"Invective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lecturer; Ward the debater. Douglass powerful in invective; Ward in argument. What advantage Douglass gains in mimicry Ward recovers ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human beings are gathered together, Mr. Webster rose. He had sat impassive and immovable during all the preceding days, while the storm of argument and invective had beaten about his head. At last his time had come; and as he rose and stood forth, drawing himself up to his full height, his personal grandeur and his majestic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. With perfect quietness, unaffected apparently ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... be idle (that is to study), he has a smatch at alchemy, and is sick of the philosopher's stone; a disease uncurable, but by an abundant phlebotomy of the purse. His two main opposites are a mountebank and a good woman, and he never shews his learning so much as in an invective against them and their boxes. In conclusion, he is a sucking consumption, and a very brother to the worms, for they are both ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... There stood Hannah, white capped and white aproned, holding the silver serving tray like a petrified statue of severity, and not one of them spoke, but their silence, their dignified, reproachful silence was infinitely worse than a torrent of invective. How Annie wished they would speak. How she wished that she could speak herself, but she knew better than to even offer an excuse for her tardiness. Well she knew that the stony silence which would meet that would be worse, much worse than this. So she ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... over three thousand New England clergymen, who, "in the name of Almighty God," protested against the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a great moral wrong and as a breach of faith. This brought Douglas to his feet. With fierce invective he declared this whole movement was instigated by the circulars sent out by the Abolition confederates in the Senate. These preachers had been led by an atrocious falsehood "to desecrate the pulpit, and prostitute the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... of a certain nobleman, who is continually railing against matrimony, and who makes a very indifferent husband to an obliging wife: I have known more men than one, said Sir Charles, inveigh against matrimony, when the invective would have proceeded with a much better grace from their wives' lips than from theirs. But let us inquire, would this complainer have been, or deserved to be, happier in any state, than he ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... the oration of an ambitious leader in a farce; he held his hearers with his eloquence, as much as he had done with the song of his grotesque and desecrating love. He vaunted his sagacity and his valour, and overwhelmed with invective all sorts of names—my own and Castro's among them. He revealed the unholy ideals of all that band of scoundrels—ideals that he said should find fruition under his captaincy. He boasted of secret conferences with O'Brien. There ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the more rabid of the radical opponents of privilege in the hierarchy of the worshipers of the golden calf. His course along the middle of the onward way exposed him peculiarly to the missiles of invective and scorn from the partisans on either side. But neither could drive him into ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... breeding that their conversation seems almost insipid to strangers.[2106]—And suddenly they find themselves on the thorny soil of politics, exposed to insulting debates, flat contradictions, venomous denunciation, constant detraction and open invective; engaged in a battle in which every species of weapon peculiar to a parliamentary life is employed, and in which the hardiest veterans are scarcely able to keep cool. Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced, highly ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Conservative principles,' continued Coningsby, 'I merely wish to be informed what those principles aim to conserve. It would not appear to be the prerogative of the Crown, since the principal portion of a Conservative oration now is an invective against a late royal act which they describe as a Bed-chamber plot. Is it the Church which they wish to conserve? What is a threatened Appropriation Clause against an actual Church Commission in the hands of Parliamentary Laymen? ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... as 'a weird sibyl'; the other member (Sir James Graham), whom he could not say he greatly respected, but whom he greatly regarded; and the third member (Sir C. Wood), whom he bade learn that petulance is not sarcasm, and insolence is not invective. Lord John Russell congratulated him on the ability and the gallantry with which he had conducted the struggle, and so the curtain fell." Morley's Gladstone, Book ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... his convictions and his passions becoming still more strongly engaged on the side which he had already espoused, he published a work on the unity of the church, in which the conduct of his sovereign and benefactor became the topic of his vehement invective. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... believe, that Antony was capable of patriotism. If he had any hopes of peace, these were soon to be crushed. After a fortnight or more spent in preparation, assisted, we are told, by a professional teacher of eloquence, Antony came down to the Senate and delivered a savage invective against Cicero. The object of his attack was again absent. He had wished to attend the meeting, but his friends hindered him, fearing, not without reason, actual violence from the armed attendants whom Antony was accustomed to bring into ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... had stopped, and Forsythe's furious invective could be heard. Florrie ran up the steps, peeped out, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... started upward at ever-increasing velocity; then my lungs seemed about to burst, and I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing more until I opened my eyes after listening to a torrent of invective against Germany and Germans. Tell me, please, all that happened after the ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they're a little bit—indelicate?" ventured Missy, remembering her mother's recent invective against tomboys. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... overcome. To her choicest bit of irony, the individual replied, "Somebody left you on the grindstone and forgot to take you off," to which the most adroit in quips and quirks could find no fitting replication, unless it were to indulge in facial contortion or invective, and Miss Clarissa was too much of a lady to do either. Forced into silence, she had no resource but to seek to transfix him with a protracted and contemptuous stare, which, though failing to disconcert the object, put her in possession of the facts that he had mild blue eyes, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... tabled, Kent had a semi-political following which was all his own. Men who had hitherto known him only as a corporation lawyer began to prophesy large things of the fiery young advocate, whose arguments were as sound and convincing as his invective was keen and merciless. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... invective, nor lightly give vent to the language of resentment; but truth and utility compels us to speak of the English as they really are. Their whole history marks them a hard hearted, cruel race, and such we prisoners have found them. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... subjected to very great insolence from Mr. Fenwick during the discussion which took place in poor old farmer Trumbull's parlour respecting the murder. Our friend, the Vicar, did not content himself with personal invective, but made allusion to the Marquis's daughters. The Marquis, as he was driven home in his carriage, came to sundry conclusions about Mr. Fenwick. That the man was an infidel he had now no matter of doubt whatever; and if an infidel, then also a hypocrite, and ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... against the system of inculcating the truth of Christianity or the excellence of Monarchy, however true or however excellent they may be, by such equivocal arguments as confiscation and imprisonment, and invective and slander, and the insolent violation of the most sacred ties of Nature ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... a Wittie Invective made by Montaigny upon the Antipodean, Who said they must be Thieves that pulled on their breeches when Honest Folk were scarce abed. So is it Obnoxious to them that purvey Christmas Numbers, Annuals, and the like, that they commonly write under Sirius his star as it were Capricornus, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the kind." Then, warned by his gathering rage, I added that I would express to Sir John his Majesty's regrets, but to attribute the blame to those who had had no part in the matter, that I could never do. At this his fury was grotesque. His talent for invective was always formidable, and he tried to overpower me with threats. But a kindred spirit of resistance was aroused in me. I withdrew from the palace, and patiently abided the issue, resolved, in any event, to ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... freshened by a four years' absence and informed by the contemplation of many strange and diverse spectacles. Presently a hundred yards of unimpeded travel ends in a blockade of trucks and street-cars and a smart fusillade of invective. During this enforced stoppage the young man becomes conscious of a vast unfinished structure that towers gauntly overhead through the darkening and thickening air, and for which a litter of iron beams in the roadway itself seems to ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... will allow your faithful servant Ivo to retire to his ancestral manors in Anjou; for England will be too hot for him. Sire, you know not this man,—a liar, a bully, a robber, a swash-buckling ruffian, who—" and Ivo ran on with furious invective, after the fashion of the Normans, who considered no name too bad for an ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... be a wrongful ghost at all," the apparition continued, "it would be much pleasanter to be the ghost of some man other than John Hinckman. There is in him an irascibility of temper, accompanied by a facility of invective, which is seldom met with. And what would happen if he were to see me, and find out, as I am sure he would, how long and why I had inhabited his house, I can scarcely conceive. I have seen him in his bursts ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... invective seemed to fairly overwhelm the subject of it. He made a movement to go away, but the solicitor restrained him by a ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... situated the stews, bordering the river's edge. Since the players were at this time subject to the bitterest attacks from the London preachers, Burbage wisely decided not to erect the first permanent home of the drama in a locality already a common target for puritan invective. ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... take this discourse for an invective against the Bank of England. I believe it is a very good fund, a very useful one, and a very profitable one. It has been useful to the Government, and it is profitable to the proprietors; and the ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... relations had put under the care of Mr. Richardson, as a very good man. To his great surprise, however, this figure stalked forwards to where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting, and all at once took up the argument, and burst out into an invective against George the Second, as one, who, upon all occasions was unrelenting and barbarous; mentioning many instances, particularly, that when an officer of high rank had been acquitted by a Court Martial, George the Second had with his own hand, struck ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... were about the Court of King Charles and King James, have told the present writer a number of stories about this queer old lady, with which it's not necessary that posterity should be entertained. She is said to have had great powers of invective; and, if she fought with all her rivals in King James's favour, 'tis certain she must have had a vast number of quarrels on her hands. She was a woman of an intrepid spirit, and it appears pursued and rather fatigued his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... General; which counsel of his, if they would take and put it speedily in execution, would put an end unto all the present mischiefs. The Council in general did all very well approve Nevil Smith's judgment; but presently up starts Sir Arthur Hazellrigg, and makes a sharp invective against Lambert, and concluded, he would rather perish under the King of Scot's power, than that Lambert should ever any more have ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... called an old woman before. If she had seen Mr Gillingham Howard looking with his usual brazen assurance, she would have broken out in a torrent of invective against her merciless tormentor—but the fight was entirely out of that illustrious character, and he stood in trembling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... though couched in the flowing language of an orator, the speech on the whole is not an unfair summing up of the grievances of the coloured people, and there is a very solemn warning in it. The European labour agitators may well envy Dr. Abdurahman: his logic, his doctrine and his power of invective. He has so much to complain of, he asks for so very little. Just equality of opportunity. He does not propose to set up any Trades' Hall government within a government; he does not talk about or attempt to incite ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... has transported us.' 'Caffarelli,' said others, 'is the agent that has been made use of to deceive the General-in-Chief.' Many of them, having observed that wherever there were vestiges of antiquity they were carefully searched, vented their spite in invective against the savants, or scientific men, who, they said, had started the idea of she expedition to order to make these searches. Jests were showered upon them, even in their presence. The men called an ass a savant; and said of Caffarelli Dufalga, alluding to his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... magnitude of their importance and the intensity of their interest. For maturity of judgment, deliberateness of thought and manner, fearlessness of speech, a presence of mind never lost, and bitterness of invective, no one ranks above him in the Chamber. His oratory is of that substantial and yet spirited character which at once convinces and interests and engages the attention of the mind, without wearying it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Burns and Jennie Todd, besides several more of the Burns family, a few Sprouls and Paynes and a very ragged young Jones, and they all looked at me with hostile and accusing eyes as Charlotte hurled a final invective at me. "You are wicked and the devil will burn you up," ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Aper concluded, You see, said Maternus, the zeal and ardour of our friend: in the cause of the moderns, what a torrent of eloquence! against the ancients, what a fund of invective! With great spirit, and a vast compass of learning, he has employed against his masters the arts for which he is indebted to them. And yet all this vehemence must not deter you, Messala, from the performance of your promise. A formal defence of the ancients is by no means necessary. We do not ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... answered, with romantic devotion, and stepping between the Count and Gaillarde, as he shrieked his invective, "Hold your tongue, and clear the way, you ruffian, you bully, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Speaker, who should come into the House, on my reading this sentence of condemnation of the Court of Directors against their unfaithful servants, might well imagine that he had heard an harsh, severe, unqualified invective against the present ministerial Board of Control. So exactly do the proceedings of the patrons of this abuse tally with those of the actors in it, that the expressions used in the condemnation of the one may serve for the reprobation of the other, without the change ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Vatican, fulmination, maranatha[obs3]; aspersion, disparagement, vilification, vituperation. abuse; foul language, bad language, strong language, unparliamentary language; billingsgate, sauce, evil speaking; cursing &c. v.; profane swearing, oath; foul invective, ribaldry, rude reproach, scurrility. threat &c. 909; more bark than bite; invective &c. (disapprobation) 932. V. curse, accurse[obs3], imprecate, damn, swear at; curse with bell book and candle; invoke curses ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... New England poetry. There is no noisy rhetoric, no tossing about of big adjectives and stinging epithets, no abuse of our noble English tongue by cheap exaggerations. Our poets do not need to underscore words or to use heavy headlines and italics. Their invective has been mighty because so restrained and so compressed. There is none of the common cant or the common plausibilities. There is no passing off of counterfeits for realities, no "pouring of the waters of concession into the bottomless buckets ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... and ruled autocratically, scorning the feeble protests of the Opposition, who were few in number and weak in debate. Many a time as Pearl sat in the Ladies' Gallery and listened to the flood of invective with which the cabinet ministers smothered any attempt at criticism which the Opposition might make, she had longed for a chance to reply. They were so boastful, so overbearing, so childishly important, it seemed ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... of the brain, or fatty degeneration of the heart. It does seem to me that if I were a good Christian and knew that another man was going down to the bottomless pit to be miserable and in agony forever, I would try to stop him, and instead of filling my mouth with epithet and invective, and drawing the lips of malice back from the teeth of hatred, my eyes would be filled with tears, and I would do what I could to reclaim him and take him up in the arms of ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... canto of the Inferno, and the sixth of the Purgatorio, as passages incomparable in their kind. The merit of the latter is, perhaps, rather oratorical than poetical; nor can I recollect anything in the great Athenian speeches which equals it in force of invective and bitterness of sarcasm. I have heard the most eloquent statesman of the age remark that, next to Demosthenes, Dante is the writer who ought to be most attentively studied by every man who desires to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the authority delegated to me, by giving him a free pardon for a female convict for life, who had never landed from the Glatton, to enable her to cohabit with him on his passage home, I might, in that case, have avoided much of his insults here and his calumnious invective in England; but after refusing, as my bounden duty required, to comply to his unwarrantable demands, which, if granted, must have very justly drawn on me your lordship's censure and displeasure, with the merited reproach of those ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... sympathy with the Americans, 2; could not see the need for parliamentary reform, 6; his invective against Shelburne, 17; on the ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... foot-tracks in the snow were long, like the route of a giant. The ice could not betray the sureness of his stride; the rare, thin atmosphere was no match for his broad, deep chest. He shouted as he went, and tossed great boulders down the mountain, and urged on his flagging comrade by cheer and taunt and invective. No madman set loose from captivity could be guilty of so ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Epicures] The reproach of Epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against, those who have more ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... with respect to their conduct in political life. Their minds have been inflamed by the same passions, prejudices, and resentments, and parties have been supported by complaints and representations, which naturally grow into invective and ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... his own experience; and here his satire upon the Court of Ferrara is none the less biting because it takes the form of well-weighed and gravely-measured censure, instead of vehement invective. The following lines may serve as a specimen of Guarini's style in ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... which Cicero did not think it prudent to attend. He then attacked the absent orator in the strongest language of personal abuse and menace. Cicero sat down and composed his famous Second Philippic, which is written as if it were delivered on the same day, in reply to Antony's invective. At present, however, he contented himself with sending a copy of it to Atticus, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... this military theologist might have continued his invective, in which he spared nobody but the scattered remnant of HILL-FOLK, as he called them, is absolutely uncertain. His matter was copious, his voice powerful, and his memory strong; so that there was little chance of his ending his exhortation ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... effect of an electric shock on the Widow Chupin. She suddenly ceased her hypocritical lamentations, rose, placed her hands defiantly on her hips, and poured forth a torrent of invective upon Gevrol and his agents, accusing them of persecuting her family ever since they had previously arrested her son, a good-for-nothing fellow. Finally, she swore that she was not afraid of prison, and would be only too glad to end her days in jail ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... Tertullus, praefect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his passionate invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed, "Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune." An artful expression, which, according to the chance ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... with patience unto my grief I have attended thy invective tale. So much untruth wit never shadowed: 'Gainst her own bowels thou art's weapons turn'st. Let none believe thee that will ever thrive. Words have their course, the wind blows where it lists, He errs alone in error that persists. For thou 'gainst Autumn such exceptions tak'st, I grant ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... that he continually leaves a sting behind him, creates enemies, destroys his reputation for sobriety of thought, and makes himself impossible in posts of administration and trust. There is the parliamentary speaker who, amid shouts of applause, pursues his adversary with scathing invective or merciless ridicule, and who all the time is accumulating animosities against himself, shutting the door against combinations that would be all important to his career, and destroying his chances of party leadership. There is the advocate who can state his ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... many angry political strifes. But he never bore malice or seemed to keep angry over night. General Butler once wrote him a letter pouring out on his head the invective of which he was so conspicuous a master. Wilson brought the letter into the office of a dear friend of mine in Boston when I happened to be there, handed it to us to read, and observed: "That is a cussed mean letter." I do not think he ever spoke of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... been a great deal of trouble in the Norris family, and for weeks old Bill Norris had gone about scowling as blackly as a thunder-cloud, speaking to no one but his wife and daughter, and oftentimes muttering inaudible things that, however, had the tone of invective; and accompanied, as these mutterings were, with a menacing shake of his burley head, old Bill finally grew to be an ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... but a priest could have either is a very modern hypothesis. In way of Religion by Definition, Saint Paul was the great modern exponent. That the Theological Quibblers' Club existed long before his time we know full well. In fact, the chief invective of Jesus against Judaism was that it had degenerated into a mere matter ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... of the teaching they contained. The /Obelisks/ was prepared hastily and was not intended for publication, but it was regarded as so important that copies of it were circulated freely even before it was given to the world. Luther replied in the /Asterisks/, a work full of personal invective and abuse. A Dominican of Cologne, Hochstraten, also entered the lists against Luther, but his intervention did more harm than good to the cause of the Church by alienating the Humanist party whom he assailed fiercely as allies and abettors of Luther. These attacks, however, served only to ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... when—wondrous speed!—a half cooked fowl was placed on the table, together with olives, grapes, and sour brown bread. The Russian lord upon seeing this rare repast spread before him, gave vent to what sounded very like a Sclavonic invective, but nevertheless plunged his knife into the midst of the fowl, and carved and growled, and growled and eat, apparently bent on the most murderous havoc. Meantime, his servant ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... the mind of Burke was the most eloquent and masterly political treatise probably ever written,—a treatise in which there may be found much angry rhetoric and some unsound principles, but which blazes with genius on every page, which coruscates with wit, irony, and invective; scornful and sad doubtless, yet full of moral wisdom; a perfect thesaurus of political truths. I have no words with which to express my admiration for the wisdom and learning and literary excellence of the "Reflections on the French Revolution" ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... that the Hebrew writers often used a vivid form of warning and invective is not a reason why we should keep on doing it. The Hebrew writer was a primitive speaking to primitives. Meaning what we mean, he required a stronger, fiercer vocabulary than we ever need. In saying this I am not dodging the issue; ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... generals to lead them. And a great many hasty Kossuth enthusiasts in Western Europe, knowing only that the Magyars, a chivalrous nation, had been in arms against the despotic Habsburgs, and that the Serbs and Croats had a considerable share in subduing them, could not find invective virulent enough for this abominable brood of hell, whose one desire it was to be a tyrant's executioners. They were denounced as having not the least conception of independence; for a people of a disposition so abandoned there was not the faintest ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... somewhat deflated. And he thought of all his father's violent invective, and of Maggie's bland acceptance of the assumption that workmen on strike were rascals—how different the excellent simple Maggie from this feverish creature on the sofa! "Father's against them, and most people are, because they broke ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... may accept contradiction and discussion; a crowd will never do so. At public meetings the slightest contradiction on the part of an orator is immediately received with howls of fury and violent invective, soon followed by blows, and expulsion should the orator stick to his point. Without the restraining presence of the representatives of authority the contradictor, indeed, would ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... of passion and invective arose just because he had unexpectedly met in the court-room the purient face and beseeching eyes of a woman, married and forsaken, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... by that bland preachment than he would have been by vitriolic insult. While he marched back to the table he prefaced his arraignment of Morrison by calling him an impudent pup. He dwelt on that subject with all his power of invective for some minutes. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... law dictated by instincts of self-preservation? Where was the ennobling influence of the gods, when nobody of any position finally believed in them? How powerless the gods, when the general depravity was so glaring as to call out the terrible invective of Paul, the cosmopolitan traveller, the shrewd observer, the pure-hearted Christian missionary, indicting not a few, but a whole people: "Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... message now in brutal frankness. Yet in the height of his fiercest invective he never seemed to strengthen himself or call on his resources. In its climax he was careless, conscious of power, and contemptuous of results, as though as a gambler he had staked and lost all and in the moment of losing ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... thieves and swindlers-in short, all the reprobate women around Frau Ratzer, whose feet had just been tied on account of her unruly behaviour in the Countess von Montfort's presence—obeyed her signal, and the fierce voices raised in demand and invective woke those who were sleeping farther away. Weeping, wailing, and screaming they started up, clamouring to know what danger threatened them, whilst Frau Ratzer and her fellow-conspirators shrieked for beer or wine ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... genuine; that St. Ambrose was the deadly enemy of hell; that the doctrine of the Trinity was true; and that those who rejected it would certainly be damned. To be sure that the testimony of the demons should have its proper weight in the controversy, on the following day St. Ambrose delivered an invective against all ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... of Jose Pilar. Not that Jose had been one of the padre's friends. In fact, he was suspected during the past year of having been a secret agent of Aglipay, the self-consecrated Bishop of Manila, and the target of the accusation and invective that the Church of Rome is so proficient in. The recent rulings of the order had abolished the confession fee; but the long road was uncertain and the dangers great. The padre rubbed his hands as ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... she sought the dignified seclusion of her castle. But her respected parents, whose triumphant relief at the stranger's departure had emboldened them to await her return in their porch with bended bows of invective and lifted javelins of aggression, recoiled before the resistless helm of this cold-browed Minerva, who ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... of the opposing party. At the same time, these traits delighted a growing body of reformers hostile to both the regular parties. These "Mugwumps," as they were called, were as a class so addicted to personal invective that it was said of them with as much truth as wit that they brought malice into politics without even the excuse of partisanship. But it was probably the enthusiastic support of this class which turned the scale in New York in ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... good result for Timar that Herr Brazovics flew into a rage, and in order to show that he was master in his own house, seized the pen and signed the power of attorney. But when he had given it, both fell on Timar, and overwhelmed him with such a flood of reproaches and invective, that he would willingly have taken yet another bath in the Danube to wash them away. Frau Sophie only scolded Timar indirectly, as she abused her husband for giving such a ragged, dirty fellow, such a tipsy, beggarly scoundrel, a warrant ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... aware that her struggles were to no purpose; but she could not be equally patient. At one moment she raved upon the brutality of Mr. Tyrrel, whom she affirmed to be a devil incarnate, and not a man. At another she expostulated, with bitter invective, against the hardheartedness of the bailiff, and exhorted him to mix some humanity and moderation with the discharge of his function; but he was impenetrable to all she could urge. In the mean while Emily yielded with the sweetest ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... sect that flourished uncommonly in those days. When, however, it was pointed out by earthy and eristic rationalists that if in the past Right was Might then it followed that Might was Right, Carlyle, who had ever the shortest of ways with dissenters, drowned the argument in a flood of invective. Of course if Right is Might it does follow that the good cause has always been the successful one; and in that case it looks as though the successful one must always have been the good. Might, in fact, is Right. Carlyle knew ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... the untimely and awful death of Mr. Brann with poignant regret, and tenders its condolence to his afflicted family. In many ways he won the admiration of the American people. He was a man of great mental endowments, and in the use of invective, often degenerating into billingsgate, he stood without a rival in American journalism. His mind was broad and he despised religious intolerance. As an American he loved the stars and stripes and was opposed to an Anglo- American alliance. He ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... him the night he preached in New York," said Mr. Boulder. "He preached a sermon to the poor. He told them they were no good. I never heard, outside of a Scotch pulpit, such splendid invective." ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... over their heads if I had pleased.'"[108] The general corruption and wickedness produced a remarkable misanthropy in the minds of men, which is reflected in the savage satire of Swift, in the bitter invective of Junius, in the cynicism of Lord Hervey. Sir Robert Walpole, said the latter, "had more warmth of affection and friendship for some particular people than one could have believed it possible for ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... activity of the new reformers. In France, every man distinguished in letters was found in their ranks. Every year gave birth to works in which the fundamental principles of the Church were attacked with argument, invective, and ridicule. The Church made no defence, except by acts of power. Censures were pronounced: books were seized: insults were offered to the remains of infidel writers; but no Bossuet, no Pascal, came forth to encounter Voltaire. There appeared not a single defence of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... residence of the Papal Legates, is well worthy of being visited: it was founded by Benedict the Twelfth but is better known as the subject of the elegant invective of Petrarch. The arsenal still remains, containing 4000 stand of arms and as these instruments of war are ranged according to their respective aeras, the spectacle is interesting, and to antiquaries may be instructive. The papal chair, from respect to its antiquity, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... erect and motionless. The wrath and disdain passed from his features, and stoicism settled over them like a mask of stone. Multnomah's cold regard had not faltered a moment under the chief's invective. No denunciation ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... institutions of existing States. To accomplish their objects they dedicate themselves to the odious task of depreciating the government organization which stands in their way and of calumniating with indiscriminate invective not only the citizens of particular States with whose laws they find fault, but all others of their fellow citizens throughout the country who do not participate with them in their assaults upon the Constitution, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... Lucullus Polk turned and shook a freckled fist at the caravansary. And, to my joy, he began to breathe deep invective in ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... mysterious current flashes through the brain, and fires his detonating heart. Instantly the gleaming flame shoots with lightning-speed to temples and toes. The entire man becomes a detonator, and he explodes in a violent hurricane of kicks, cuffs, and invective! Now, without a detonator—a heart—the man might have burned with moderate wrath, but he ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... and Enquirer," owned by Webb and Noah, in the pay of the United States Bank, burst out into savage invective. It held the Workingmen's Party up to opprobrium as an infidel crowd, hostile to the morals and the institutions of society, and to the rights of property. Nevertheless the Workingmen's Party proceeded ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... that no answer was returned, indulged in strong invective, and then decided upon measures certainly in themselves ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... to the lord-bishop of Carlisle.—Introduction to the History of Westmoreland and Cumberland, p. 81. In the list of borderers, 1597, Hector of Harelaw, with the Griefs and Cuts of Harelaw, also figures as an inhabitant of the Debateable Land. It would appear, from a spirited invective in the Maitland MSS. against the regent, and those who delivered up the unfortunate earl to Elizabeth, that Hector had been guilty of this treachery, to redeem the pledge which had been exacted from him for his peaceable demeanour. The poet ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... his employers were awaiting his services was received by the chauffeur with a volley of invective, which dealt more particularly with Mrs. Slumper's pedigree, but touched lightly upon a whole variety of subjects, including the ultimate destination of all composers and the uses ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... strange sort of Sacred Union was formed over Clerambault; clericals and Jacobins came together to condemn him, and the man whom they admired yesterday was dragged in the mud today. The national poet became at once a public enemy, and all the myrmidons of the press attacked him with heroic invective. The greater number of them united bad faith with a remarkable ignorance. Very few knew Clerambault's works, they scarcely knew his name or the titles of his books, but that no more kept them from disparaging him now than it had hindered ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... the course of events, pursued his daily business regularly, attended the House of Burgesses when it was in session, said little, but thought much. He did not break out into invective or patriotic appeals. No doubt many of his acquaintances thought him lukewarm in spirit and non-committal; but persons who knew him well knew what his decision must be. As early as April 5, 1769, he wrote his friend, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... he seems to have forsaken Greene in his last distress, became the defender of his character after his death, and answered this vituperation by still coarser abuse and invective, saying, "Had hee lived, Gabriel, and thou shouldest vnartifically and odiously libel against him as thou hast done, he would have made thee an example of ignominy to all ages that are to come, and driven ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... to the winds on this occasion, however, for she fought like a wild cat for freedom, and when at length her absolute helplessness was made quite clear even to her, she went into a paroxysm of fury, hurling every kind of invective that occurred to her at Monck who with the grimness of an executioner sat at his ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... style of Mr. Pope which still lingered in the spell-bound ear of the public. Peculiarly they offered a contrast to the irregular effusions of the popular assailant whom they in turn assailed, for the object of their indignant invective was the bard of the "Lousiad." The poem was anonymous, and was addressed to Dr. Warton in lines of even classic grace. Its publication was appropriate. There are moments when every one is inclined to praise, especially when the praise of a new pen may at the same time ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... stumbled to the stair-head to call her up for judgment; but changed his mind, and returned to the looking-glass, blowing the cooling air in short whistles through his peppered lips—and I'm sorry to say, blowing out also many an ejaculation and invective, as that sorry sight met his gaze in the oval mirror, which would have been much better ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... their ancient foe aroused the Salariki, inflaming warriors who leaned across the table to hurl tongue-twisting invective at the captive monster. Dane gathered that seldom had a living gorp been delivered helpless into their hands and they proposed to make the most of this wonderful opportunity. And the Terran suddenly wished the monstrosity had fallen back into the sea. He had no soft thoughts ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... the last days of December 1622 drew up a scheme on paper, which was submitted to their chief and met with his approval. The document began with a violent invective against the crimes and tyranny of the Stadholder, demonstrated the necessity of a general change in the government, and of getting rid of Maurice as an indispensable preliminary, and laid down the means and method of doing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... knows so well. And then, as he strikes, a relenting comes over him; he remembers old days with a sudden gush of fondness, and puts in a touch of scorn for his allies or himself. Coleridge may deserve a blow, but the applause of Coleridge's enemies awakes his self-reproach. His invective turns into panegyric, and he warms for a time into hearty admiration, which proves that his irritation arises from an excess, not from a defect, of sensibility; but finding that he has gone a little too ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... discourse to the following Sunday. Next morning he was raging mad, imagined that devils were about him, "and not long after, without showing the least sign of hope, he went to his account." At Kingswood a man began a vehement invective against Wesley and Methodism. "In the midst he was struck raving mad." A woman, seeing a crowd waiting for Wesley at the church door, exclaimed, "They are waiting for their God." She at once fell senseless to the ground, and next ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Advocates were commanded to plead their causes briefly without preambles or motions of the people to pitty, which were too long a processe. And if you demand how I understood all this matter, you shall understand that I heard many declare the same, but to recite what words the accuser used in his invective, what answer the defender made, the orations and pleadings of each party, verily I am not able to doe: for I was fast bound at the manger. But as I learned and knew by others, I will God willing declare unto you. So it was ordered, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... (arising chiefly from the fact that plays were then acted on Sundays), and in 1579 transferred his pen from service of the players to attack on them, in a piece which he called "The School of Abuse, containing a Pleasant Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth; setting up the Flag of Defiance to their mischievous exercise, and overthrowing their Bulwarks, by Profane Writers, Natural Reason, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... vigorous poetic invective; and the effect of such outbursts is heightened by the rapid subsidence of the passion that inspires them and the quick advent of a calmer mood. We have hardly turned the page ere denunciations of Catherine ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... point, Mrs. Bury broke out again into a stream of protest and invective, only modified by her fear of waking her patient upstairs, and interrupted by appeals to David. But whenever she came near to take the baby Louie put her hands over it, and her wide black eyes shot out intimidating flames before which the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was prepared for the tremendous blast of invective which came from Mr. DUKE. In language which seemed to cause some trepidation even to the Ministers he was supporting he denounced his right hon. friend for introducing "this stale and stinking bone of contention," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... must pretend to have confidence in Rash, when at heart she cried against him as an infant and a fool. Never was woman in such a ridiculous situation as that into which she had been thrust; never was heart so wild to ease itself by invective and denunciation; and never was the padlock fixed so firmly on the lips. Hour by hour the man she loved was being weaned and won away from her; and she must stand by with grimacing smiles, instead of throwing up her arms in dramatic gestures and ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... For all this is the language of a young man, extolled not on account of any real merit or maturity of judgment, as for the hopes and expectations which he gave grounds for. From the same turn of mind came that more polished invective,—"the wife of her son-in-law; the mother-in-law of her son, the invader of her daughter's bed." Not, however, that this ardour was always visible in us, so as to make us say everything in this manner. For that very ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... born in Paris; was the author among other works of a "History of France" in 18 vols., and a "History of the Revolution" in 7 vols.; he cherished a great animosity against the priests, and especially the Jesuits, whom he assailed with remorseless invective; he was from 1838, for 13 years, professor of History in the College of France, but he lost the appointment because he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Napoleon; from this date he abandoned all interest in public affairs, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... assails me for opposing the subtle lie, others charge upon me with full-fledged invective for, as they say, having too much charity; but neither moves me from the path made luminous ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... allusions most perplexing. He must have been a man of very bilious temperament, who could scarcely distinguish a theological opponent from a personal enemy; for he pours forth upon those who differ from him whole torrents of sarcasm and invective. [371:1] His strong passion, acting upon a fervid imagination, completely overpowered his judgment; and hence he deals so largely in exaggeration, that, as to many matters of fact, we cannot safely depend upon his testimony. His tone is dictatorial and dogmatic; and, though we cannot doubt ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Trojan was discomfited, but was rescued from death and carried to Helen's bower by Aphrodite. Then the Goddess came in disguise to seek Helen on the wall, and force her back into the arms of her defeated lover. Helen turned on the Goddess with an abruptness and a force of sarcasm and invective which seem quite foreign to her gentle nature. "Wilt thou take me further yet to some city of Phrygia or pleasant Maeonia, if there any man is dear to thee . . . Nay, go thyself and sit down by Paris, and forswear the paths of the Gods, but ever lament for him ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... offensively crowded. A satirist is always to be suspected, who, to make vice odious, dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of relish and retrospective fondness. But so near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions, which in his unregenerate state served but to inflame his appetites, in his new province of a moralist will serve him, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb |
