"Flay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reflections that must have been raised by the perusal of this letter upon thy yet unclosed eyelet-holes? Will not some serious thoughts mingle with thy melilot, and tear off the callus of thy mind, as that may flay the leather from thy back, and as thy epispastics may strip the parchment from thy plotting head? If not, then indeed is thy conscience seared, and no hopes will lie ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... by the tyrants," said the gallant captain. "There is a venerable oak with a hollow in it. In this cavity we will hide the charter, and none but you and I will know where it is. You can return to Salem, beyond reach of Governor Andros, and, as for me, he can flay me alive before I ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... the head man of the temple to make ready for the day of sacrifice and flay the prophet on the place of sacrifice ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... upon whose carrion clay Justice of myriad men still in the womb Shall heave two crosses; crucify and flay Two memories accurs'd; then in the tomb Of ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... strips of lath; that you must put on, and go up to the castle and say your name is "Katie Woodencloak", and ask for a place. But before you go, you must take your penknife and cut my head off, and then you must flay me, and roll up the hide, and lay it under the wall of rock yonder, and under the hide you must lay the copper leaf, and the silver leaf, and the golden apple. Yonder, up against the rock, stands a stick; and when you want anything, you've ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... as he flay,* *flew He saide, "Farewell, farewell, popinjay," As though he had scorned, thought me; But ay I hunted him from the tree, Until he was ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... a league, we circumvented the peril, and came upon the river flowing fair and free. The trappers said adieu, and launched us. Back then they went to consult their traps and flay their fragrant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... he had the heart to wing a partridge,—to "wing it," a pretty phrase in the mouth of a polite sportsman, who, if a poacher were to break the bones of his leg, would, in his own case, think it a little different. Yes, Dewhurst might have been supposed to be able to "wing a partridge,"—not to "flay ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... could not attain to the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven (for since the mountain had not moved at my word, they could not think very much of my faith up aloft, and there could be no very great reward awaiting me in the world to come). So why should I let them flay the skin off me as well, and to no good purpose? For, even though they had flayed my skin half off my back, even then the mountain would not have moved at my word or at my cry. And at such a moment not only doubt ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of the sirens," tossed the fishmonger, playing his part at Glaucon's side; "lure that dear penteconter a little nearer. And you, brave, gentle sirs, don't try 'to flay a skinned dog' by thrusting down here. Your hands are just itching ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... of making his court to the emperor, remitted to him a much larger sum than was customary; that prince, who, in the beginning of his reign, thought, or at least spoke justly, answered, "that it was his design not to flay, but to ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... my boy," said Story; and he immediately began to flay the animal; but as its flesh was likely to prove tough, we left the carcase for the ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... "while you git yer breath, Nuck, I'll flay that critter and hang her up. I'm in somethin' of a hurry this mornin'; but as the widder's needin' the meat, we won't leave the carcass to ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... effete. Drawn from a living wolf, the hide Should warm and smoking be applied. The secret's good, beyond a doubt, For nature's weak, and wearing out. Sir Wolf, here, won't refuse to give His hide to cure you, as I live.' The king was pleased with this advice. Flay'd, jointed, served up in a trice, Sir Wolf first wrapp'd the monarch up, Then furnish'd him whereon ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... deeper subject for reflection in revolutions, these tempests of the social atmosphere which drench the earth with blood, and crush an entire generation of men, than in those upheavals of nature which deluge a harvest, or flay the vineyards with hail—that is to say, the fruits of a single harvest, wreaking an injury, which can at the worst be repaired the ensuing year; unless the Lord be in ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... of his brother; and finally die, accidentally pierced by his own sword when mounting a horse. All these horrors, except the death of the lady, take place on the stage. Thus we have such stage-directions as, 'Smite him in the neck with a sword to signify his death', 'Flay him with a false skin', 'A little bladder of vinegar pricked', 'Enter the King without a gown, a sword thrust up into his side, bleeding.' Of real tragedy there is little, the hustle of crime upon crime obliterating ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... plays "of the supernatural" follow a single plan. In the foreground, as it were, we see a sordid drama played out on the human plane, and in the background (or in the empyrean above, as you choose) we see the operation of the god-like imbecilities which sway and flay us all. The technical trick is well managed. It would be easy for such four-dimensional pieces to fall into burlesque, but in at least two cases, to wit, in "The Blue Sphere" and "In the Dark," they go off with an air. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... says? He forbids our union. If I married you without his consent, he would flay me alive, dip me in boiling oil and read me aloud his History of Renaissance Morals. So I'm ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... "The deil flay the hide o' it to sole his brogues wi'!" said the old lady, aiming a buffet at the supplicant, in answer to ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... fool," Barber said, as he pushed Dickson along towards the paddock where his horse was, gripping his arm so fiercely that the boy writhed with the pain of it, and yet was too frightened to cry out, "if our game goes wrong through your tricks, we'll flay you. You keep out of sight till I send for ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... Maryage, MS. play Father-in-law Feare no colours Feeres Felt locks Feltham's Resolves Fend ( make shift with) Fins (a very doubtful correction for sins) Fisguigge Flat cap Flea ( flay) Fletcher, John, MS. copy of his Elder Brother; his share in the authorship of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt Flewd Fly boat (see Addenda to vol. i.) Fool (play on the words fool and fowl) Fooles paradysse For I did but kisse her (See Appendix) Fortune ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... P., any person's works whose sacrifice you may require. I will cut him up, sir; I will flay him—flagellate him—finish him! You had better not send me (unless you have a private grudge against the authors, when I am of course at your service)—you had better not send me any works of real merit; for I am infallibly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... as much as to say Latin was beyond her; and he was kind enough to translate. "It is the part of a good shepherd to shear, not flay, the sheep." ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... I thank thee, friend Gregory. Thou art a true man. I will so belabour and flay any of the cyder-blooded rascals, an thy bitch shall hold him; 'twill do a man ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... and there. He broke off a stalk and stuck it in his hat; he determined to be merry and of good cheer, for he was going into the wide world—"a little way outside the door, in front of the hay," as the young eels had said. "Beware of bad people, who will catch you and flay you, cut you in two, and put you in the frying-pan!" he repeated in his mind, and smiled, for he thought he should find his way through the world—good courage ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... over-sea refinements, without which I can well enough take my pleasure in the woods. I can wind my horn, though I call not the blast either a 'recheate' or a 'morte'—I can cheer my dogs on the prey, and I can flay and quarter the animal when it is brought down, without using the newfangled jargon of 'curee, arbor, nombles', and all the babble of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the middle and higher ranks, bishops excepted. "O Pontiffs, tell the efficacy of gold in sacred matters!" Avarice often leads the highest men astray, and men, admirable in all other respects: these find a salvo for simony; and, striking against this rock of corruption, they do not shear but flay the flock; and, wherever they teem, plunder, exhaust, raze, making shipwreck of their reputation, if not of their souls also. Hence it appears that this malady did not flow from the humblest to the highest classes, but vice versa, so that the maxim is true although ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... so be a toad be laid In a sheep's-skin newly flay'd, And that tied to man, 'twill sever Him and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... hospital-ship—they told me that at the Stay Awhile; and the rest was easy, ma'am. I had a mate along o' your barge. He was one of them the Boers got at Talana Hill. They chipped his head-piece nicely—just like the 4.7's flay the kopjes up there. My mate's been writing to me about you. We're a long way from home, Joey and me, and a bit o' kindness is a bit ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I know what it is. He has been crammed with nonsense by that idle knave at the Four Alls. Look'ee, my man, if I catch you speaking to him again, I'll flay your skin ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... fellow—found him—and begun: "P'rhaps, Master Razor rogue, to you 'tis fun, That people flay themselves out of their lives: You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing, Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing, With razors just like oyster knives. Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave, To cry up razors that can't shave." "Friend," quoth the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the third place, false teachers flay their disciples to the bone, and cut them out of house and home, but even this is taken and endured. Such, I opine, has been our experience under the Papacy. But true preachers are even denied their bread. Yet this all perfectly squares with justice! For, since men fail to give unto those ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... dear, I do not understand Why ever you are injuring that hatchet in your hand?' He said, "It is intended for to lacerate and flay The neck of that ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... might have fainted. But Doria, a Twentieth Century product, on the Committee of a Maternity Home and a Rescue Laundry, merely looked down her nose . . . I gathered that Liosha, for all her yearning to shoot, flay alive, crucify and otherwise annoy her enemies, did not greatly regret the loss of the distinguished young Albanian cutthroat who was her affianced. Had he lived she would have spent the rest of her days in saying, like Melisande, "I am not happy." She would have ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... occasional resort to spectacular advertising? It pays to advertise in politics, we all know that!—but it was honest advertising since I never failed to deliver the goods. I started out to prove my strength and to flay my opponents, and you tell me, you group of black-coated conservatives, that I make myself ridiculous because I strike an attitude. The people laughed—but, by George, they laughed with me! Oh, I know you think that I am ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... lot of bitter thoughts I've had To silence fellows and to flay 'em, But next day always I've been glad I wasn't quick ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... only offered a trunk severed to the knees or to the shoulders, the fierce heads whereof retained life enough to seize and devour that which was near them. There were some who, half hanging down, agonized themselves by attempting, with their upper limbs, to flay the lower moiety of their bodies, which drooped from the columns, or were attached to the pedestals; and others, who, in their fight with each other, were dragged along by morsels of flesh,—grasping which, they clung to each ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... great clemency could save you, for by virtue of your failure I should be powerless to intervene." He paused for some moments, staring directly at the surgeon. "There are those within sound of my voice," he added sibilantly, "who would flay you alive in the lamentable event of your failure, who would cast your flayed body"—he paused, waving one quivering fist above his head, "to the ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... Mary; you ninnies! And I! to come to see faces and behold only backs! to be a poet, and to reap the success of an apothecary! It is true that Homerus begged through the Greek towns, and that Naso died in exile among the Muscovites. But may the devil flay me if I understand what they mean with their Esmeralda! What is that word, in ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... faults of ephemeral fiction, Exotic, erotic or smart, The vice of delirious diction, The latest excesses of Art— You flay in felicitous fashion, With dexterous choice of your tools, A scourge for unsavoury passion, A ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... There Troy her ruined fortunes shall repair. Bear up; reserve you for a happier day." He spake, and heart-sick with a load of care, Suppressed his grief, and feigned a cheerful air. All straightway gird them to the feast. These flay The ribs and thighs, and lay the entrails bare. Those slice the flesh, and split the quivering prey, And tend the fires and set ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... mistress and a bald valet-de-chambre are well yoked together." "Blood and wounds!" cried Weazel, "d'ye question the honour of my wife, madam? Hell and d-ion! No man in England durst say so much—I would flay him, carbonado him! Fury and destruction! I would have his liver for my supper." So saying, he drew his sword and flourished with it, to the great terror of Strap; while Miss Jenny, snapping her fingers, told him she did not value ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... to the man calling himself Van Blarcom; that the girl, despite her haughtiness, had somehow given me an impression of uneasiness—of fear almost—as she saw him approach and heard him speak; and above all, that I should have liked to flay alive the person or persons who had let her sail unaccompanied for a zone which at this moment was the danger point ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... burned deep in him—somehow inexplicable. He, like other men, had done things that must be forgotten. What fatality in the utterance of a single name—what power to flay! ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... proposed at first to flay him alive, to pour lead into his entrails, to kill him with hunger; he should be tied to a tree, and an ape behind him should strike him on the head with a stone; he had offended Tanith, and the cynocephaluses of Tanith should avenge her. Others were of opinion ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... whene'er ye spy a cat, Starving or sick; I count it not a sin To hang it up, and flay it ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... posterity from expressing an opinion in regard to Roman Catholicism; that is, if that opinion did not coincide with her abominations, and an institution which would place such a law upon her statute books is an institution which would burn and flay alive those who would disregard this law; thus the reader may have some idea of what he or she may expect should their posterity ever live to see America pass into the ungodly clutches of this ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... for the man with the snake to go on down into the canon bed. The other Indians were already unsaddling the dead burro. Slade muttered a command to them in the thick indistinct intonations of their language. They at once started to flay the pony. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... Wiener geht nit unter." But he is brought gradually to the realisation that something is amiss. Can it be that the vice crusaders have been at work? Have the militant moralists and the professional women hunters, in their heated yearnings to flay the transgressor, fallen foul ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... street door, the cock dropped down upon him with his claws and bill, and what the cat and dog done to him was only a flay-bite to what he got from ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... serpent. In an instant the monitor turned and ran to his room and searched it. Seeing no one there, he sank into his chair, and groaned: 'Wicked, depraved children! Those gallows-birds, I'll mangle their flesh, and flay the skin from their bones!' and he kept on mumbling to himself in this strain, until sleep fell upon his eyelids shaded by long eyebrows white as snow, and his head dropped into his hands resting upon ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... the counters and ranging them closely on the board, and crooking his fingers, uttered his reply to Calligenes: "If the cornfield gets sufficient rain, and does not breed a crop of flowering weeds, and frost does not crack the furrows, nor hail flay the heads of the springing blades, and the pricket does not devour the crop, and it sees no other injury of weather or soil, I prophesy you a capital summer, and you will cut the ears successfully: ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... cold tigerish look upon me and tried out the whip. His muscles swelled when he drew back his arms, and made the whip hiss through the air. I was bound like Marsyas while Apollo was getting ready to flay me. ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... hitherto unknown power; and his prophetic utterances troubled them all. "Before the death hour you will remember me! Do you think that you have purchased peace and quiet? do you think that you will make a great show? You will make a great show, but after another fashion. They will flay the skin from your head, hetman, they will stuff it with bran, and long will it be exhibited at fairs. Neither will you retain your heads, gentles. You will be thrown into damp dungeons, walled ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... started back, searing couplets forming with incredible swiftness in her brain. How she would flay Johnny Jewel with the keen blade of her wit! If he thought he was the only person at the Rolling R ranch who could write poetry, it would be a real kindness to show ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... business to be, and trying to look as if he had not known she was coming. "Father Feeny was in this morning and I tackled him. He's got a lot of students—fellows studying for the priesthood—and he says any daughter of the church shall have skin if he has to flay 'em alive." ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had won laughed. Those who had lost cursed him again; he had disgraced his branca. They would flay him, and put him in the cauldron over the wood fire, and would curse him even whilst they picked his bones for a white-livered spawn of cowards; a son of a ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... and dead, they've summoned (With Hell to aid, that hears them pray) New legions of an army dread. Now down the blue sky flames the day; The dew dies off; the foul array Of obscene ravens gathers and goes, With wings that flap and beaks that flay: This is King Louis's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... alone could not have produced this state of things; it was rather over-excitement, added to some great mental shock, the nature of which he could not divine, the doctor said to Tom, who in his wrath at Peterkin was ready to flay him alive, or at least to ride him on a rail ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... all his efforts are mere attempts, for no human language can do full justice to such a theme, or fully express the contempt such excesses deserve. It is just, then, that, when he stands in the presence of the moral leper who blushes not for his degradation, he flay with the whip of scorn and contempt, scourge with anathema and brand him with every stigma of infamy, in order that the load of opprobrium thus heaped upon his guilty head may at least deter the ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... voice: but his sick heart did mighty trouble rack, As, glad of countenance, he thrust the heavy anguish back. But they fall to upon the prey, and feast that was to dight, 210 And flay the hide from off the ribs, and bare the flesh to sight. Some cut it quivering into steaks which on the spits they run, Some feed the fire upon the shore, and set the brass thereon. And so meat bringeth might again, and on the grass thereby, Fulfilled with fat of forest deer ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... was in the tree, Alive, sir, flay me, if I did not see You on the verdant lawn my lady lay, And kiss, and toy, and other ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... and I bite!" he continued, the scorn in his words exceeding even the rage of the crowd, at which he flung them. "Kill where you please, rob where you please, but not where I am! Or I will hang you by the heels on Montfaucon, man by man! I will flay your backs. Go! Go! ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... ruffianly way of being insolent to her mistress. Then, violently ringing a bell which stood on the table, he summoned a negro lad into the room, and at once despatched him to a neighbour's house to borrow a new raw-hide whip, threatening all the while to flay her alive. In vain the terrified creature pleaded innocence; he would take no excuse, and, although I begged earnestly for him to pass over the offence, and the poor slave fell on her knees in the greatest terror, he ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... would betray me, yet feeling somewhat safe for the present, I sat down to think and rest myself. I knew that if I was caught Wilson would flay me, as he had threatened to do, for making his saddle-horse's back sore, but that if I could once get through to Memphis I would be enabled, through the assistance of friends, to make my way North. Yet I wanted to see Uncle Ben again, and tried to hit upon some plan to accomplish ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... and painted happiness thrones and sceptres were there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of them; there would be more principalities than princes; for a prince is the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots." A man may milk a beast till the blood come; churn milk and it yieldeth ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... thread of sound ceased. I felt my eyes fill with tears; it was like Ventnor to flay himself like this for what he thought stupidity, like him to make this effort to admit his supposed fault and crave forgiveness—as like him as that mad attack upon the flaming Disk in its own temple, surrounded ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... thereafter, And there came the time for sleeping, At his side a rod he carried, Took from nail a whip of leather, 710 Not designed to flay another, But alas, ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... such a mangy dog's drunken neglect?—Ye lie, Sirrah!—Ye lie, I tell you—[I hear the fellow's voice in an humble excusatory tone, though not articulately] Ye lie, ye dog!—I'd a good mind to thrust my whip down your drunken throat: d—n me, if I would not flay the skin from the back of such a rascal, if thou wert mine, and have dog's-skin gloves made of it, for thy brother scoundrels to wear in remembrance of thy abuses of such ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... replied Peterkin; "I suppose he told him that now he had found him out, he would flay him alive if he didn't give in, or something ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... that, Jack; and I am fair ashamed. While the fighting kept to the North it did not grind so keen; but now, with the redcoats at our doors, and the Tories sacking and burning in every settlement, 'tis enough to flay an honest man alive. God-a-mercy, Jack! I'll go; I've got to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... And since, to seem the more officious And flatt'ring of his health, there, they have had, At extreme fees, the college of physicians Consulting on him, how they might restore him; Where one would have a cataplasm of spices, Another a flay'd ape clapp'd to his breast, A third would have it a dog, a fourth an oil, With wild cats' skins: at last, they all resolved That, to preserve him, was no other means, But some young woman must be straight sought out, Lusty, and full of juice, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... food, except fish and turtles; and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I must have perished first: that I should have lived, if I had not perished, like a mere savage: that if I had killed a goat or a fowl by any contrivance, I had no way to flay or open them, or part the flesh from the skin and the bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth, and pull it with my claws, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... salvation. The reviewer must review. But what, it may be asked, moves any follower of the Muses to satirise a scribbler? He seems to go out of his way to do so; for verse has naturally better associations. But the personal aggression on the wit by the dunce, may fairly instigate the wit to flay the dunce. Now he finds the object of his satire in the way. The fact is, that Dryden's poem and Pope's were both moved in this way. The grew out of personal quarrels. Are they on that account to be blamed? Not if the dunces, by them "damned to everlasting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... bitterly. "Or would you rather gouge out my eyes? Will you flay me alive? Because if so, I'll go and get the knives and things. What about after tea? Or would you ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... the flood receive Command to seize me, of the many such By the illustrious Amphitrite bred; For that the mighty Shaker of the shores Hates me implacable, too well I know. While such discourse within himself he held, 510 A huge wave heav'd him on the rugged coast, Where flay'd his flesh had been, and all his bones Broken together, but for the infused Good counsel of Minerva azure-eyed. With both hands suddenly he seized the rock, And, groaning, clench'd it till the billow pass'd. So baffled he that wave; but yet again The refluent flood ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... his helmet and sniffed. "Guk," he said. "If I ever faint and someone gives me smelling salts, I'll flay him alive ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... as cowardly as he had been cruel, flung himself down and crawled, sobbing and crying, to my feet. I had no mercy, however. "Take him away," I said, "It is such men as these give kings a bad name. Take him away, and see you flay him well." ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... clotted locks, and dragg'd him sprawling up, That he appear'd to me an otter. Each Already by their names I knew, so well When they were chosen, I observ'd, and mark'd How one the other call'd. "O Rubicant! See that his hide thou with thy talons flay," Shouted together all the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... he had got them all safely, the old man sat down on a bench before the cellar and began sharpening a knife. And the bear said to him, "Tell me, daddy, what are you sharpening your knife for?"—"To flay your skin off, that I may make a leather jacket for myself and a pelisse for my old wife."—"Oh! don't flay me, daddy dear! Rather let me go, and I'll bring you a lot of honey."—"Very well, see you do it," and he unbound and let the bear go. Then he sat ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... Isbel had hinted at now possessed Ellen—body, mind, and soul. Disgraced, scorned by an Isbel! Yet loved by him! In that divination there flamed up a wild, fierce passion to hurt, to rend, to flay, to fling back upon him a stinging agony. Her thought flew upon her like whips. Pride of the Jorths! Pride of the old Texan blue blood! It lay dead at her feet, killed by the scornful words of the last of that family to whom she owed her degradation. Daughter of a horse thief and rustler! ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... block, bring to the gallows; behead, decapitate, guillotine; decollate; hang, turn off, gibbet, bowstring, hang draw and quarter; shoot; decimate; burn; break on the wheel, crucify; empale^, impale; flay; lynch; electrocute; gas, send to the gas chamber. torture; put on, put to the rack; picket. banish, exile, transport, expel, ostracize; rusticate; drum out; dismiss, disbar, disbench^; strike off the roll, unfrock; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... talk!" cries Lyashkevsky in indignation, angrily wrapping his dressing gown round him. "Supposing he has no job and no trade, why doesn't he work in his own home, the devil flay him! I say! Is there no work for you at home? Just look, you brute! Your steps have come to pieces, the plankway is falling into the ditch, the fence is rotten; you had better set to and mend it all, or if you don't know ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... it is, boys," said he at length, "if ever you catch me going on an expedition of this sort again, flay me alive— that's all—don't spare me. Pull off the cuticle as if it were a glove, and if I roar don't mind—that's ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... rip open pregnant women, like Caesar Borgia, Duke of Valentinois; if he did not scourge women on the breasts, testibusque viros, like Ferdinand of Toledo; if he did not break on the wheel alive, burn alive, boil alive, flay alive, crucify, impale, and quarter, blame him not, the fault was not his; the age obstinately refuses to allow it. He has done all that was humanly or inhumanly possible. Given the nineteenth century, a century of gentleness,—of ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... White Knight: "shall we have thee out and flay thy back with our stirrup-leather?" Said Osberne, speaking slowly: "That is the third question too much thou hast asked in the last few minutes. Lo thou!" And he shook his hood from his face, and had Boardcleaver ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... could forego his hobby,—and Im-Hanna, affectionate, devoted as our mothers,—these were the joys of our Saturday nights in our underground diggings. We were absolutely happy. And we never tried to measure our happiness in those days, or gauge it, or flay it to see if it be dead or alive, false or real. Ah, the blessedness of that supreme unconsciousness which wrapped us as a mother would her babe, warming and caressing our hearts. We did not know then that happiness was a thing to be sought. We only knew that peddling is a pleasure, that a bank ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... man? what perils still environ[181] The happiest mortals even after dinner! A day of gold from out an age of iron Is all that Life allows the luckiest sinner; Pleasure (whene'er she sings, at least) 's a Siren, That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner; Lambro's reception at his people's banquet Was such as fire accords to a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... except fish and turtles; and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I must have perished first; that I should have lived, if I had not perished, like a mere savage; that if I had killed a goat or a fowl, by any contrivance, I had no way to flay or open it, or part the flesh from the skin and the bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth, and pull it with my ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... struggle for speech; at last, without warning, his passion leaped into flame. Like a wild beast he sprang across the table at the Duke—the poor snivelling coward who had dared to flay him with his tongue! The old hate fired the new fury ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... flay a dog to see how long he can live without his skin. Is this trifling experiment of any importance? Suppose the dog can live a week or a month or a year, what then? What must the real character of the scientific wretch be who ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... that Mrs. McKay used no such stately language. No doubt she walked up to Brown, shook her finger in his face, and exclaimed, "You miserable villain! I can't get at you now; but if the day ever comes, I'll flay you alive for the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... which I love Beyond all else the world could give; yet still Your rigour I forgive; ye are not yet my foes; My own untutor'd will's my only curse. We grasp asphaltic apples; blooming poison! We love what we should hate; how kind, ye Fates, To thwart our wishes! O you're kind to scourge! And flay us to the bone to ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... was much increased by his domestics, who told us of many of his cruelties. This is certain, that some time before, he had used some poor pagan merchants in that manner, and had caused the executioner to begin to flay them, when some Brahmin, touched with compassion, generously contributed the sum demanded for their ransom. We had no reason to hope for so much kindness, and, having nothing of our own, could promise no ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... wont to sit in his second-floor window on sultry summer Sundays, smoking his solitary cigar, and listening to the cawing of the rooks in the gardens beneath him, mingled with the voices of rebellious children, and shrill mothers threatening to "do for them," or to "flay them alive," in Somebody's Rents below. The lawyer used to be quite meditative on those Sunday afternoons, and would wonder what sort of a fellow Lord Bacon was, and how he contrived to get into a mess about taking bribes, when so many ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... was out of him. He was trembling with cold, and afraid of cramp. "A mother-naked man," in a wilderness, with a flood between him and his raiment, was in a pitiable position. It did not occur to him to flay the stag, and dress in the hide, and, indeed, he would have been frozen before he could have accomplished that ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... said, "And who of all those who have come to you have benefited you so much as I, who have traveled from place to place in every direction, and have sought and learnt from the physicians the means of healing you?" The Lion commanded him immediately to tell him the cure, when he replied, "You must flay a wolf alive and wrap his skin yet warm around you." The Wolf was at once taken and flayed; whereon the Fox, turning to him, said with a smile, "You should have moved your master not to ill, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... young beggar," said Wraysford, as the boy entered, "if you don't have my tea piping hot to-night, and fresh herrings for three done to a regular turn, I'll flay you alive, my boy. And now, if you're good, you may come ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... has he after all read? Books indeed! why, he has read and filled his brains with a lot of trashy words and nonsensical phrases, and learnt some ingenious way of waywardness. Wait till I have a little leisure, and I'll set to work, first and foremost, and flay your skin off, and then settle accounts ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... don't give it to me now, I'll get it out of him another time," the man growled. "I've a right to the money, and I'll flay him alive if ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... now in far greater esteem with the King than before, and Red was all the more discontented. One day he came to the King and said, 'If Ring is such a mighty man, I think you might ask him to kill the wild oxen in the wood here, and flay them the same day, and bring you the horns and the hides ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... that when I come into my kingdom I'll devise a worse punishment than physical pain. A soul is an immaterial thing. You cannot flay it with aspic's fangs nor kerosene it and set it on fire. A material hell for immaterial mind were too ridiculous for a progressive devil. But it is not necessary to be a son of Satan to build a hell in which demons dance ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... born with a genius to flay: He might have ranked, had he lived to-day, As a capital taxidermist: And yet, as he tugged, they heard him say, Of all the backs that ever lay Before him in a professional way, That was of all backs ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... undecayed, Bring only flash of shade From her full throbbing breast of day in night. By what they crave are they betrayed: And cavernous is that young dragon's jaw, Crimson for all the fiery reptile saw In time now coveted, for teeth to flay, Once more consume, were Life recurrent May. They to their moment of drawn breath, Which is the life that makes the death, The death that makes ethereal life would bind: The death that breeds the spectre do they find. Darkness is wedded and the waste regrets ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... By this time he is stung with remorse for what he said. Then he'll make a general confession to his wife. She'll flay him with her tongue for having dared to say a disrespectful word to God's minister. Then he'll go on a desperate spree for a week to stifle conscience, during which orgies he'll beat his wife black and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... by declaring that he had no intention of calling in question the principles of religious liberty. He utterly disclaims persecution, that is to say, persecution as defined by himself. It would, in his opinion, be persecution to hang a Jew, or to flay him, or to draw his teeth, or to imprison him, or to fine him; for every man who conducts himself peaceably has a right to his life and his limbs, to his personal liberty and his property. But it is not persecution, says my ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... another who was becoming a hypochondriac as he had been. When the mind is in a morbid state it imagines faults, errors, sins, where there are none. The melancholy person in his self-scrutiny becomes an intolerant tyrant to himself. He will flay his poor soul for trifles as if they were the blackest crimes: In such moments the devil is very busy about the victim of gloom and despair. Luther has diagnosed the case of Weller with the skill of a nervous specialist. He counsels Weller not to judge himself according ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... his pray'r Apollo heard. Their pray'rs concluded, and the salt cake strew'd Upon the victims' heads, they drew them back, And slew, and flay'd; then cutting from the thighs The choicest pieces, and in double layers O'erspreading them with fat, above them plac'd The due meat-off'rings; then the aged priest The cleft wood kindled, and libations pour'd Of ruddy wine; arm'd with the five-fork'd ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... know, my masters, that wherever Spain hath ruled she hath wither'd all beneath her. Look at the New World—a paradise made hell; the red man, that good helpless creature, starved, maim'd, flogg'd, flay'd, burn'd, boil'd, buried alive, worried by dogs; and here, nearer home, the Netherlands, Sicily, Naples, Lombardy. I say no more—only this, their lot is yours. Forward to London with me! forward to London! If ye love your liberties or ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the stables and tell every man there that if either of them allows a horse to be brought out for the use of Miss Black to-day. I'll flay them alive and break every bone in their ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... penitentiary, then who so loud in their denunciation as the public? Why, Stone had robbed them right and left; why, Stone was an enemy to mankind; why, Stone and all his friends were monsters whom it were a good and a holy thing to skewer and flay and cast into ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... country. And because he was thinking clearly, in spite of his grief, he saw that his very ambition for the boy had been his undoing. In the alliance with Karnia he had given the Terrorists a scourge to flay the people to revolt. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... formation are very common in Mid. English as in Old French, and often bear witness to a violent or brutal nature. Thus Scorch-beef, which is found in the Hundred Rolls, has no connection with careless cookery; it is Old Fr. escorche (ecorche) -buef, flay ox, a name given to some medieval "Skin-the-goat." Catchpole (Chapter XX) is formed in the same way, and in French we find, applied to law officials, the surnames Baillehart, give halter, [Footnote: Bailler, the usual Old French for to give, is still used colloquially and in ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... came to an end as the lash cut down across his shoulders, biting through to the shoulder-bone. He stumbled forward, heedless of the overseers' shouting voices. Someday, if he had the chance, he'd flay his own overseer, but that could wait. Even the agony of the cut couldn't take his mind from Ser Perth's presence. Had Bork slipped up—did the Satheri know that Hanson was still alive, and had they sent Ser Perth here to locate him? It seemed unlikely, ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... cruelty to man and animals, such as dog-fights, boxing-matches, dangerous and cruel circus tricks, executions of criminals, etc. The pleasure derived from such brutal exhibitions is the same in kind as that which prompts savages to flay alive their prisoners of war. And the morbid pleasure which so many apparently civilized people take in reading in the newspapers, column after column, about such brutal sports, is the survival of the same ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... it seemed advisable to Mr. Mix to make haste slowly; he had turned an impending personal catastrophe into a personal triumph, but the triumph could be spoiled unless he kept it carefully on ice. The failure of the public to rise up and flay the League had lifted Mr. Mix into a position of much prominence, and conveyed the very reasonable supposition that he was individually powerful. When a man is supposed to possess power, he can travel a long ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... tremens, as crazy as a loon, And his friends were glad, when the end came soon. There goes the hearse, the mourners cry, The respectable hearse goes slowly by. And now, good friends, since you see how it ends, Let each nation-mender flay the red bar-tender,— Abhor The transgression Of the red bar-tender,— Ruin The profession Of the red bar-tender: Force him into business where his work does good. Let him learn how to plough, let him learn to chop wood, Let him learn how to plough, let ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... him in his first edition, was sent to prison for life. The Arrotino which Smollett so greatly admired, and which the delusive Bianchi declared to be a representation of the Augur Attus Naevius, is now described as "A Scythian whetting his knife to flay Marsyas." ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... something of this kind of Free Booting expedition and consider the difficulties you would meet with. You would begin by looking for a lot of leather. Imagine yourself setting off to South America, for example, to get leather; beginning at the very beginning by setting to work to kill and flay a herd of cattle. You find at once you are interrupted. Along comes your first obstacle in the shape of a man who tells you the cattle and the leather belong to him. You explain that the leather is wanted for ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... they hastened and to the broad stream of Alpheios, and from the fold Hermes drove forth the cattle. But as he stood apart, Apollo beheld the hides flung on the rock, and he asked Hermes, "How wast thou able, cunning rogue, to flay two cows, thou a child but one day old? I fear thy might in time to come, and I can not let thee live." Again he seized the child, and bound him fast with willow bands; but the child tore them from his body like flax, so that Phoebus marveled greatly. In vain Hermes ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... own name. Of these other tribes the Neuri inhabit the inland districts, being near the highest mountain chains, which are both precipitous and covered with the everlasting frost of the north. Next to them are the Budini, and the Geloni, a race of exceeding ferocity, who flay the enemies they have slain in battle, and make of their skins clothes for themselves and trappings for their horses. Next to the Geloni are the Agathyrsi, who dye both their bodies and their hair of a blue color, the lower classes using spots few in number and small; the nobles broad ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... named it resolutely several times, the demon of salvation began gradually to assume a kindly aspect that at times became almost benign. In fact, this one was not a demon at all, but a liberator: the demon, she perceived, stalked behind him, and his name was Notoriety. It was he who would flay her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... robber of his equal brother, discourses eloquently as to the excellency of justice, and the man who employs a brutal driver to flay the flesh of his negroes, is not offended when kindness and humanity are commended. Every time the abolitionist speaks of justice, the anti-abolitionist assents says, yes, I wish the world were ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass |
