiously captures the refined mind, while slang only holds captive the coarse mind. In a plain and intended to be truthful statement of any occurrence, the injection of three or four adjectives will change the whole tenor ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... frightful hour of midnight, when the Hell-demon leans over your sleeping form, and inspires those thoughts which eventually will lead you to the gates of destruction... The fiend of the Sussex solitudes shrieked in the wilderness at midnight—he thirsts for thy detestable gore, impious Fergus. But the day of retribution will arrive. H ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... designing persons have not been wanting in latter ages, who found much interest in taking advantage of the weakness or credulity of their fellow creatures. Against this pestilent and abandoned race of men, most civilized countries have enacted penal laws. But what rendered such persons peculiarly detestable in modern times, was the communication which they were supposed to hold with the devil, to whom they sold themselves, and from whom, in return, they derived their information. And by this principle the penal statutes, instead of extirpating, inflamed ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness, which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity, which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practise such detestable conduct: but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of sentiment and purity of manners—to such an one, in such circumstances, I can assure you, my ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... silenced the murmurs in Hungary, and established his authority there, he next turned his attention to the recovery of the Netherlands. The people there, breathing the spirit of French liberty, had, by a simultaneous rising, thrown off the detestable Austrian yoke. Forty-five thousand men were sent to effect their subjugation. On the 20th of November, the army appeared before Brussels. In less than one year all the provinces were again brought under subjection to ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... may be a long way off," she replied calmly. "You see, Barry and I quarrelled yesterday. We both have vile tempers,—perfectly detestable tempers. Of course, we will make up again—we always do—but there may come a time when he will say, 'Oh, what's the use trying to put up with you any longer?' and then ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... went on, convicting himself. "Was not my conduct towards Mary Vasilievna and her husband base and disgusting? And my position with regard to money? To use riches considered by me unlawful on the plea that they are inherited from my mother? And the whole of my idle, detestable life? And my conduct towards Katusha to crown all? Knave and scoundrel! Let men judge me as they like, I can deceive them; but myself I ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... of that bright and laughing city—with its shops of flowers, its avenues of trees through which run the streets, its gardens, its pines and cactus and aloe walks? Only one blemish can I pick out in Nice, and that is a hideous modern Gothic church, Notre Dame, filled with detestable garish glass, so utterly faulty in design, so full of blemish of every sort, that the best wish one could make for the good people of Nice is that the next earthquake that visits the Riviera may shake this wretched structure to pieces, so as to give them an opportunity of erecting another ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... began now, for the first time, to droop. I looked back, with nameless emotions, on the days of my infancy. I called up the image of my mother. I reflected on the infatuation of my surviving parent, and the usurpation of the detestable Betty, with horror. I viewed myself as the most calamitous and desolate ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... which they bound themselves by a formal agreement, the entire body itself undertaking to see to their observance. It is quite possible that strong religious profession, and even sincere profession, might be accompanied, as it was in the Spaniards, with everything most detestable. It is not sufficient of itself to prove that their actions would correspond with it, but it is one among a number of evidences; and, coming, as they come before us, with hands clear of any blood but of fair ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... land of art and romance, the land of love and song; for there was no ecstatic person with me armed with Murray and prepared to admire anything recommended therein. Besides, I could enjoy Italy for days and months, and therefore was not obliged to "do" (detestable tourist slang!) anything in a given time. I was free as a bird. I knew no Americans in Florence, and determined to studiously avoid making acquaintances except among Italians, for I wished to learn the language ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... with the beasts at Ephesus every day.... This week I publish a pamphlet on the Catholic question, with my name to it. There is such an uproar here that I think it is gallant, and becoming a friend of Lord Grey's, to turn out and take a part in the affray.... What a detestable subject!—stale, threadbare, and exhausted; but ancient errors cannot be met with ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... was so greatly excited and so freely expressed to see this extraordinary personage as to arouse the jealousy of Olympia. The king perceived this. It is one of the most detestable traits in our fallen nature that one can take pleasure in making another unhappy. The unamiable king amused himself in torturing ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... compound. Peterkin used to say of it that it beat a druggist's shop all to sticks; for whereas the first is a compound of good and bad, the other is a horrible compound of all that is utterly detestable. And indeed the more I consider it the more I am struck with the strange mixture of good and evil that exists not only in the material earth but in our own natures. In our own Coral Island we had experienced every variety of good that a bountiful Creator could heap on us. Yet on the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... quarters; and the only contemplation popular in France is, how most suddenly and effectually French armies may be poured on our shores, our fields ravaged, our maritime cities burned, and our people massacred! It must be hoped that this detestable spirit does not reach higher than the Jacobin papers, and the villains by whom that principal part of the French press is conducted. Yet we find but little contradiction to it in even the more serious and authentic portion of the national sentiments. In ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... mocker? Did Solomon know what he was talking about when he gave it that detestable name? He added still another word and called it a deceiver. Does it deceive and mock? It meets a young man at a social feast, garlands itself with the graces of hospitality, sparkles in the brilliant ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... pettiness of younger women. She is a friend who offers you all feminine refinements, who displays the graces, the choice attractions which nature inspires in a woman for man; she gives them, and no longer sells them. Such a woman is either detestable or perfect; for her gifts are either not of the flesh or they are worthless. Madame de la Chanterie was perfect. She seemed never to have had a youth; her glance never told of a past. Godefroid's curiosity was far from being appeased by a closer and more intimate knowledge of this sublime ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... done this thing! I must write on. It seems like my past life laughing at me, that my old friend should have come here in Italy, to wear the detestable uniform. How can we be friends when we must act as enemies? We shall soon be in arms, one against the other. I pity you, for you have chosen a falling side; and when you are beaten back, you can have no pride in your country, as we Italians have; no delight, no love. They will call you a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of his life this unlucky author had not been without ambition; it was only when disappointed in his political projects that he resolved to devote himself to literature. As he was incapable of attempting original composition, he became known by his detestable versions. He wrote above eighty volumes, which have never found favour in the eyes of the critics; yet his translations are not without their use, though they never retain by any chance a single passage of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... flowing contour, and eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic nature, when such examples are recorded ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... as I began to savour the gratification of telling him my opinion of him. There are probably few people who ever positively looked forward to an awkward interview with Manderson; but I was mad with rage. My honour and my liberty had been plotted against with detestable treachery. I did not consider what would follow the interview. ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... whether he was acquainted with all the manuscripts and printed documents relating to the subject. It was then that I pricked up my ears. They spoke at first of original sources; and I must confess they did so in a satisfactory manner, despite their innumerable and detestable puns. Then they began to speak about contemporary studies on ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... deceased was held in but little esteem by her neighbours. Her remarks were often most offensive and odious in the mouth of a woman of her age. She had been heard to give a young girl the most detestable counsels. A pork butcher, belonging to Bougival, embarrassed in his business, and tempted by her supposed wealth, had at one time paid her his addresses. She, however, repelled his advances, declaring that to be married ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... that "Hunger is the best sauce for poor food," but hunger failed to render this detestable stuff palatable, and it became so loathsome that very many actually starved to death because unable to force their organs of deglutition to receive the nauseous dose and pass it to the stomach. I was always much healthier than the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... conscience, and as to the contrary I shall answer before God, I will employ myself to the utmost of my power in their defence and for the extirpation of heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, the delivery of our country of infinite murders, wicked and detestable policies by which this kingdom was hitherto governed, nourished in obscurity and ignorance, maintained in barbarity and incivility, and consequently of infinite evils which were too lamentable to be rehearsed. And seeing these are motives most laudable before any men of consideration, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... interview been, Mounier and his Deputation were not yet got up. So brief and satisfactory. A stone is rolled from every heart. The fair Palace Dames publicly declare that this Lafayette, detestable though he be, is their saviour for once. Even the ancient vinaigrous Tantes admit it; the King's Aunts, ancient Graille and Sisterhood, known to us of old. Queen Marie-Antoinette has been heard ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... very kind in you. But, thank heaven! it is all over now, and I hope we shall soon bear you away from this place, that no doubt has become so detestable in your eyes that you never want ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... and then the boats, prepared meals, &c., &c., all in public view, for there was very little deck and apparently no room below at all. In the hotel we were interested by some tame swallows, which flew about the hall and came into the restaurant; but a detestable mechanical piano, operated by an electrical motor on the penny-in-the-slot plan, which was a source of great pleasure to some Slav visitors, interfered a good deal with our comfort. I am sorry to say that when I had time to look over the account for ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... old man, enter upon the detestable subject; it may shorten his days. But, I think, I shall tell him, that I cannot go to Somerset Street, to see him. But, I shall not write till ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... as an artist and a man, in words that all who heard will long remember. "Hogarth," he said, "it is true, is often gross; but it must be remembered that he painted in a less fastidious age than ours, and that his great object was to expose vice. Debauchery is always made by him detestable, never attractive." Charles Lamb, one of the best of his commentators, who has viewed his labors in a kindred spirit, speaking of one of his most elaborate and varied works, the "Election Entertainment," asks, "What is the result left on the mind? Is it an impression ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... think he is a man of very sublime religion, as much above this world as a great mountain; but he has the true sense of liberty and fraternity; for he has dared to oppose with all his might this detestable and cruel trade in poor negroes, which makes us, who are so proud of the example of America in asserting the rights of men, so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the situation was changed; now there was this hazy mass of suspicion revealed in Florence, and this most detestable story of Larrone and ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... the black bread eaten by the French. Since that time half a century has passed, and whilst the agricultural produce in France has tripled in value, the labourers who produce it continue, from custom and necessity, to eat a detestable bread made from rye, barley, or peas and potatoes; and, to make the matter still worse, it is badly baked, without yeast, and being sometimes kept for weeks, it becomes covered with mould, and altogether presents an appearance enough ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... slow, enervating, dull hours spent in idle and diffuse conversation on the dimly lighted veranda! Oh, the detestable peppered jam in the tiny pots! In the middle of the town, enclosed by four walls, is this park of five yards square, with little lakes, little mountains, and little rocks, where all wears an antiquated appearance, and everything is covered with a greenish mold from ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... her shoulders and sniffing in a manner he had always regarded as detestable at close quarters, but which now became ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... horses with which we had left the frontier in the spring, not one remained; we had supplied their place with the rough breed of the prairie, as hardy as mules and almost as ugly; we had also with us a number of the latter detestable animals. In spite of their strength and hardihood, several of the band were already worn down by hard service and hard fare, and as none of them were shod, they were fast becoming foot-sore. Every horse and mule had a cord of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Bugeaud arises, I suppose, from the latter's detestable disposition, his overbearing and dictatorial temper. Lamoriciere is not a man, I take it, to be ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... "Oh, don't bother about me, Mr. Pathurst. Sea-sickness is only detestable and horrid, like sleet, and muddy weather, and poison ivy; besides, I'd rather be sea-sick ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... it, who would be the cause of its twofold repetition, who would be constantly in my presence, and whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the school business, must inevitably, on account of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Catharine kept a constant watch over his words and his actions. She spared no possible efforts to bring him under her entire control. Efforts were made to lead his teacher to check his enthusiasm for lofty exploits, and to surrender him to the claims of frivolous amusement. This detestable queen presented before the impassioned young man all the blandishments of female beauty, that she might betray him to licentious indulgence. In some of these infamous arts she ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... story, I might have married you, and been the most miserable woman alive, for a man who could play the villain to a hapless girl, who could stoop to so mean and dastardly an action as to cripple a rival yacht, is a creature so mean, so detestable, that wretched indeed would be the fate of ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... him at his inn, with the starveling little boys, through all the story, Mr. Squeers is consistently exquisite. In spite of his cruelty, coarseness, hypocrisy, there is a kind of humour in Mr. Squeers which makes him not quite detestable. In "David Copperfield" Mr. Micawber is perhaps the only artistic creation of much permanent merit, unless it be the waiter who consumed David's dinner, and the landlady who gave him a pint of the Regular Stunning. In "Bleak House" Mr. Browne made some credible attempts to be tragic and ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... my identity had been revealed to him. I regret this, inasmuch as the inventor will indubitably be the object of pressing solicitations, and as Engineer Serko will employ every means in his power to obtain the composition of the explosive and deflagrator, of which he will make such detestable use during future piratical exploits. Yes, it would have been far better if I could have remained Thomas Roch's keeper here, as in ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... disbelieved, most protested against; a defense of the public corruption she had heard him denounce so often; an attack upon the ideas, the principles, the elements she had so often heard him eulogize. It was as adroit as it was detestable, as plausible as it ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... may judge from the declarations which she made during the trial, for she appeared to take credit to herself for the revelations which she then made of all the disgusting particulars connected with the crimes of that detestable culprit. ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... leave it to me when he died, but he departed from life and never kept his word. A frequent source of grief to me has been to see objects of great value, illustrating some point in archaeology, seized as "curiosities" by ignorant wealthy folk. The most detestable form of this folly is the buying of incunabula, first editions or uncut copies, and keeping them from publication or reading, and, in short, of worshipping anything, be it a book or a coin, merely because it is rare. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... write to the above effect. They can make nothing of the characters we write in; and so I read this to them. They approve of it; and of their own motion each man would set his name to it. I would not delay sending it, for fear of some detestable scheme taking place. THOMAS BELTON, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... shabby," said Miss Fanny. "Lemons, you know, are scarce to be got for any price, and as for lemonade made of sirup, it's positively vulgar and detestable; it tastes just like cream of tartar ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and robbed the widow and orphans! We had defrauded our neighbor and slandered our brother! We had lied to both God and man! "Can it be possible," (said we to ourselves), "that there are human beings living, who have been guilty of more abominable crimes?" "What is more odious?" "What could be more detestable?" "What could render a human being more obnoxious to eternal vengeance?" We were in this deplorable condition, when we first set about trying to deceive ourselves. We pondered the matter well, and could devise no means, that in our judgment, would be so likely to bring relief to our troubled ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... emotion as fear in the mother of the Missouri bandits, and she had bred her ferocity and evil will into her two detestable children. ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... Me thou hast wholly forgotten And trusted in fraud. So thy skirts I draw over thy face, 26 Thy shame is exposed. Thine adulteries, thy neighings, 27 Thy whorish intrigues; On the heights, in the field have I seen Thy detestable deeds. Jerusalem! Woe unto thee! Thou wilt not be clean— ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... in the cause of the Established Church, in active opposition to what he considered the lax latitudinarianism of the Whigs on the one hand and the attacks of the Freethinkers on the other, he found leisure for doing society another service. Nothing was more detestable to Swift than charlatanry and imposture. From time immemorial the commonest form which quackery has assumed has been associated with astrology and prophecy. It was the frequent theme or satire in the New Comedy of the Greeks and ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... eyeglass screwed in the smiling eye, and the hair, now sprinkled with grey, brushed back from the broad open forehead? The genial, pleasant manner, the entire ease of the man, and the utter absence of all that detestable putting on of "side" which is too often characteristic of the young actor of the present day, how all these things go towards the explanation of his universal popularity! A great sorrow has overshadowed the latter years of his life, a sorrow from which he will never shake ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various |
