"Slander" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... old Roman law (i.e. originally the ius divinum) forbade the use of evil spells, as we see in another fragment of the Tables, "qui malum carmen incantassit." In later times this was usually taken as referring to libel and slander, but there can be no doubt that the carmina here alluded to were originally magical, and became carmina famosa in the course of legal interpretation. Cicero seems to combine the two meanings in the de Rep. (iv. 10. 2) when he says that the Tables made it a capital offence "si quis ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... Reports of the Parent Institution.' * * * 'We again repeat—that our operations are confined to the free black population, and that there is no ground for fear on the part of our southern friends. We hold their slaves as we hold their other property, SACRED. Let not then this slander be repeated.'—[Speech of James S. Green, Esq. on the ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... parliamentary privileges, which Fox, Pitt, Canning, Castlereagh, Tierney, Adam, Shelburne, Grattan, Corry, Curran, and Clare disdained to adopt as their buckler. The House of Commons became the Asylum of his Slander, as the Churches of Rome were ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a law of the society, enforced by their discipline, as I shewed in a former volume, that no Quaker is to be guilty of detraction or slander. Any person, breaking this law, would come under admonition, if found out. This induces an habitual caution or circumspection in speech, where persons are made the subject of conversation. And I have no doubt that this law would act ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... never given a hand to spiteful chatter or to slander, and had not flirted with the best looking young man in the neighborhood, any more than she had with the officers who stayed at the chateau during the maneuver, or the neighbors, who came to see her parents. And some of them even ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... something in Wilding's eye that cried him danger. Thus, in the end, since he could not attempt a compromise with this fine fellow, the only course remaining was that of direct antagonism—that is to say, direct as Richard understood directness. Slander was the weapon he used in that secret duel; the countryside was well stocked with stories of Mr. Wilding's many indiscretions. I do not wish to suggest that these were unfounded. Still, the countryside, cajoled by ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... Julia, three days after landing at Dover. 'All the best society of London exclusives is now open to me—me! without a sou in my pocket beyond what my pen brings me, and with not only no influence from friends at home, but with a world of envy and slander at my back.... In a literary way I have already had offers from the Court Magazine, the Metropolitan, and the New Monthly, of the first price for my articles. I sent a short tale, written in one ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... "Hunt the Slipper," etc., which combined bodily exercise with healthful excitement of the mirthful organs, which some philosophers assert to be, after all, the distinguishing trait of mankind. Some call man a "thinking animal," but this is so self-evident a slander upon the great majority of the species, that no words are needed to refute it: one attempted to define him as "a biped without feathers," but when a plucked fowl was brought forward as a specimen of his man, he was obliged to give up that definition. Others again describe ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... damage is not evanescent, but is apt to bite deep into national character and to survive the abolition of the institutions which caused it. The Anglo-Irish Union was created and has ever since been justified by a systematic defamation of Irish character. If it is at length resolved to bury the slander and trust Ireland, in the name of justice and reason let the trust be complete and the institutions given her such as to permit full play to her best instincts and tendencies, not such as to deflect them into wrong ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... public life of America there are but few whose names are mentioned as often as that of Emma Goldman. Yet the real Emma Goldman is almost quite unknown. The sensational press has surrounded her name with so much misrepresentation and slander, it would seem almost a miracle that, in spite of this web of calumny, the truth breaks through and a better appreciation of this much maligned idealist begins to manifest itself. There is but little consolation in the fact that ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... Palais Cardinal? Not read 'Le Grand Cyrus,' and on the score of morality! Why, this most delightful book was written by one of the most moral women in Paris—one of the chastest—against whose reputation no word of slander has ever been breathed! It must, indeed, be confessed that Sapho is of an ugliness which would protect her even were she not guarded by the aegis of genius. She is one of those fortunate unfortunates who can walk through the furnace of a Court ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... insinuations. The latter had nothing to say for himself, and made a formal retraction and apology. A signed account of the proceedings was kept by the first officer, and a duplicate by Huxley, as a defence against any possible revival of the slander. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Department of the W.S.P.U. I feel instinctively I am touching pitch and that you will disapprove ... but if we are to fight with clean hands, que Messieurs les Assassins commencent! If Scotland Yards drops slander and infamous suggestions as a weapon we will let our poisoned ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Indeed, if there is any phrase for which he, the apparent cynic, the sworn despiser of phrases, seems to have had a certain weakness, it is the word salus publica. To it he sacrificed his days and his nights; for it he more than once risked his life; for it he incurred more hatred and slander than perhaps any man of his time; for it he alienated his best friends; for it he turned not once or twice, but one might almost say habitually, against his own cherished prejudices and convictions. The career of few men shows so many apparent inconsistencies and contrasts. One of his earliest ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... is not so. I have drank of those waters for weeks together (stopping occasionally) and even deepened the color, in a manner peculiar to those who travel in those parts, without feeling half as sanguinary as I do at this moment, from the bare thought of that foul and malicious slander. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... are the cases in which it exists simply to be enumerated, and to be explained each on its special ground, as is easy to believe from the fact that the right of action for certain well known classes of wrongs like trespass or slander has its special history for each class? I think that the law regards the infliction of temporal damage by a responsible person as actionable, if under the circumstances known to him the danger of his act is manifest according to common experience, or ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... against Euripides. Euripides is one of those who call Saperdion a monster—who slander the world of sense with its beauties and its enjoyments, or who contemptuously set it aside. "Born on the day of Salamis—when heroes walked the earth; and gods were reverenced and not discussed—when Greeks guarded their home with its abundant joys, and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... intimate with a young woman of considerable charm. He confided to her his abnormality, and was not repulsed. To others their relation probably appeared that of lovers, and a painful situation was created by the slander of a jealous woman. M.O. felt that in honor he must propose marriage to her. The young woman was non-committal, but invited M.O. to spend several months at her home. Shortly after his arrival a sad occurrence in his own family compelled him to go away, and they did not meet ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a great good would be done to this nation and to the world by the death of Jefferson Davis; yet the bare suggestion of his assassination, in the case of Colonel Dahlgren, was received with a universal shudder, and disavowed as an atrocious slander. But Mr. Mill can meet such ethical problems only by reverting to that general principle of Kant, which he elsewhere repudiates: "So act that the rule on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law for all rational beings." Mr. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... being with any one man more than another and she should remain visibly within the general circle of her group. It always gives gossip a chance to see an engaged girl sitting out dances with any particular man, and slander is never far away if any evidence of ardor creeps into their regard, even if it be merely "manner," and actually mean ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Frankly. But slander is not always so impotent as you seem to suppose it; men of the best sense may be misled by it, or, by their not inquiring after truth, may never come at it; and the vulgar, as they are less apt to be good than ill-natured, often mistake malice for wit, and have an uncharitable joy in commending ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... converse quietly in their sweet, ordinary home tones, it might be in a certain sense agreeable, but it would not be fashionable, and it would not strike the prevailing note of our civilization. If it were true that a group of women all like to talk at the same time when they meet (which is a slander invented by men, who may be just as loquacious, but not so limber-tongued and quick-witted), and raise their voices to a shriek in order to dominate each other, it could be demonstrated that they ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... scribe, dip your pen in rose-pink, Or the Censor's black blurr shall your slander efface A CAESAR turn sophist, an Autocrat shrink? Pusillanimous spite mark the ROMANOFF race? Too wholly absurd! What is this we have heard Which on courtier spirits must painfully jar? Who is he, this mal a propos "little bird" Who twitters ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... cried Markheim. "Who can do so? My life is but a travesty and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All men do; all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them. You see each dragged away by life, like one whom bravos have seized and muffled ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... aside among the darkies. Dogs take my skin, Cap, if theren't a Jew feller in town as white as anybody, and his father's a doctor. It got whispered round that he was a nigger, and the boarders where he stayed raised a fuss about it. The nigger's father had two of them sued for slander, but they proved the nigger by a quirk of law that'd make a volume bigger than Blackstone; and instead of the old Jew getting satisfaction, the judges, as a matter of policy, granted him time to procure further proof to show that his son wasn't a nigger. It was a very well-considered insinuation ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... believe it, my dearest, dearest child,—my only living daughter; I do not believe what they have said to me. But as a mother I have not dared to leave the slander unnoticed. If you will write to me and say that it is not so, you will make me happy again, even though you should rebuke ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... to calamities; themselves, deprived of their goods through injustice or accident; they lose their relations through death, their friends through treachery or forgetfulness, their reputation and honor from slander, a serious illness deprives them of health, their happiness is destroyed by hardness and temptations.... Ah! no doubt, they will have these trials, no doubt they must shed bitter tears, but still GOD'S peace will remain to them, the peace that passeth all understanding; they will realize GOD has ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... not need to tell you how a daughter of the Chaulieus ought to behave. The pride so plainly written in your features is my best guarantee. Safeguards, such as common folk surround their daughters with, would be an insult in our family. A slander reflecting on your name might cost the life of the man bold enough to utter it, or the life of one of your brothers, if by chance the right should not prevail. No more on ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... profit thee?' Youth is a crown of roses, old age a crown of thorns. Many preach well, but do not practise well. It is the punishment of liars, that men don't listen to them when they speak truth. Every man who is proud is an idolater. To slander is to murder. Whosoever humbles himself, God exalts him; whosoever exalts himself, God humbles him. Men see every leprosy except their own. He who daily looks after his property finds a coin. The post does not honor the man; but the man the post. Every man is not so lucky as to have two tables. ...
— Hebrew Literature
... already stamped with the church's reprobation, soon spread; report exaggerated the circumstance into a positive expression of infidelity; and the gossip of the Roman ante-rooms was supplied for the time with a subject of discussion, in perfect harmony with their love for slander, bigotry, and idleness. ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... and it was long or he was whole, but at the last he was well recovered. Thus they lived with joy and play a long while. But ever Sir Andred, that was nigh cousin to Sir Tristram, lay in a watch to wait betwixt Sir Tristram and La Beale Isoud, for to take them and slander them. So upon a day Sir Tristram talked with La Beale Isoud in a window, and that espied Sir Andred, and told it to the King. Then King Mark took a sword in his hand and came to Sir Tristram, and called him false ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... you will on me, my Lord Abbot, and having robbed me of my father, my husband, and my heart, rob me of my goods also, if you can. In my case it matters little. But slander not my child, if one should be born to me, nor dare to touch its rights. Think not that you can break the mother as you broke the girl, for there you will find that you have a she-wolf by ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... affray, it is our painful duty, as public journalists, to record the death of one of our most esteemed citizens—a man whose name is known wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor ability. We refer to Mr. J. Caesar, ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... "Shall your wife slander your own sister, sir? A marriage there was—God yet will proclaim the right—and the name of Beaufort shall be yet placed on ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... slander kills the spirit of the brave; Fling a torch down, upward ever burns the ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... respectable Englishman, and has been with him ever since his twelfth year, says that he never knew a kinder or more amiable disposition. The Queen fears that people who do not know him well have been led away by their present very natural feelings of hatred and distrust of all Indians to slander him. What he might turn out, if left in the hands of unscrupulous Indians in his own country, of course no ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... that General Booth, when Providence moved him to begin his labours among the poor, had even an inkling of their future growth within the short period of his own life. He sowed a seed in faith and hope, and, in spite of opposition and poverty, in spite of ridicule and of slander, he has lived to see that seed ripen into a marvellous harvest. Directly, or indirectly, hundreds of thousands of men and women throughout the world have benefited by his efforts. He has been a tool of destiny, like Mahomet or Napoleon, only in this case one fated ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... above, "there are three young men up here who are prepared to drop things on your head if you slander their generation." ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... slander, it is sometimes full as hard to bear. Wych Hazel eat her own ice for the next two minutes and wondered ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... all times. Moreover, nearly one half of this series of sonnets has nothing to do with love, but treats of quite other life-influences. I would defy any one to couple with fair quotation of sonnets 29, 30, 31, 39, 40, 43, or others, the slander that their author was not impressed, like all other thinking men, with the responsibilities and higher mysteries of life; while sonnets 35, 36, and 37, entitled The Choice, sum up the general view taken in a manner only to be evaded by conscious insincerity. Thus much for The House ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... cast into my heart the flaming fires of love, Speaking as one who hath no care love's secret to contain), "No, by thy life, this is no dye I've used! So haste thou not To heap accusings on my head and slander me in vain. For, when I saw thee get thee gone upon our parting day, My eyes, for very dreariment, with tears of blood did rain. I wiped them with my hand, and so my fingers with my blood Were all to-reddened and do yet their ruddy tint retain." Had I for very passion wept, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... In that city, where all the nobler organs of expression are closed by political conditions, the viler channels run continual filth and poison, and the people, shut out from public and free discussion of religious and political themes, occupy themselves with private slander, and rend each other in their abject desperation. As it is part of the existing political demonstration to avoid the opera and theatre, the Venetians are deprived of these harmless distractions; balls and evening parties, at which people, in other countries, do nothing ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... dragon, had been tracked to its lair and done to death, or at least that one of its heads had been smitten off which babbled slander of Miss Caroline. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... plucked chicken in her hand. "Now go back," he said, "and bring me all the feathers you have scattered." "But this is impossible," she replied: "I cast the feathers carelessly, and the wind carried them away; how can I recover them?" "That," he said, "is exactly like your words of slander. They have been carried about in every direction. You cannot recall them. Go and slander no more." It was a striking way of teaching ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... keep her mind on the level of Parisian brilliancy, Madame de la Baudraye allowed no vacuous small talk in her presence, no old-fashioned compliments, no pointless remarks; she would never endure the yelping of tittle-tattle, the backstairs slander which forms the staple of talk in the country. She liked to hear of discoveries in science or art, or the latest pieces at the theatres, the newest poems, and by airing the cant words of the day she made a show of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... about God and His glory at all. They talk about the glory of God, but they make it consist in pure selfishness! According to them, He seeks everything for Himself; which is dead against the truth of God, a diabolic slander of God. It does not trouble them to believe such things about God; they do not even desire that God should not be like that; they only want to escape Him. They dare not say God will not do this or that, however clear it be that it would not be fair; they are in terror of contradicting ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... one of the simplest ideas in the world. It has always puzzled me how there came to be so much bewilderment and misunderstanding and miserable mutual slander about it. At one time I agreed with Socialism, because it was simple. Now I disagree with Socialism, because it is too simple. Yet most of its opponents still seem to treat it, not merely as an iniquity but as a mystery of iniquity, ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... the light as the sun just then began to emerge from the eclipse. He opened the letter, scarce knowing what he did; the ink was faded and pale, but perfectly legible, for it had been in a dry place. The letter said that having tried in vain to get speech with him, and having faced all the vile slander and bitter remarks of the village for his sake, she had at last resolved to write and tell him that she was really and truly his own. In a moment of folly she had, indeed, accepted the locket, but that was all, and since the discovery she had twice sent it back, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... these Thersites pour'd his hate; But straight Ulysses at his side appear'd, And spoke, with scornful glance, in stern rebuke: "Thou babbling fool, Thersites, prompt of speech, Restrain thy tongue, nor singly thus presume The Kings to slander; thou, the meanest far Of all that with the Atridae came to Troy. Ill it beseems, that such an one as thou Should lift thy voice against the Kings, and rail With scurril ribaldry, and prate of home. How these affairs may end, we know not yet; Nor how, or well or ill, we may return. Cease then ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... no more than you, I might perhaps have thought of him, as, at the first, you did; yea, had he received this report at their hands only that are enemies to religion, I should have thought it had been a slander,—a lot that often falls from bad men's mouths upon good men's names and professions; but all these things, yea, and a great many more as bad, of my own knowledge, I can prove him guilty of. Besides, good men are ashamed of him; ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... aided the king's escape after the battle of Worcester, awaited at the queen's back stairs the signal to appear in his majesty's presence. The duke being made aware of the fact, announced it to the king, who thereon ordered all in his room to withdraw; but James, mindful that slander might afterwards charge him with killing his brother, begged the Earl of Bath, the lord of the bedchamber then in waiting, and the Earl of Feversham, captain of the guard, might stay—saying to the king it was not fitting he should be unattended in his weak condition. ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... is not hampered by rules. The main thing is to disable one's antagonist as quickly as possible, and Festing knew that Wilkinson would not be scrupulous. He must not be beaten, particularly since his defeat would, to some extent, confirm the slander. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... names, sir," said David, screwing up his lips, and tightening a roll of blue serge apron about his waist. "Don't do to slander your neighbours; but if you was to say it was old Mother Warboys' hulking grandson, I wouldn't be so rude as to contradick you; not as I say it is, mind you, but I've knowed that chap ever since he was a dirty little gipsy whelp of a thing, and I never ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... her husband by his neglect or desertion, she may protect her reputation by an action for slander and libel; but if her husband is the defendant, this suit, as also for alimony and divorce, must be in the name of a "next friend." She is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus if unlawfully restrained of her liberty (Purd. Dig., 510, 12; 513, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... a little too much to be borne," said she; "the neighbors may invent stories about Horace, if they have nothing better to do, but they shall not slander my mother!" ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... cowardly, dastardly slander than is contained in the assertion that the majority or any considerable proportion of working men neglect their families through drink. It is a condemned lie. There are some who do, but they are not even a large minority. They are few and far between, and are regarded ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... honor, once lost, can never be recovered; unless the loss rested on some mistake, such as may occur if a man is slandered or his actions viewed in a false light. So the law provides remedies against slander, libel, and even insult; for insult though it amounts to no more than mere abuse, is a kind of summary slander with a suppression of the reasons. What I mean may be well put in the Greek phrase—not quoted from any ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... raise it: For what do "they mourn?" Why, for power, wealth, and places. There let the enemies of the Queen, and monarchy, and the church, lie, and mourn, and lick the dust, like serpents, till they are truly sensible of their ingratitude, falsehood, disobedience, slander, blasphemy, sedition, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... tears to think of the loss of it. When the fox had told all this, he thus concluded: "If any one can charge me with crime and prove it by witness, here I stand to endure the uttermost the law can inflict upon me; but if malice only slander me without witness, I crave the combat, according to the law ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... according to their own laws and regulations. They married and gave in marriage after their own caprice. Industrious, skilful, with little ambition, they bustled about their narrow streets, jostling those at their elbow and uttering slander against those out of hearing. In short, they led the humdrum life incident to all small towns in time of peace, and were ever eager to vary this monotony at the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... the lot of those who make offerings to her shrine. Now, all this is a vile slander ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... indeed would wrong him. The world is full of slander; and every wretch that knows himself unjust, charges his neighbour with like passions; and by the general frailty, hides his own. If you are wise, and would be happy, turn a deaf ear to such reports: 'tis ruin to ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... we declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth; and upon that issue we expect to carry every State in the Union. I shall not slander the inhabitants of the fair State of Massachusetts nor the inhabitants of the State of New York by saying that, when they are confronted with the proposition, they will declare that this nation is not able to attend ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... the thought of undertaking a campaign against a great island like Lesbos, then at the height of her power, filled them with dismay. Was it possible that a favoured and privileged ally had taken up arms against them in the hour of their distress? It was a slander, they could not, they would not believe it. At any rate, before proceeding to extremities, they would try the effect of a friendly remonstrance. So they sent envoys with a pacific message to the Mytilenaeans, hoping by fair words ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... thus be seen that to Alexander Hamilton belongs no small share of founding and shaping the destiny of this powerful country of to-day. Like many other great and good men, he was obliged to suffer the slander of the press, which charged him with a misappropriation of the public money, but as has already been shown in this narrative, it proved nothing but a foul story concocted through jealousy and partisan hate, and is no longer countenanced. His salary being insufficient for his support, he resigned ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... outspoken fearlessness. You might have thought them Nihilists denouncing the Russian Government from the steps of the Kremlin at Moscow. They have, in the next breath, abused Mr. Balfour in terms transgressing the law of slander. He has almost fallen on their necks. It has transpired that the one dream of his life was to hear Mr. Balfour abused. I have talked to him myself for a quarter of an hour, and gathered that at heart he was a peace-at-any-price man, strongly in favour ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Susan's conduct, and removes all the blame which has been so lavished on her, may also convince us how little the general report of anyone ought to be credited; since no character, however upright, can escape the malevolence of slander. If my sister, in the security of retirement, with as little opportunity as inclination to do evil, could not avoid censure, we must not rashly condemn those who, living in the world and surrounded with temptations, should be accused of errors which they are known to have ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... walking up to the side of the table where Thaddeus was standing, inquired after his friend's health. He answered her in a voice unusually agitated. All that he had been told by the countess of her favorable opinion of him, and the slander he had just heard from Diana's lover, were at once present in ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall. On September 9, 1608, the poet's mother was buried in the parish church, and on February 4, 1613, his third brother Richard. On July 15, 1613, Mrs. Hall preferred, with her father's assistance, a charge of slander against one Lane in the ecclesiastical court at Worcester; the defendant, who had apparently charged the lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith, did ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... they are over-sensitive and betray themselves too easily; then the injured husband (carefully concealing his little peccadilloes) finds everything out and there is a devil of a row—a moral row, which is the worst kind of row. But a really clever woman can always steer clear of slander if she likes." ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... your natures up: Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls, Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed; Drink deep until the habits of the slave, The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite And slander, die. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... or of gentle kin, for all we alike are free before GOD'S face, unless our deeds make any better or worse than another, in spite of good counsel and of good teaching. The sins of the mouth are these: to swear oftentimes: forswearing: slander of Christ or of any of His Saints; to name His name without reverence; gainsaying and strife against truthfulness; murmuring against GOD for any anguish or trouble or tribulation that may befall on earth: to say GOD'S Service undevoutly and without reverence: ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... Action of the Prince, To give his Jealous Father an Offence. If with wise Hushai they the Prince did see, They call'd their Meeting a Conspiracy, And cry, that he was going to rebell: Him Absalom they name, Hushai Achitophel. With Slander thus the Prince they did pursue, Aiming at's Life, and the wise Hushai's too. When they much pleased, and triumphing saw, The King his Royal Favors to withdraw, Which like a Spring on him before did flow, ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... it is the affair of every man who would be accounted gentle, to defend the honour of a pure and saintly lady from the foul aspersions of slander." ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... still thinks of Poe as a "luckless man of genius." I recently heard him mentioned as "one whom everybody seems chartered to misrepresent, decry or slander." But it seems to me that his ill-luck ended with his pitiable death, and that since then his defence has been persistent, and his fame of as steadfast growth as a suffering and gifted author could pray for in his hopeful hour. Griswold's decrial and slander turned ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... a peasant had stolen some flour from the miller, and when the miller told him of it, had lodged a complaint for slander. All this was utterly uncalled for and stupid, and Levin felt it himself as ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... many charming women and the heart of some for whom he cared nothing. He was one of those privileged beings whose seductions are irresistible, and who owe to love the power of maintaining themselves according to their rank. The Bourbons would not have resented, as did Jarnac, the slander of la Chataigneraie; they were willing enough to accept the lands and castles of their mistresses,—witness the Prince de Conde, who accepted the estate of Saint-Valery from Madame la Marechale ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... the Ranee's equally mysterious death, was the immediate cause of my grandfather's recall. How much, or how little of this story—or other dark stories of the same kind—is true, whether my grandfather was a consummate scoundrel, or the victim of a baseless slander,—whether he left India a rich man or a poor man, is known to no mortal except Lady Maulevrier, and compared with her the Theban ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... "Sabots? There, take the inventory and let us go downstairs. You will soon see whether your paltry iron-work contrivances will work like these solid old tools, tried and trusty. You will not have the heart after that to slander honest old presses that go like mail coaches, and are good to last you your lifetime without needing repairs of any sort. Sabots! Yes, sabots that are like to hold salt enough to cook your eggs with—sabots ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... at slander. They would have been far more violent than we, in their hates, and they would have had fewer friendships. Yet they might not have been any poorer in real friendships than we. The real friendships among men are so rare that when they occur ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... liberty. Taken by us in 1164, it was followed in so neighboring a country as France only so late as a few years ago. The priests, however, still managed to retain their jurisdiction over offences among themselves, as well as over marriage, the relation between the sexes, slander, usury, and wills—of matters relating to the sacraments, ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... is at perfect liberty to conceal his real thoughts and to give utterance to such distortions of truth as may not compromise him with others. The penalty for slander is so great that this is a fault that is seldom committed. Hence to get the truth from a Manbo, it is useless, as a rule, to question him singly or even in the presence of his friends alone. He must be brought face to face with those who ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... made the observation that on the continent, especially at Paris, near the fortifications, Tom Cats were sacrificed daily by the Catholics. Somebody interrupted with the cry of "Question!" Added to these cruel executions was the frightful slander of passing the brave animals off for Rabbits, a lie and a barbarity which he attributed to an ignorance of the true Anglican religion which did not permit lying and cheating except in the government, foreign ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... Englishmen, made him a great factor in the wide world of haute politique; but it also drew upon him a wealth of secret hatred and outward attention. His follies were lashed by the tongues of virtue and of slander; but his abilities gave him a commanding place in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... destroys the sense of evil. To illustrate: It seems a great evil to belie and belittle Christian Science, and persecute a Cause which is healing its thousands and rapidly diminishing the percentage of sin. But reduce this evil to its lowest terms, nothing, and slander loses its power to harm; for even the wrath of man shall praise Him. The reduction of evil, in Science, gives the dominance to God, and must lead us to bless those who curse, that thus we may overcome ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... like coming down out of the tree to catch the apples as they fall," he said. "Why," he added with impatience, "it lays me wide open to suspicion and slander." ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... should remember that it is the woman who suffers from the breath of slander or the pettiness of gossip. Such {37} things affect him but little, if at all. Suppose that two young people belong to a public tennis or dramatic club. The man singles out one particular girl by his attentions, makes a point ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... Harmachis: Woman being grown hath two ills to fear—Death and Marriage; and of these twain is Marriage the more vile; for in Death we may find rest, but in Marriage, should it fail us, we must find hell. Nay, being above the breath of common slander that enviously would blast those who of true virtue will not consent to stretch affection's links, I love, Harmachis; ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... to Prison, and there died of a disease; but, as some say, of poison administered by the enemies of Pericles, to raise a slander, or a suspicion at least, as though he had procured it. The informer Menon, upon Glycon's proposal, the people made free from payment of taxes and customs, and ordered the generals to take care that nobody should do him any hurt. And Pericles, finding that in Phidias's case he had ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not. Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay A deeper reverence from a soul sincere. Ye, to the many words of wariness Spoken by me your father, add this word, That, tried by time, our unknown company Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues To slander strangers, over-light is speech To bring pollution on a stranger's name. Therefore I rede you, bring no shame on me Now when man's eye beholds your maiden prime. Lovely is beauty's ripening harvest-field, But ill to guard; and men and beasts, I wot, And birds ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... not cozened, nor is she undone. They slander me, by this light they slander me: Look you, my uncle here's an usurer, and would undo me, but I'll stand in law; do you but bail me, you shall do no more: you, brother Civet, and Master Weathercock, do but bail me, and let me have ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... dearest Hermes, do not fall And break your head; and, worst of all, To some new Diokleides show the way, By slander base to swear men's ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... those who deeply discredit it. Offenses against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... he said, "shudder at the life I have led. Call me dissolute. Call me dangerous company. Say that in every way I'm unfit to be your father—say that I'm an outcast, suitable only as material for slander. I will agree with you. I will teach you that your judgment is correct. Let us only set two limits and do not call them virtues. They are necessities in the life I lead, ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... rumour that in Kosciuszko's youth he had intended to run off with Ludwika Sosnowska had got to the ears of Tekla's father. Certain enemies of Kosciuszko's did their best to slander him yet further. The result was a scene of the sort more familiar a hundred and odd years ago than now: a girl throwing herself weeping at the feet of an enraged parent, the wrath of the father dissolving into ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... "They rail at things which they know not," is part of those wicked men's character, whom St. Jude doth so severely reprehend. If, indeed, these conditions being wanting, we presume to reproach any man, we do therein no less than slander him; which to do is unlawful in any case, is in truth a most diabolical and detestable crime. To impose odious names and characters on any person, which he deserveth not, or without ground of truth, is to play the devil; and hell itself scarce will ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... sat on the front seats of the pit, and stamped and shouted and blown trumpets from the rise to the fall of the curtain. On the Tuesday night also the forty young men were there. They wished to silence what they considered a slander upon Ireland's womanhood. Irish women would never sleep under the same roof with a young man without a chaperon, nor admire a murderer, nor use a word like 'shift;' nor could anyone recognise the country men and women of Davis ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... a moment," Captain Clarence exclaimed authoritatively. Then turning to Colonel Colquhoun, he said; "I understand that these people have in their possession a letter containing a foul slander against my wife and myself, and that they have been using it to injure us in the estimation of everybody here. If it be possible, sir, I should like to have an official inquiry instituted into the circumstances of my marriage ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... interested her more, as a child, than Pringle's Mansion, Edinburgh. Pringle's Mansion, by the bye, is not the real name of the house, nor is the original building still standing—the fact is, my friend has been obliged to disguise the locality for fear of an action for slander of title, such as happened in the ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... The united force of truth and slander and insult put over heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield's powers of restraint. In his right hand he held a useful oak cudgel, with his left he made a grab at the loose collar of Laurence's canary-coloured silk shirt. Laurence was not a fighting man; the fear of physical ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... can you slander the character of that upright young man? If Hallberg were so unhappy ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... see the reason why, 'Tis always best to try, Tho' others laugh and slander all the same; For be it late or soon, They'll always change their tune, When they see your arrow doesn't ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... frameth a speech apologeticall in his and their behalfe that were princes of the British bloud, discharging a short but yet a sharpe inuectiue against William Paruus, Polydor Virgil, and their complices, whom he accuseth of lieng toongs, enuious detraction, malicious slander, reprochfull and venemous language, wilfull ignorance, dogged enuie, and cankerd minds; for that they speake vnreuerentlie and contrarie to the knowne truth concerning those thrisenoble princes. Which defensitiue he would ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... imported plants, one of which is a Padwlonia (do not call it a Polonais), and is now acclimated in France; its leaves are a yard in circumference, and it grows twenty inches a month—malicious people say it freezes in the winter, but don't you believe the slander. ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... rumour stated were deeply tainted with Methodism (and therefore bad, according to clerical and general opinion in those days), she had to encounter at last a pitiless storm of hostility. This violent and prolonged attack, whilst it showed to what infamous lengths the tongues of slander, envy, and bigotry could go in attempting to destroy a noble woman's reputation, tested to the utmost Hannah More's fine qualities ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... stopped speaking. 'Anna Semyonovna,' Aratov began after a short pause, 'you have perhaps heard to what the newspapers ascribed ... "To an unhappy love affair?"' Anna broke in, at once pulling away her hands from her face. 'That's a slander, a fabrication!... My pure, unapproachable Katia ... Katia!... and unhappy, unrequited love? And shouldn't I have known of it?... Every one was in love with her ... while she ... And whom could she have fallen in love with here? Who among all the people here, who was ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... humanity he has to enlighten and to direct to the ancient, eternal Source of Truth, has clothed himself with a body of flesh the ancestry of which was far from being adapted to the expression of his lofty faculties; courageous Souls are well able to put on the robe of pain and to submit to slander and calumny when the world's salvation can only be achieved at such a cost. We know scarcely anything of the conditions that control the return to earth of the Avataras, the "Sons of God," except that sometimes great Initiates, after purifying their ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... higher ground when one insists on believing in the race one belongs to and in believing that it is a human race that can be believed in. After two thousand years of Christ, it is a lazy, tired, anaemic slander on the world to believe that it does not pay to be good in it. The man who believes it, and acts as if he believed it, is to-day and has been from the beginning of time the supreme enemy of us all. He is guilty before heaven and before us all ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to, which will be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome intrusion—even from falsehood and slander." ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... part of the dream seems to have been the important part, and in it several of the Freudian mechanisms show up very plainly. Just before going to bed, I had read an article about Vera Cheberiak, the Russian murderess of the Mendel Beilis case, and how she is now engaged in suing different people for slander. The article had described her as coolly and impudently sitting up in court and seeming to realize her power over her enemies, and it had also made a point of the great fear in which she is held. I had ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... permitting him to interpose a word on the other side of the question. "Every gale that blows from England is burdened with enmity," said he; "your government countenances Georges, Pichegru, and other infamous men, who have sworn to assassinate me. Your journals slander me, and the redress I am offered is but adding mockery to insult. I could make myself master of Egypt to-morrow, if I pleased. Egypt, indeed, must sooner or later belong to France; but I have no wish to go to war for such a trivial object. What could I gain by ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... that you are afraid to enter the apartments of O-Mai in search of the slave Turan—oh, do not be angry with me, Jeddak; it is but what they say that I repeat. I, your loyal E-Thas, believe no such foul slander." ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said in her brother's hearing that Miss Grierson's color would be charming if it were only natural. Looking into Miss Grierson's eyes Raymer saw the refutation of the slander in the suffusing wave of generous embarrassment deepening in warm tints on the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... you think everybody who dares to cross you in any way is himself monumentally selfish too. Now you come to me in a protective role to save me from 'this Tom Reynolds' with a mass of ill-natured slander—and lies—because if I go to him you will have to get a ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... speech," said Dama Margherita crossing herself, "which had not been, save for the Consigliere: it hath no shade of truth; may the Holy Madonna forgive him—and us, who have listened to slander." ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... to keep you from spreading your slander from end to end of England! Do your worst!—you cannot make me more wretched than I am. And go, or I will call for help, and see whether my husband has not courage ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... into air. Now Slander taints with pestilence the gale; And mingling cries assail, The wail of Woe, and groans of grim Despair. Lo, wizard Envy from his serpent eye Darts quick destruction in each baleful glance; Pride, smiling stern, and yellow Jealousy, Frowning Disdain, and hagard Hate advance; Behold, amidst the ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... cannot be too much honoured, nor the bad too coarsely used; for the corruption of the best becomes the worst. When a clergyman is whipped his gown is first taken off, by which the dignity of his order is secured; if he be wrongfully accused, he has his action of slander; and it is at the poet's peril if he transgress the law. But they will tell us that all kinds of satire, though never so well-deserved by particular priests, yet brings the whole order into contempt. Is, then, the peerage of England anything dishonoured when a peer suffers ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... with slander; I proceeded to pass in review our present and absent acquaintances; at first I exposed their ridiculous, and then their bad, sides. My choler rose. I began in jest, and ended in genuine malice. At first she ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... by us. For while thou revilest the Greeks, thou dost encourage the King to lead his own troops against them; and this, as it seems to me, is what thou art specially striving to accomplish. Heaven send thou succeed not to thy wish! For slander is of all evils the most terrible. In it two men do wrong, and one man has wrong done to him. The slanderer does wrong, forasmuch as he abuses a man behind his back; and the hearer, forasmuch as he believes what he has not ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... this last paragraph to Madge, to see if she called it gossip, as I was going to take it out if it belonged to her topic, but she said No, she didn't call it gossip at all—that she should call it slander!) ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... connection, was a vague word. The whole thing sounded like an opinion uttered by a cautious person mindful of actions for slander. ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... Brother Cross, to hate the saints of the Lord and to slander them! They lie in wait like thieves of the night, and roaring lions of the wilderness, seeking what ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... implies ridicule, sharp, corroding ridicule. The comedy of the Greeks ridiculed everything,—persons, characters, opinions, customs, and sometimes philosophy and religion. Comedy became, therefore, a sort of consecrated slander, lyric spite, aesthetical buffoonery. Comedy makes you laugh at somebody's expense; it brings multitudes together to see it inflict death on some reputation; it assails private feeling with all the publicity and powers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... must either take their owne Dreams, for the prophecy they mean to bee governed by, and the tumour of their own hearts for the Spirit of God; or they must suffer themselves to bee lead by some strange Prince; or by some of their fellow subjects, that can bewitch them, by slander of the government, into rebellion, without other miracle to confirm their calling, then sometimes an extraordinary successe, and Impunity; and by this means destroying all laws, both divine, and humane, reduce ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... ingrate and liar," he cried, "would slander celestial purity. Master Spikeman knows that what ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... this torture silently; she denied herself the consolation of complaining to any one; she had the courage, with smiling lips, to dispute the truth of Camilla's narratives, and to accuse her of slander; she would have conviction, she longed for proof, and Camilla, excited by her ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... social conditions. As society progresses, as different elements come to the front because of the march of civilization, so the acts that are detrimental to the good of the whole must change. To-day slander and stealing a man's good name are quite as immoral as stealing his property. Acts that injure the mental and spiritual development of the group are even more immoral than those which interfere ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... Israel: Miram's zeal in celebrating the event: her character formed by early advantages: contrasted with Michael: she engages with Aaron in a plot against Moses: God observes it and punishment of leprosy inflicted upon Miriam: her cure: dies at Kadesh: general remarks on slander: debasing nature of sin: hope of escaping punishment fallacious: danger of opposing Christ: exhortation to imitate the temper ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... that, whether the voyage were good or bad, he would return to England. Thereupon he had given his word that he would. 'So you did,' cried Arundel; 'it is true, and they were the last words I said to you.' Next, he alluded to the slander, circulated 'through the jealousy of the people,' that at the execution of Essex he had stood in a window over against him and puffed out tobacco in defiance of him. He contradicted it utterly. Essex could not have seen him, since he had retired ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... dislikes, and also, that the greater portion of these words are harmless in themselves. But one man understands this, the other that, when he hears the words, and finally, German is in the curious position of being the cause of the largest number of attacks on honor and of cases of slander in the world. Where the Frenchman laughs and becomes witty, the German grows sullen, insulting, and looks for trouble. The French call sensitiveness to insignificant and worthless things, the German way of quarreling (faire ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... that neither ambitious nor lucrative motives, led me to accept my present appointments, in the discharge of which, I have endeavoured to observe one steady and uniform system of conduct, which I shall invariably pursue, while I have the honour to command, regardless of the tongue of slander, or the powers of detraction. The fatal tendency of disunion is so obvious, that I have, in earnest terms, exhorted such officers as have expressed their dissatisfaction at General Conway's promotion, to be cool and dispassionate in their decision about the matter; ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... destroy the lives of animals and vegetables for a large distance around. Its very exhalations are death to whatever approaches it. It serves in metaphor to illustrate the noxious effects of all vice, of slander and deceit, the effects of which are to the moral constitution, what the tree itself is to natural objects, blight and mildew upon ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... names being utterly secret and obscure. This gave Mr. Pope the thought that he had now some opportunity of doing good by detecting and dragging into light these common enemies of mankind, since, to invalidate this universal slander, it sufficed to show what contemptible men were the authors of it. He was not without hopes that, by manifesting the dulness of those who had only malice to recommend them, either the booksellers would not find their account in employing them, or the men themselves, when ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... Belissia false. [Kneele. Forgive me, holy love, that I delay So long to scourge the more than heathnish wrongs Of this iniurious villaine, whome me thinks— Blow him hence to hell With his contagious slander! yet before Thou doest fall by me as, if heaven have not Lost all its care of Innocence, thou must doe, Tell me what Divell urgd thee to detract From virtue thus, for of thy selfe thou couldst not (Unlesse with thee shee hath bin vicious) know ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... should no more than see March shot or shot at! What an impression he'd carry back North with him! It's an outrage on our whole people, sir, and God knows!—I speak reverently, my dear brother—we've suffered enough of that sort of slander! I'd tell him, myself, but—this must be ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... soldiers are very fond of harping on the old idea of the difficulty of making a Scotsman see a joke. That is a base slander, I'll say, but no matter. There were two regiments in rest close to one another, one English and one Scots. They met at the estaminet or pub in the nearby town. And one day the Englishman put up a great joke on some of the Scots, and did get a little proof of that pet idea of theirs, ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... case, and his own terrible anxiety, that he suspected or more than suspected his son as the guilty person. I became sure of this as I studied his face. At all events it would be easy to deny or explain, in case of trouble; and after all, what slander was there in two knocks! I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... that adorns his profession and his race, is met on his return from the very jaws of the grave, as he re-enters the Court-room to undertake again the gratuitous championship of your cause against thieves who robbed you, with the slander that he is himself a thief of the meanest kind, a robber of defenceless women—I say if such a man is subject to persistent repetition of such a calumny in the very city he has honored and served, and at the very end and crown of his life, it is because you do not choose to object ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... the hope than the reality, shone before me in the gloss of novelty; and I had neither felt the envy it excites, the weariness it occasions, nor (worse than all) that coarse and painful notoriety, that, something between the gossip and the slander, which attends every man whose writings become known,—surrendering the grateful privacies of ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... during that fortnight of Scott's old and dear friend, William Erskine, only a few months before elevated to the bench, with the title of Lord Kinedder. Erskine had been irrecoverably wounded by the circulation of a cruel and unfounded slander upon his moral character. It so preyed on his mind that its effect was, in Scott's words, to "torture to death one of the most soft-hearted and sensitive of God's creatures." On the very day of the King's arrival he died, after high fever and delirium ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger |
