"Despicable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the worst of her, and had withdrawn from her altogether his support, when the slightest support from him would have been invaluable to her. Could she forgive this? Never! never! She was not a woman to wish to forgive such an offence. It was an offence which it would be despicable in her to forgive. Many had offended her, some had injured her, one or two had insulted her; but, to her thinking, no one had so offended her, had so injured her, had so grossly insulted her as he had done. In what way, then, would it become her to ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... for them a thing to do infinitely more worth while than to live. Indeed, had they been determined at all costs to live, then they had become to themselves, to their comrades, and indeed to all the world, the most despicable of all living things, deserving and winning the infinite contempt of ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... Zenobia imperiously. "You know neither man nor woman! The utmost that can be said in your behalf—and because I would not be wholly despicable in my own eyes, but would fain excuse my wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delusion, therefore I say it—is, that a great and rich heart has been ruined in your breast. Leave me, now. You have done with me, and I with ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in physical shape like these, how despicable in comparison I am; to be shapely of form is so infinitely beyond wealth, power, fame, all that ambition can give, that these are dust before it. Unless of the human form, no pictures hold me; the rest are flat surfaces. So, too, with the other arts, they are dead; the potters, the ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... eventually. There was an occasional hiccup. That, too, disappeared. To play—or even think of playing—a game like that! She was despicable. A silly little fool, too, to suppose that so keen a mind as Cutty's would not see through the artifice! What was happening to her that she could let such a thought into ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... he had been three weeks in Paris, audacity reached its height. "During this crisis" (writes Bourienne) "there occurred nothing a whit more elevated, more grand, more noble, than had been observed in our preceding revolutionary commotions. In these political intrigues, all is so despicable—so made up of trickery, lying, spying, treachery, and impudence—that for the honour of human nature the details ought to be buried ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... make one? No," replied Thaddeus to himself. "Unhappy that I am, to have been induced to apply twice to so despicable a man! Oh, Somerset," cried he, looking at the papers as they lay before him; "was it necessary that insult should be added to unfaithfulness and ingratitude, to throw me off entirely? Good heavens! did he think because I wrote twice, I would persecute him ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... not to see their blemishes, and that they are excelled by others; yet since Poems are like Children, it may be allowed me to be naturally inclined to have some good Opinion of my own, and not to believe this Poem altogether despicable or ridiculous. The Ancients say, that every thing hath two handles, I have laid hold of that opposite to the Author of Absalom: As to Truth, who has the better hold, let the World judge; and it is no new thing, for the same Persons, ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... know why, but girls do not marry off as they used. They become old, and frequently—owing to the expectation of their settling—without the provision necessary for a comfortable old age. This is the parent of those despicable tricks and arts which women resort to to get married, as they have no acknowledged position independent of matrimony. Something ought to be done to prevent this. And when the country steadies a little from the great revolution of past ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... been dissipated by the Jesuit sisters of Le Bon Pasteur. In the select circle of the vagabonds of the Porte de Charenton and robbers of the wood of Vincennes the police agent was execrated, and the secret informer, or spy, was deemed the most despicable of human creatures and worthy only of a violent death; whereas the good Mother Superieure of Le Bon Pasteur encouraged the tale-bearer and rewarded the informer with her favor and the assurance of the Divine blessing. Even the good Sister Agnes—now already a kind of shadowy memory—had taught ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... face, a look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. He was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's interests, a cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, with his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... clipper is she—the good ship Hankow Lin; one of the best of the old-fashioned tea-traders that as yet spurned the modern innovation of the Suez Canal, and despised, in the majesty of their spreading canvas, the despicable agency of steam! A sound, teak-built, staunch, ship-rigged vessel of 1200 tons register, and classed A1 at Lloyd's for an indefinite ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... eclipse; unable to show one's face; in the shade, in the background; out at elbows, down at the elbows, down in the world. inglorious; nameless, renownless[obs3]; obscure; unknown to fame; unnoticed, unnoted[obs3], unhonored, unglorified[obs3]. shameful; disgraceful, discreditable, disreputable; despicable; questionable; unbecoming, unworthy; derogatory; degrading, humiliating, infra dignitatem[Lat], dedecorous[obs3]; scandalous, infamous, too bad, unmentionable; ribald, opprobrious; errant, shocking, outrageous, notorious. ignominious, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... look at ourselves but onwards, and take strength from the leaf and the signs of the field. He is indeed despicable who cannot look onwards to the ideal life of man. Not to do so is to deny our birthright ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... "For matter, were it never so despicable, is spirit: were it never so honourable, can it ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... end by believing that the man whom they are acclaiming is almost divine; yet it is certain that they elected this man on the whole because of the two he had more points in common with them, this poor despicable and very unheroic thing was the person whom they delighted to honour because they themselves were very unheroic and somewhat despicable. We cannot see the greatness of a truly great man unless there is just a bit ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... like a thief into the privatest walks of the place. When he is tired of the poor wretch, he will want to accommodate with us by promises of penitence and reformation, as once or twice before. Rakes are not only odious, but they are despicable fellows. You will the more clearly see this, when I assure you, from those who know, that this silly creature our cousin is looked upon, among his brother libertines, and smarts, as a ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... laughed. "There are still two things," he added seriously. "Take care the girls don't get running about under the scaffold in working hours, that doesn't look well; and always uphold the fellowship. There is nothing more despicable than the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... to hear it physically (he not being allowed to hit us too hard) to outface the dishonor we should have been taught to die rather than endure. And so idleness and worthlessness on the one hand and a pretence of coercion on the other became a despicable routine. If my schoolmasters had been really engaged in educating me instead of painfully earning their bread by keeping me from annoying my elders they would have turned me out of the school, telling me that I was thoroughly disloyal ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Julian, who was no despicable horse-jockey, selected for his purpose a strong well-made horse, about sixteen hands high, and had him led into the yard, to see whether the paces corresponded with his appearance. As these also gave perfect satisfaction to the customer, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... straightaway to Smith's place, and told Smith he was a dirty, mean, despicable swindler—or something like that. Smith smiled. Dad put one leg through the slip-rails and promised Smith, if he'd only come along, to split palings out of him. But Smith did n't. The instinct of ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... can possibly be a true patriot; and all those who profess outrageous zeal for the liberty and prosperity of their country, and, at the same time, infringe her laws, affront her religion, and debauch her people, are but despicable quacks, by fraud or ignorance increasing the disorders they pretend ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... maccaroons and gingerbread, vegetables far more numerous than we use, salads, cucumbers, melons, and all fruits in season, puddings of semolina, millet, and rice, almonds, spices, pickles—went to make up a menu by no means despicable. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... strange people, cads; but the worst, the cruellest, the lowest of all is yourself! I had hoped to have found rest and refuge here for a little time, but you have driven me out. Oh, I did not believe that anything so despicable, so unmanly as you could exist. I do not know why you have done this, perhaps it ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... employed who are habitual Sabbath breakers; who are accustomed to the use of vulgar and profane language; who frequent the gambling table; who habitually use tobacco, in several of its forms, and that in the school-house! nay, more, who even teach the despicable habit to their children during school hours! Several emperors have prohibited the use of this filthy weed in their respective kingdoms, under the severest penalties. The pope has made a bull to excommunicate ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... a fisherman, and, indeed, any occupation which involved the sin of slaughtering animals, was considered despicable. Fishermen, butchers, and leather-sellers were equally objects of scorn. In Lower Bengal the castes of Jaliyas and Bagdis, who live by fishing, etc., are amongst the lowest, and eke out a precarious livelihood ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... of order—of the order of disorder—that was to be the new God before whom the working classes were to bow in spell-bound awe; an idol more despicable and empty than even that old divine right of tyrants, newly applied by some well-meaning but illogical personages, not merely as of old to hereditary sovereigns, but to Louis Philippes, usurers, upstarts—why not hereafter to demagogues? Blindfold ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... men were divided into two castes, decent people and those who were not. Among the first figured en masse all the young fellows of the Gran Pena, the old men of the Casino, together with some people whose names appeared in the papers, a certain evidence of their merit. The rest was the rabble, despicable and vulgar in the streets of the cities, repulsive and displeasing on the road, whom he insulted with all of the coarseness of ill-breeding and threatened to kill when a child ran in front of his car with the vicious purpose of letting itself be ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... revise the lectures.) They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down No. IV. with this reflection, "What is the good of writing a thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book, so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad, I may as well shut up shop altogether. You put capitally and most simply and clearly the relation of animals and plants to each other at ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... first of the Refugee Concentrated Camps, and when he left he had a camp of about six thousand women and children under his care. All charges of cruelty and inhumanity were vile and calumnious falsehoods. Nay, worse, they were miserable, despicable concoctions. Both women and children were better off, the great bulk of them, than ever they were in their lives. The only thing approaching cruelty to them was at the authorities insisted upon cleanliness and proper attention ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... proved of considerable value, being laden with copper, hides, and cochineal. The galliot was laden with sweet oil, and was also no despicable prize. At daylight they were all ready, and, to the mortification of the good people of Malaga, sailed away ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... who had nowhere else to pass an hour. At the arrival of our Sovereigns, they were astonished at the unusual vacancy, and indignantly regarded each other. After vespers were over, one of Bonaparte's spies informed him of the cause, when, instead of punishing the despicable and hypocritical courtiers, or showing them any signs of his displeasure, he ordered Salmatoris under arrest, who would have experienced a complete disgrace had not his friend Duroc ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Francis," three persons; Sir Francis Drake, Knighted by the Queen after his return from circumnavigating the world in 1580: Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Francis Vere. Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and his son, Sir Robert.... The Lord Chamberlain probably meant the despicable Sir James Crofts, who ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... enthusiasm and provided the activity of leisure hours cannot maintain their appeal when the whole fabric of our society is in danger. Exclusive of those who refused allegiance on true grounds of conscience, and the despicable remnant who shammed a similar conviction, the number of Englishmen who definitely set allegiance to some other political or social grouping before allegiance to the state was surprisingly small. So little are fundamental loyalties, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... a tyrannical prince in peace, a despicable general in war; nay, he would have equalled his predecessors in that art, had not his [62]degeneracy in other respects likewise detracted from his merit here. He began the war against the Volsci, which ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... fires and other marks this part of the country is not thin of inhabitants. Their spears are of various kinds and all of them more dangerous than any I have yet seen. The workmanship of their dresses, their lines and baskets are far from despicable, their mogo or stone axes are such ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... Becky Sharp, but he is also devoid of the callous detachment with which Flaubert dissected Emma Bovary under the microscope. Daudet is never flagrantly hostile toward one of his creatures; and, however contemptible or despicable the characters he has called into being, he is scrupulously fair to them. Sidonie and Felicia Ruys severally throw themselves away, but Daudet is never intolerant. He is inexorable, but he is not insulting. I cannot but ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... English were driven out of Paris, and in 1453, of all the "large and ample empery" of France, won at the cost of a hundred years of bloodshed and cruel devastation, a little strip of land at Calais and Guines alone remained to the English crown. Charles, who with despicable cowardice had suffered the heroic Maid to be done to death by the English without a thought of intervention, was moved to call for a tardy reparation of the atrocious injustice at Rouen; and a quarter of a century after the Te Deum sung in Notre Dame at Paris ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... possibilities that a religious nature involves unless we know how to develop those lives for the best and from the worst. When we picture what a little child may become, from the vile, depraved, despoiling beast or the despicable, sneaking hypocrite on one extreme, to the upright, God-loving, man-serving man or woman with the love of purity, honor, truth, and goodness speaking through the life, we may well pause, realizing we need more than a sentimental desire that the child may ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... Bertram would appear at last to be his son. Imogine re- appears at the convent, and dies of her own accord. Bertram stabs himself, and dies by her side, and that the play may conclude as it began, to wit, in a superfetation of blasphemy upon nonsense, because he had snatched a sword from a despicable coward, who retreats in terror when it is pointed towards him in sport; this felo de se, and thief-captain—this loathsome and leprous confluence of robbery, adultery, murder, and cowardly assassination,—this monster, whose best deed is, the having ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... stupid? Can she also be following P'in Erh's example and come to inter flowers? Why if she's likewise really burying flowers," he afterwards went on to smilingly reflect, "this can aptly be termed: 'Tung Shih tries to imitate a frown.' But not only is what she does not original, but it is despicable to boot. You needn't," he meant to shout out to the girl, at the conclusion of this train of thought, "try and copy Miss Lin's example." But before the words had issued from his mouth, he luckily scrutinised her a second ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... with a sneer, for of all pitiable objects, he regarded an unmanly man as the most despicable. He consented, however, to sit down on a grassy bank and watch the proceedings of this Indian dandy, who had just seated himself in front of his wigwam for the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... when it has destroyed all the eggs and young birds it can find. It is the most despicable thief and robber among our feathered creatures. From May to August, it is gorged with the fledglings of the nest. It is fortunate that its range is so limited. In size it is smaller than the common crow, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... those forms of vice which most trouble and corrupt society triumphant; he never diverges into the morbid pathology of the amatory passion, and above all, and most remarkably of all, though I think least remarked, he never makes his personages show the singular toleration of the most despicable immorality which almost all his dramatic contemporaries exhibit. One is constantly astonished at the end of an Elizabethan play, when, after vice has been duly baffled or punished, and virtue rewarded (for they all more or less follow that rule), reconciliations and forgivenesses ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... life. Yet to James the autumn heralded death, with no consoling afterthought. He had nothing to live for since he knew that Mrs. Wallace could never love him. His love for her had borne him up and sustained him; but now it was hateful and despicable. After all, his life was his own to do what he liked with; the love of others had no right to claim his self-respect. If he had duties to them, he had duties to himself also; and more vehemently than ever James felt ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... threat was no despicable one, and the members of the Council were brought by it to a milder disposition than that disclosed by the testy reply of their President to Fray Miguel's opening discourse. Garcia Padilla undertook the apology of the ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... approach at your command.[9] Thus might your name be rendered immortal, and Egypt become again the emporium of commerce, and one of the richest and happiest nations upon earth. How infinitely great the glory from such acts! How despicable the fame of a tyrant conqueror, the ruler of slaves! It would be pleasing to support you as the author of great and good works, but it is shameful to permit your present proceedings, and dastardly to leave the unfeeling apostate sons of neutral and Christian ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... press, it is utterly impossible they should all be read by all sorts of people. There must be tasters for the public, who must have a discretionary power vested in them, for which it is difficult to make them properly accountable. Authors in proportion to their numbers become not formidable, but despicable. They would not be heard of or severed from the crowd without the critic's aid, and all complaints of ill-treatment are vain. He considers them as pensioners on his bounty for any pittance or praise, and in general sets them up as butts for his wit and spleen, or uses them as a stalking-horse ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the comfort and well-being of the ones they love in the home? I say, allow men to make the laws, as God and nature planned. I think women should keep to the sphere God made them for—the home. Said Gladstone, 'Woman is the most perfect when most womanly.' There is nothing, I think, more despicable than a masculine, mannish woman, unless it be an effeminate, sissy man. Dr. Clarke voiced my sentiments when he said: 'Man is not superior to woman, nor woman to man. The relation of the sexes is one of equality, not of better or worse, of higher and lower. The loftiest ideal of humanity ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... Rukavina to the Viennese authorities, and he and they seem to have cared little whether these reports contradicted one another. He exhibited his adversary as a man of unbounded violence, as a man of the most pusillanimous nature; General Rukavina was despicable, said these documents, he was an absolute nonentity; but no, shrieked von Thurn on the next day, this man Rukavina was imbued as no other with the abominable spirit of Machiavelli. To bring about the fall of the Hungarian ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... [261] 'The despicable wretchedness of teaching,' wrote Carlyle, in his twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all. One meets with few spectacles more afflicting ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... eluding him, and making for the far distant camp of Achmet Zek as rapidly as he could; but armed only with the sacrificial knife, Werper shrank from attempting the journey through the jungle. Tarzan constituted a protection that was by no means despicable, even in the face of the larger carnivora, as Werper had reason to acknowledge from the evidence he had witnessed in the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... you cannot despise me; the unutterable burning love of a true heart is not despicable; the character which I bear before mankind is not despicable. Man is not despicable when he kneels before the object which he worships; and, Agatha, with all my heart, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... timid to control their flocks. If they only had the nerve to pick us up, turn our hearts inside out, show us the black corners, and the ossifications, and call sin, sin, we should begin to realize what despicable shams we are. Dr. Douglass, the Bishop, is the only one I know who lays us on the dissecting table, and who does not speak of 'human fallibility' when he means vice. He told us one day that the Gospel required a line of demarcation between the godly and the ungodly, between Christians ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... hard to you, my dear Enrico, as your mother says: I do not yet see you set out for school with that resolute mind and that smiling face which I should like. You are still intractable. But listen; reflect a little! What a miserable, despicable thing your day would be if you did not go to school! At the end of a week you would beg with clasped hands that you might return there, for you would be eaten up with weariness and shame; disgusted with your sports and with your existence. ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... repugnance at the thought that the tailor's daughter had the presumptuous idea of becoming his wife. He forgave her low origin for the sake of her immense fortune, and thought it not a despicable lot to be the husband of the beautiful Anna Prickerin. He assured her of his love in impassioned words, and Anna listened with beaming eyes and a happy smile. Suddenly a loud weeping and crying, proceeding from the next room, interrupted ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of noble friendship for all time. Envy poisons much human friendship. It is not easy to work loyally for the honor and advancement of another when he is taking our place, and drawing our crowds after him. But in any circumstances envy is despicable and most undivine. Then even in our friendship for Christ we need to be ever most watchful lest we allow self to creep in. We must learn to care only for his honor and the advancement of his kingdom, and ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... an innocent girl to be ruined by accusing her of a theft which he himself had committed, and in his ripened manhood sent to a foundling hospital the children he had had by his mistress,—whose life was despicable and whose moral creed seemed to be summed up in the doctrine that every natural impulse is to be indulged. Rousseau was an enthusiast and a sentimentalist; he was a man of the exquisite organization of genius, and there are many passages in his writings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... later, Ulysses, a despicable figure, old and poor, in ragged clothing, trembling and leaning on his staff, rested against the pillar of his own gate. Telemachus was the first to see his father, and ordered that food should be given the poor beggar, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... sheiks were shown passports bearing Abd-el-Kader's seal and authorizing the passage of French troops. The seal of the Sultan had been forged. On November 1st Valee and the French Prince made a triumphant entry into Algiers, after this despicable piece of treachery, and were saluted as the heroes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... her mind, revealing the plaisant, a desperate and despicable, as well as lowly wooer, her face relaxed. In the desire to test her conclusion, she laughed quietly, musically. Cruelly kind, smiled ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... she could not do away with the memories which lingered obstinately. Not since the days when Dick had offered his blind loyalty had any one tried to understand her as Austin Selwyn had done. She was grateful for that. She might even have valued his friendship if he had not been so despicable that awful night. To insult her with his talk of pacifism, and then, heedless of her intensity, to propose to her! She could not forgive him for that. She was glad her ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... too,' he said. 'With all his faults Fred Allerton can't have committed such a despicable crime. You've never met him, you don't know him; but I've known him intimately for twenty years. He couldn't have swindled that wretched woman out of every penny she had, knowing that it meant starvation to her. He couldn't have ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... common justice. He had brooded so long and so bitterly over his fatal act of violence at Bolsover, that he had come almost to forget that accident had had anything to do with poor Forrester's injuries. And now, when confronted with his crime, even by a despicable wretch like Trimble, he had not the spirit to hold up his head and make some effort at any rate to clear himself of all that ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... on the mother's side. Her father was a blackmailer, a despicable ruffian, in the pay of a notorious New York Inspector of Police. She suspected him of killing her mother and she hated him as a murderer. It was mainly because her father, Dirk Kerrnon, was employed at the Valentine Steel Works that she undertook to ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... him was this: That he had become that which he had affected to consider the most despicable thing on earth—a hypocrite. Remember, she had no personal knowledge of the power of the Spirit of God over a human soul. She had no conception of how so mighty a change could be wrought in the space of a few hours, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... inches long and eight inches wide and deep,—scant space for three or four small sticks, around which in hard zero weather all the family of ten persons shivered, and beneath which in the morning we found our socks and coarse, soggy boots frozen solid. We were not allowed to start even this despicable little fire in its black box to thaw them. No, we had to squeeze our throbbing, aching, chilblained feet into them, causing greater pain than toothache, and hurry out to chores. Fortunately the miserable chilblain pain began to abate as soon as the temperature of our feet ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... again mention the matter to the Emperor, and yet it was absolutely necessary to have the house. Napoleon learned what was passing, and was angry, but allowed the offer of the forty thousand. Again the dealer retracted, and demanded fifty thousand. "He is a despicable creature," said the Emperor. "I will have none of his paltry hut: it shall remain where it is, as a testimony of my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... most frequently in his tragedies, the former in his comedies. The comic characters are, without mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men of Etherege and Vanbrugh are bad enough. Those of Smollett are perhaps worse. But they do not approach to the Celadons, the Wildbloods, the Woodalls, and the Rhodophils of Dryden. The vices of these last are set off by a certain fierce hard impudence, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... shook himself all over, and the impatient sleighbells made his wish audible. Accordingly, George tightened the reins, and the cutter was off again at a three-minute trot, no despicable rate of speed. It was not long before they were again passing Lucy's Beautiful House, and here George thought fit to put an appendix to his remark. "You're a funny girl, and you know a lot—but I don't believe you know ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... tolerance. Yes, the worst of them all, the immortal Becky (who was so plainly liked by her maker) awakens sympathy in the reader when routed in her fortunes, black-leg though she be. She cared for her husband, after her fashion, and she plays the game of Bad Luck in a way far from despicable. Nor is that easy-going, commonplace scoundrel, Rawdon, with his dog-like devotion to the same Becky, denied his touch of higher humanity. Behind all these is a large tolerance, an intellectual breadth, a spiritual comprehension that ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Crinoline, she also had heard of this eccentric will; she and her mother. L3,000 with interest arising for some half score of years would make a settlement by no means despicable in Tavistock Square, and would enable Macassar to maintain a house over which even Crinoline need not be ashamed to preside. But what if the legacy should be lost! She also knew to a day what was the age of her swain; she knew how close upon her was that ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... affairs according to his mind, he would not in any thing keep his faith with the Romans inviolate." He requested that he would exhort and stimulate Scipio not to delay. Though driven from his kingdom, he said he would join him with no despicable force of foot and horse. Nor was it right, said he that Laelius should continue in Africa, for he believed that a fleet had set sail from Carthage, with which, in the absence of Scipio, it would not be ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... the bright side of the European situation as I saw it. Unfortunately, to complete the picture, it is necessary to acknowledge the numerous evidences of a widespread revival of one of the most despicable, brutal, and dangerous forms of racial hatred and antagonism known to mankind—anti-Semitism. Even in England, long hitherto so free from Jew-baiting, the land in which the Jew Disraeli became Prime Minister, ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... and pride. There is a distinction between these two. But the distinction consists in this, that the vain man looks for the admiration of others—the proud man requires nothing but his own. Now, it is this distinction which makes vanity despicable to us all. We can easily find out the vain man—we soon discover what it is he wants to be observed, whether it be a gift of person, or a gift of mind, or a gift of character. If he be vain of his person, his attitudes will tell the tale. If he be vain of his judgment, or his memory, or his honesty, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... it was a play that at times approached dangerously near to the tragic. The passions of this Latin offshoot were strong, if their minds were dull and lethargic, and when aroused were capable of the most despicable, as well as the most grandly heroic deeds. And in the present instance, when the fleeting sense of the absurd passed, Jose knew that he was facing a crisis. Something told him that resistance now would be useless. True, Rosendo might have opposed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... art of dissimulation, a rare dexterity in insinuating what it is not safe to affirm or to propose in explicit terms. There are two feelings which often prevent an unprincipled layman from becoming utterly depraved and despicable, domestic feeling, and chivalrous feeling. His heart may be softened by the endearments of a family. His pride may revolt from the thought of doing what does not become a gentleman. But neither with the domestic feeling nor with the chivalrous feeling has the wicked priest ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... precisely that. You can cover your despicable actions with the gloss of military duty, but I know you now as a revengeful liar. Treat this house as you please. I refuse to have any more dealings or words with you. I'll provision you and your men, as I would any others suffering from hunger, but that ends all. If you search this house do it ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... in its place? Can you flatter yourself, that you will discover something better? You expect, no doubt, that men will erect statues to you, for your exertions to deprive them of their religion! Permit me to tell you, that the part you act makes you odious and despicable in the ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... double-dealing cad drown, but the next moment he was bowing over a beautiful, jewelled hand and a pair of dark eyes were looking unutterable gratitude into his, and Donald felt ashamed. He left her as soon as was possible without seeming rude, and went home to face the matter squarely. This man, this despicable creature who had won Jessie's affection, was playing with her. He was amusing himself making love to the little country girl while this haughty young queen held his heart. Donald was torn by conflicting emotions. Should he write to Jessie and tell her? He was too sorely hurt ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... acerbity of Mr. Tyrrel's feelings, it is probable, however, he did some justice to his rival. He regarded him, indeed, with added dislike; but he no longer regarded him as a despicable foe. He avoided his encounter; he forbore to treat him with random hostility; he seemed to lie in wait for his victim, and to collect his venom ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... devote my remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a monster. I am told I may hope to accomplish my righteous and merciful purpose. At present there is scarcely a gleam of light to guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable affectation of superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy—all—too late. I cannot write or talk collectedly now. I am distracted. So soon as I shall have a little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to enquiry, which ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... gardens, and white houses, to the left—covering a richly cultivated ridge of hills, which sink, as it were, into the Boulevards, and which is called the Faubourg Cauchoise. To the right, through the trees, you see the River Seine (here of no despicable depth or breadth), covered with boats and vessels in motion, the voice of commerce, and the stir of industry, cheering and animating you as you approach the town. I was told that almost every vessel which I saw (some of them of two hundred, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Despicable Spirit of Death! You will be rejoicing that glory is at its height when hateful death will come once again, and with eyes wide with horror, you will discard all things, and dimly and softly the fragrant spirit will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... him, or would have been knocked down and half killed by him. But to tacitly accept a means by which the injured man risked his life to avenge his honor, and then afterwards to shirk the fate which a perfectly even chance had thrown upon him instead of on his antagonist! It was too mean, too despicable. Hugh's pale ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... landed four of them, in one pool, I never had such a chance before; the heavy flood and high wind had made the salmon as "silly" as perch. One might have caught half a dozen of the great sturdy fellows, who make all trout, even sea-trout, seem despicable minnows. Next day I fished again in the same water, with a friend. I rose a fish, but did not hook it, and he landed a small one, five minutes after we started, and we only had one other rise all the rest of the day. Probably it was not dark and windy enough, but who ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... kinds, as broad cloths, silks, cambrics, velvets, and the like, perhaps that valuation might be sufficiently moderate. The acquisition we made, though inconsiderable in comparison to what we destroyed, was yet far from despicable, as, in wrought plate, dollars, and other coin, there was to the value of more than 30,000l. sterling, besides several rings, bracelets, and other jewels, the value of which could not then be ascertained; and besides the very great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... of his countenance, and at the thought a smile rose to her lips which, if fleeting, lent such an ethereal aspect to her beauty that he forgave Oliver then and there for a love which never could be crowned, but which henceforth could no longer be regarded by him as despicable. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... come; she had spoken. Never would she forget the look in his eyes when he had said, "Good night, and—good-by;" nor could she pass over the half-threat in the words that had gone before the leave-taking. To what deeper depth despicable could he plunge, having already sounded the deepest of them all—that of unfaith, of infidelity alike to the woman he had wronged and to the woman he ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Importance belongs to this Person, there appears no Reason why Horace should endure such Treatment; or, if the other was too powerful for him, it is not an Adventure of Honour; or what Horace should chuse to expose to the World in this manner, with all the Particulars of his own despicable Distress. ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... surnamed Antipas, is a sufficiently common and a sufficiently despicable one. He was the very type of an Eastern despot, exactly like some of those half-independent Rajahs, whose dominions march with ours in India; capricious, crafty, as the epithet which Christ applied to him, 'That fox!' shows; cruel, as the story of the murder of John the Baptist proves; sensuous ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... only, while you escape the charge of maltreating me yesterday; you throw yourself open to it to-day. You make me out all that is narrow-minded and mean and despicable, which is very unjust. Only a few minutes past I said that your way of looking at it, theoretically considered, was irreproachable. But not so ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... favour. But there was that in her manner which impressed her— that something ethereal and indescribable which she herself was constantly aping, and, almost involuntarily, she took upon herself such honours as the place, despicable in her eyes, would admit of. She rose, made a sweeping courtesy, and addressed Lady Clementina with such a manner as people of Mrs Marshal's ambitions put off and on like ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... his hour was not yet come, he cared little or nothing for any risk he might incur; and though he might, undoubtedly, have some presentiment of the probable termination of his career, he never suffered it to militate against his present enjoyment, which proved that he was no despicable philosopher. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fright, And claw'd by goblins in the night; Insulted on, revil'd, and jeer'd, With rude invasion of his beard; And when your sex was foully scandal'd, 155 As foully by the rabble handled; Attack'd by despicable foes, And drub'd with mean and vulgar blows; And, after all, to be debarr'd So much as standing on his guard; 160 When horses, being spurr'd and prick'd, Have leave to kick for ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... scholars. Arithmetic was a very favourite study of mine; and as I also received private tuition in this subject, my progress was so rapid that I came to equal my teacher both in theory and practice, although his attainments were by no means despicable. But how astonished was I when, in my twenty-third year, I first went to Yverdon, and found I could not solve the questions there being set to the scholars! This was one of the experiences which prepossessed me so keenly in favour of Pestalozzi's method of teaching, and ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... Francis, Duke of Anjou, the French accomplice of Catherine de' Medici in persecution of the Protestants, is elsewhere described by Motley as "the most despicable personage who had ever ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... colour went out of Patty's face as the thought flashed across her mind what this meant. She saw at once that Daisy had given that note to Guy, as coming from HER! She saw that Daisy MUST have done this intentionally! And this knowledge of a deed so despicable, so IMPOSSIBLE, from Patty's standpoint, stunned her like ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... 12. Johnson (Works, vi. 198) calls Junius 'one of the few writers of his despicable faction whose name does not disgrace the page of an opponent.' But he thus ends his attack;—'What, says Pope, must be the priest where a monkey is the god? What must be the drudge of a party of which ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... view of the comparative dignity of professions and occupations is interesting, because his prejudices (if they be prejudices) have so long maintained their ground amongst us moderns. Tax-gatherers and usurers are as unpopular now as ever—the latter very deservedly so. Retail trade is despicable, we are told, and "all mechanics are by their profession mean". Especially such trades as minister to mere appetite or luxury—butchers, fishmongers, and cooks; perfumers, dancers, and suchlike. But medicine, ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... refuse," returned the Indian firmly. The savage mind could not conceive such a possibility as refusal to purchase freedom at any cost, no matter how despicable that cost might be. "The pale-faces will not refuse," he repeated. "The flames hurt much, and white men die slow, slow as tongue of fire lick their bodies. ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... to this odd harangue. She knew a good deal about horses, but nothing whatever about the knavery of betting, the shoddy tricks of it and the despicable spirit in which this great game is often played. Something of her father's cunning, inherited and ineradicable, led her to condone the Captain's sporting creed and not to seek understanding. The man's high spirits made a sure appeal to her. She could not comprehend it wholly—but ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... it went on. No trick was too knavish or too despicable to prevent our guardian learning the truth concerning our plight. He very rarely walked about unaccompanied. Tongue in cheek, the Germans, who always were cognisant of the object of his visit, and who had always taken temporary measures to prove the grievance ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... an English officer," I said. "It would be despicable to sham, and he would see through it ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... her hand quickly on his arm. "Don't try to defend her! She is quite despicable. I have ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Teufelsdroeckh is prouder and more violent of spirit than the sedate and patrician Roman, and he leaps at the throat of fear in a wild defiance. "What art thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, dost thou forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable biped! What is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee? Death? Well, Death: and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and Man may, will or can do against thee! Hast thou not a Heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... twentieth, and intrusted to an embassy of three grandees. Charles and Louisa had, however, repented almost before the formalities of abdication were over, and the newly arrived Queen of Etruria supported them in their fickleness. With despicable inconsistency they too despatched an embassy, but to Murat, imploring his interference on their behalf and his favor for Godoy. In reply, Murat, whether from slyness or from a desire to gain time, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... when he heard the news; it was the very station to which he had hoped the ship might be sent. His knowledge of the good qualities possessed by Tom Baraka made him sure that the blacks were not the despicable race some of his messmates were disposed to consider them. They, at all events, had immortal souls, and might with the same advantages become as civilised and as good a Christian as Tom was. There was a possibility, though a very remote one, that ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... a pistol told that his threat was executed. The brutal monster waited a moment for the smoke to clear away from his vision, not liking to venture upon that ominous looking dagger until assured of a bloodless victory. Poor, despicable coward! ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... lady—wouldn't that be nice? 'Through sickness and health, for good or for ill,'—isn't it nice?" she scoffed. Then she turned on him savagely, "So you will try to hide behind a child, and use him for a shield—Oh, you cur—you despicable dog," she scorned. Then she drew herself up and spoke in a passion that all but hissed at him. "I tell you, Tom Van Dorn, if you ever, in this row that's coming, harm a hair of that boy's head—you'll carry the scar of that hair to your grave. I ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... edge by a parapet of strong mason-work. Thus situated, the hacienda of Las Palmas—so named from the numerous topes of palm-trees which mottled the plain in front—not only defied the flood, but might have served as a fortress of no despicable strength. The proprietor of this dwelling, as well as the extensive estate surrounding it, ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... will help to do this,—if lighting street lamps on a moral slum will end some of the more despicable acts committed by men who hold other men's property in trust,—sound economics will depend in part on this measure, but it depends in ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... I am in your eyes an abject and most despicable creature; and I am sometimes the same in my own eyes, though not often: I more frequently congratulate myself on my vices than blame myself for them; you are more constant in ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... was filthy, he was savage, ignorant and ugly—but he had his Pride, both personal and racial, for he was a Somali. A Somali, mark you, not a mere Hubshi or Woolly One, not a common Nigger, not a low and despicable person—worshipping idols, eating human flesh, grubs, roots and bark—the "black ivory" ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... thought of her continually, more than any one would have imagined; he never knew what it was to forget her for one minute. His heart was always sad, his soul sorrowful, his mind ill at ease. The more he thought of it, the more despicable his own conduct seemed. He hated the thought of it, ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... things she did, the splendid things! she was just a soldier; and so modest about it—well, you couldn't help admiring her, and you couldn't help imitating her; not even a King Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her society. So, as you see, there was more ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... just to undeceive the reader, and inform him from what kind of hand he has received this work. A man may regard a good piece of painting, while he despises the subject; if the subject be ever so despicable, the masterly strokes of the painter may demand our admiration, while he, in other respects, is entitled to no portion of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... turned pest-house some day. Undismayed By doubt, you rose, and in heroic mould Led—dauntless, patient, incorruptible— A riot over taxes. Not a star In all the vaults of heaven could trouble you With whisperings of more transcendent goals. O despicable, admirable man! How much I ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... had, in several instances, prevented me from attending suffrage meetings; once he had me spirited away and imprisoned for a week when it fell to my lot to burn a railroad station for the good of the cause. He strove to ruin me with my leaders in this despicable manner. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... {proper} punishment on the offence; but by way of judgment this is the reward you shall have. I don't forbid their return, but they shall be famished with hunger, lest they be not able to keep their stomachs in order. And as for those who sent such despicable {Ambassadors} as you, they shall never be free ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... has always been regarded as desirable and its value can hardly be overrated, from the standpoint of health, happiness, or economy. From the earliest history, no crime has been so despicable as that of deliberately poisoning a well from which the public supply was obtained, and in the past no charge more quickly could stir the populace to riot. In Strassburg in 1348 two thousand Jews were burned for this crime charged against them; and as late as 1832 the Parisian ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... an outline of the history of this wonderful family, and we leave their ancient home, built by the greatest and wisest of them, with mixed feelings of admiration and pity. They were seldom lovable; they were often despicable; but where they were great they were very great indeed. A Latin inscription in the courtyard reminds the traveller of the distinction which the house possesses, calling it the home not only of princes but of knowledge herself and a treasury of the arts. But Florence, although it ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... a clear lake, was struck with the beauty of his horns, which he saw reflected in the water. At the same time, observing the extreme length and slenderness of his legs, 'What a pity it is,' said he, 'that so fine a creature should be furnished with so despicable a set of spindle-shanks! What a noble animal I should be, were my ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... Rose was delighted with the success of Lady Acacia and Mrs. Larch in their solicitations with the Forest and Fir Trees, whose majestic appearance and respectable characters she imagined would dignify her fete, never considering her own littleness might appear to them despicable; but from them she had nothing to fear, as they were too well bred to attend any meeting to ridicule it. 'Tis true when they did grace a public entertainment they kept chiefly together, and never so far forgot their consequence as to oppress a ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas |
