"Libel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The libel he was about to utter on his distinguished colleague was suddenly cut short by a knock at the door; and, in answer to his summons, the butler-looking person entered and announced that Sir George Frinton and Mr. Casement were waiting for ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... Swinburne the poet; but he had not been taken seriously. Now he had become the missionary in England of the new French gospel of "impressionism," which to Ruskin was one of those half-truths which are ever the worst of heresies. Mr. Whistler appealed to the law. He brought an action for libel, which was tried on November 25th and 26th before Baron Huddleston, and recovered a farthing damages. Ruskin's costs—amounting to L386 12s. 4d.—were paid by a public subscription to which one hundred and twenty ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... narrow space paved with cobble-stones which separated their small and ancient houses, while the matrons, more gregariously inclined, bunched in little groups and discussed subjects which in higher circles would have inundated the land with libel actions. Up and down the alley a tiny boy all ready for bed, with the exception of his nightgown, mechanically avoided friendly palms as he sought anxiously for ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... would lead and the country he would lead them to, lies his strength, just as in his admission that his Zionist fervor is only that second-rate species produced by local anti-Semitism, lies a powerful answer to the dangerous libel of local unpatriotism. Of the real political and agricultural conditions of Palestine he knows only by hearsay. Of Jews he knows still less. Not for him the paralyzing sense of the humors of his race, the petty feud of Dutchman and Pole, the mutual superiorities ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a short distance west of here," replied Harrison. "They wired me there and wanted to libel your craft. You know the United States protects merchants and workmen by seizing the vessel if their ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... on all occasions and without alteration or addition to print Richard's dispatches. The editor in retort reminded Mr. Gwynn that the Daily Tory had a reputation and a policy: also there were laws of libel. Mr. Gwynn declined to be moved by these high considerations, and reiterated his first command. After that Richard in each issue gave way to an unchecked column letter, which was run sullenly by the editor ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... having called the Protector ill names, she was compelled to give up her property. She was then habited in the garb of the Inquisition,—a garment painted with imaginary devils!—and taken to the great square, where an accusatory libel being fastened to her breast, a human bone was forced into her mouth—her tongue being condemned as the offending member—and then secured; in which state, with a halter round her neck, she was paraded through the streets by the common hangman, and afterwards exiled to Callao, where after ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... his own person to give it forth, because an edition was in preparation elsewhere from one of the earlier copies; and he selected the son of Henry as the person to whom he could most becomingly dedicate the libel ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... heath and the City clerk on the loose, however, were not prone to such vestments as young Mr. Karslake affected. It wasn't that he overdressed; even the ribald would have hesitated to libel him with the name of a "nut"—which is Cockney for what the United States knows as a "fancy (or swell) dresser"; it was simply that he was always irreproachably turned out, whatever the form of dress he thought appropriate to the time of day; and that his wardrobe was so complete and varied ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... problem; instead of sketching the relations between the 'fathers' and the 'children' he wrote a panegyric to the 'fathers' and a decrial against the 'children'; but he did not even understand the children; instead of a decrial it was nothing but a libel. The spreaders of healthy ideas among the young generation he wanted to show up as corrupters of youth, the sowers of discord and evil, haters of good, and in a word, very devils. In various places of the novel we see that his principal hero is no fool; on the contrary, a very able and gifted ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... heathen, but since you have now forsaken it, it appears strange to men, and seems shameful and foolish, and they say, "What great fools they are to withdraw themselves from all worldly good and gratification." But let it seem strange to them; let them libel you; they shall yet be compelled to give in their account; wherefore leave it to ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... pamphleteers, and, in 1892, by Miss Elizabeth E. Evans.[11] But, as for the 'authentic records' on which the partisans of Kaspar Hauser based their version, they are anonymous, unauthenticated, discredited by the results of a libel action in 1883; and, in short, are ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... said that I always took care not to know how much tobacco I smoked in a week, and therefore I may be hinting a libel on Primus when I say that while he was with me the Arcadia disappeared mysteriously. Though he spoke respectfully of the Mixture—as became my nephew—he tumbled it on to the table, so that he might make a ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... politics, of South London and was owned by a ring of contractors—had come out with a virulent attack, headed "Vivisection in Our Midst." The article set me hoping that Travers was a strong man and would use the law of libel: it deserved the horsewhip. It left a taste in the mouth that required a second whisky-and-apollinaris before I sought my bed, sleepily promising myself that I would call on Farrell in the morning, however inconvenient ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I am agent you shall never occupy. You and your tribe, whether you batten upon the distress of struggling industry in the deceitful Maelstrooms of the metropolis, or in the dirty, dingy shops of a private country village, are each a scorpion curse to the people. Your very existence is a libel upon the laws by which the rights of civil society ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... Lady Diana's warning, "Not now," Lord Erymanth declared, "Avice, yes! A bird whose quills are quills of iron dipped in venom, and her beak a brazen one, distilling gall on all around. I shall inform her that she has made herself liable to an action for libel. A ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... society was expelled, and an officer of the society published, by their order, a statement of the grave charges upon which he had been found guilty, the expelled member recovered damages from the officer, in a suit for libel—the court holding that the truth of the charges ...
— Robert's Rules of Order - Pocket Manual of Rules Of Order For Deliberative Assemblies • Henry M. Robert
... introduce the least innovation, on that guardian of our peace and safety. And, perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this prudent delicacy, that the King's Speech, hath not, before now, suffered a public execution. The Speech if it may be called one, is nothing better than a wilful audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind; and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of mankind is one ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... Zora ("Serbian Dawn"); his methods had a resemblance to those of Lenin, for he printed lists of persons whom he called upon the Government to prosecute, and when he was himself invited to appear in court and answer to some libel charges he declined to go, upon the ground that the laws were still Austrian and the judge a Magyar. He disapproved of such tolerance, he disapproved of the Croats because they declined to recognize that the Serbs had more merit than they, and as for Yugoslavia—it was a thing of ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... E. D. Malone desires to state that both the injunction for restraint and the libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being satisfied that no criticism or comment in this book is meant in an offensive spirit, has guaranteed that he will place no impediment to ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... barest suspicion," he said. "The only thread of fact being that the transfer was kept secret from the directors, of which no doubt Brander will be able to give some plausible explanation, and his character stands so high at Abchester that the question, if raised, would be scouted as an atrocious libel upon him. But supposing that we had absolute proof, I don't see how I should stand. If my father was not a shareholder in the bank its creditors had, of course, no claim whatever on his property, but as the property has in fact been sold and the ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... author, and which appeared in the Advocate of the 5th of January. This article was a true and by no means intemperate recital of certain well-known facts as to certain measures which had been passed by the Assembly. It was notwithstanding adjudged, by a vote of twenty-seven to nineteen, to be a libel on the House, and a high breach of its privileges; and it was further resolved that Mr. Mackenzie be expelled the House, and declared unfit and unworthy to hold a seat therein during the existing Parliament. But his constituency stood loyally by him, and again re-elected him by ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... countenance, and immediately after exhibited a ghastly pale colour. With a quivering lip, he told his pupil, that he was an impertinent jackanapes; and he would take care that he should be expelled from the university, for having presumed to write and deliver such a licentious and scurrilous libel. Peregrine answered, with great resolution, that when the provocation he had received should be known, he was persuaded that he should be acquitted by the opinion of all impartial people; and that he was ready to submit the whole to the decision of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... said he knew well that there were mistakes in it, arising from haste and other similar causes, in consequence of his having had much to do and not having read over again the most of it,) our request was called a libel which was worthy of no answer, and the writer of which it was intended to punish as an example to others. In fine we could not make it right in any way. He forbade Vander Donck the council and also our meetings, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... sneer, and gibe, and hack, We know Ham's sons are always black; On sceptick themes he wildly raves, Yet Africk's sons were always slaves; 90 I'd have the rogue beware of libel, And spare a jest—when on ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... volubly, and Mrs. Falconer was listening. Mrs. Falconer had reduced the practice of listening to a fine art. She was a thin, wistful-faced mite of a woman, with sad brown eyes, and with snow-white hair that was a libel on her fifty-five years and girlish step. Nobody in Lindsay ever felt very well acquainted with Mrs. Falconer, in spite of the fact that she had lived among them forty years. She kept between her and her world a fine, baffling reserve which no one had ever been able to penetrate. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Furthermore, he appointed Roman Catholics to office in the army and in the civil government. In spite of protests, he issued a second Declaration of Indulgence in 1688 and ordered it to be read in all Anglican churches, and, when seven bishops remonstrated, he accused them of seditious libel. No jury would convict the seven bishops, however, for James had alienated every class, and they were acquitted. The Tories were estranged by what seemed to be a deliberate attack on the Anglican Church and by fear of a standing army. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... discourteous message came back; and the mighty personage, after loafing about for an hour or two, retired and wrote an article in which he described the people of the Black Country as savages, and revived a foolish old libel or two which at one time had currency concerning them. The old nonsense about the champagne was there, for one thing. I know the Black Country miners pretty well—I ought to do so, at least, for I was born in the thick of them and watched ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear! But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress; Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about; Who writes a libel, or who copies out; That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame; Who can your merit selfishly approve, And show the sense of it without the love; Who has the vanity to call you friend, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Mr. Robertson, Printer of the Caledonian Mercury, against the Society of Procurators in Edinburgh, for having inserted in his Paper a ludicrous Paragraph against them; demonstrating that it was not an injurious Libel; dictated ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... be his friends: For he ne'er call'd ye yet insipid tools, Nor wrote one line to tell ye you were fools; But says of wit ye have so large a store, So very much you never will have more. He ne'er with libel treated yet the town, The names of honest men bedaub'd and shown. Nay, never once lampoon'd the harmless life Of suburb virgin, or of city wife. Satire's th' effect of poetry's disease, } Which, sick of a lewd age, she vents for ease, } But now her ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... then holding the Supreme Court at Worcester, wanted very much indeed to go down with the Bar, but he thought it would not quite do. The next morning, Mr. Bacon had to try a libel for adultery between two parties living in the town where the Bar had had their supper. He had had no chance to see his witnesses, who got into town just as the Court opened. So he had to put them on and examine them at a venture. The first ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... secret Springs of Detraction fail, yet very often a vain Ostentation of Wit sets a Man on attacking an established Name, and sacrificing it to the Mirth and Laughter of those about him. A Satyr or a Libel on one of the common Stamp, never meets with that Reception and Approbation among its Readers, as what is aimed at a Person whose Merit places him upon an Eminence, and gives him a more conspicuous Figure among Men. Whether ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Burgundy, had not been published; but a copy having been obtained through a servant, it was printed, and its ideal of a true king and a true Court was so unlike his Majesty Louis XIV. and the Court of France, and the image of what ought not to be was so like what was, that it was resented as a libel. "Telemaque" was publicly condemned; Fenelon was banished from Court, and restrained within the limits of his diocese. Though separated from his pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy (who died in 1712), Fenelon ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... In my melody of heroes. He was lawyer by profession, Went from Louisville to Congress, And was actor in a drama, As romantic as 'twas gloomy. Mr. Cilley from New England, Challenged Webb to mortal combat, Webb, the editor, to fight him, To atone for printed libel. Webb declined the doubtful honor Of becoming human target, And on Mr. Graves, his second, Fell the duty of the duel. His antagonist, a marksman Of accomplished skill and practice, Yielding up the choice of weapons, Whether pistol, dirk, or sabre, Graves, a novice in the science, ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... can Dodge be up to?" muttered Greg. "He threatened a libel prosecution one day last month. Can it be that he has found people who can be bribed to perjure themselves, and that he is going to ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... call men love-begotten, or proclaim[he] Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon, That hater of Mankind, would be a shame, A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on: But people's ancestors are History's game;[hf] And if one Lady's slip could leave a crime on All generations, I should like to know What pedigree the best would have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... appears to have surprised him more than the small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in the streets of London; "the generality of these, too, are extremely bad riders, though this, perhaps, may be owing to the uncouth and awkward saddles they use:" a libel on our national character for horsemanship, into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney cavaliers who crowd the Regent's Park on Sundays, are responsible for having misled him. The important point of the comparative ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... understand the relation between the bad management of the water-works, the bad water, and the fever. Tell them that relation. Only tell it carefully, by insinuation if necessary, so that you will avoid the libel law—for you have no proof as yet. Make them understand that the fever is due to bad water, which in turn is due to bad management of the water-works, which in turn is due to the influence ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... to my mind the notorious John Williams, better known as Anthony Pasquin, under which name he was doomed to everlasting infamy by Gifford, in his satire of the Baviad and Maeviad, in judgments afterwards confirmed in a celebrated trial for libel in which the famous Erskine delivered one of his best forensic speeches. Williams was the associate in London of a small but ambitious set of mutual admirers in literature, of whom Mr. Merry and his future wife were the "Della Crusca" and "Rosa Matilda," and all three of these worthies ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the administration were aroused, and Paine was prosecuted for libel, and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the entire work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man. It is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an honor not only to Thomas Paine, but to nature itself. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case—(I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against some one.) I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him, (it must have been in 1845 or '6,) in his office, second story of a corner building, (Duane or Pearl street.) ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... made. Warner's man was a farmer in a cheap and humble way. When the book had been out a week, a college-bred gentleman of courtly manners and ducal upholstery arrived in Hartford in a sultry state of mind and with a libel suit in his eye, and his name was Eschol Sellers! He had never heard of the other one, and had never been within a thousand miles of him. This damaged aristocrat's programme was quite definite and businesslike: the American ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... letter signed or not signed, which letter shall be left with the doorkeeper of the Academy. Nor shall any person delivering such a letter be seized, molested, or detained, though it should prove to be a libel. But the letters so delivered shall be presented to the provosts; and in case they be so many that they cannot well be perused by the provosts themselves, they shall distribute them as they please to be read by the gentlemen of the Academy, who, finding anything in them material, will find ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... still sticks in my throat like funeral-cake was partly forced by consideration for another lady—the sweetest and the best—who would be the last I should care to have hear any ill of me, even in a libel." ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... had they told Joan that she would go away without a word, leaving him in a sickness from which he might never have turned again? Something had been done to alienate her, some crafty libel had been poured into her ears. Let that be as it might, Joan would come back, and he would wait in the sheeplands for her, and take her by the hand and clear away her troubled doubts. The comfort of this thought would ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... from a recognized authority upon such matters created considerable interest, and a fierce opposition from those who considered such a statement to be a preposterous libel upon an honest and deserving set of men. The only answer to this criticism was a challenge to the objectors to lay any more feasible explanations before the public. In reply to this two others were forthcoming (Times, July 7th and 9th). The first suggested that the train might have run off the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... trouble yourself about Libel cases? The Decision against Hunt for the "Vision of Judgment" made me sick. What is to become of the old talk about OUR GOOD OLD KING —his personal virtues saving us from a revolution &c. &c. Why, none that think it can utter it now. It must stink. And the Vision is really, as to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... man with a purple nose—a Cyrano de Cognac nose." Tschaikowsky is the Slav gone crazy on vodka. He transformed Hamlet into "a yelling man" and Romeo and Juliet into "two monstrous Cossacks, who gibber and squeak at each other while reading some obscene volume." "His Manfred is a libel on Byron, who was a libel on God." And even Schumann is a vanishing star, a literary man turned composer, a pathological case. But, as I have said, a serious idea runs through all this concerto for slapstick and seltzer siphon, and to me, at least, that idea ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... and his eyes fastened themselves upon a sheaf of proofs.... Watch out for libel ... look for hunches ... scribble suggestion for changes ... peer for items of information that might be expanded humorously or pathetically into Human Interest yarns.... These were functions he discharged mechanically. A perfect affinity toward his work characterized his attitude. Yet behind the ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... that "the offenses therein specified shall remain punishable as at common law, provided that upon any prosecution it shall be lawful for the defendant to give as his defense the truth of the matter charged as a libel." Gallatin called upon the chair to declare the amendment out of order, as intended to destroy the resolution, but the speaker declined, and the amendment was carried by a vote of 51 to 47. The resolution thus amended was then defeated by a vote of 87 to 1. The Republicans ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... of men (to come nearer to you) who, out of Parliament cannot be consider'd in a public capacity, to meet, as you daily do, in factious clubs, to vilify the Government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public welfare, to promote sedition? Does your definition of loyal, which is to serve the King according to the laws, allow you the licence of traducing the ...
— English Satires • Various
... repentance public and deep such as he manifested at Nathan's rebuke. Least to his credit was his weakness in relation to his sons and to Joab. On the other hand, the testament attributed to him in 1Kings ii. cannot be justly laid to his charge; it is the libel of a later hand seeking to invest him with a fictitious glory. In like manner it is unjust to hold him responsible for the deaths of Abner and Amasa, or to attribute to him any conspiracy with the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... of course, is a libel on the hearty folk of Avignon. But Elodie was from Marseilles, which naturally has a poor opinion of the other towns of Provence. She also lied ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... brimming over with facts and figures. Then I fired a volley of candid details as to the manner in which city and State officials had recently betrayed the public's interests. Lastly, I discharged at "Standard Oil" a broadside which my attorneys and friends assured me meant jail on a libel charge. I put my banking-house and my personal guarantee behind the old and new loans, and proceeded to roll up my sleeves in the stock-market. I got results at once. A change became apparent in public sentiment—the rottenness of Addicksism was overcome by the stench of "Standard ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... and I cannot agree with you that there is the slightest danger in sending them by the post. Letters are never opened, unless you tempt the flesh by putting sovereigns, or shillings, or other metallic substances inside the envelope; and if the devil entered into me causing me to write a libel against the Queen, I would send it by the post fearlessly from John o' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... portrait painter. She goes into details about the mental anguish that has almost prostrated her since she discovered the fiendish assault on her privacy, and she announces how she has begun action for criminal libel and started suit for damages to the tune of half ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... Newbern for the rescue of Husbands, filling the governor with such alarm for the safety of his fine new palace that he felt it wise to release his captive. He tried to indict the sturdy Highlander for a pretended libel, but the Grand Jury refused to support him in this, and Husbands was set free. The Regulators thereupon dispersed, after a party of them had visited the Superior Court at Salisbury and expressed their opinion very freely about the lawyers, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... it was worse, even worse than my fears. The article was short, but it was very hateful. It said nothing straight out—the writer had evidently the fear of the law of libel before his eyes as he wrote,—but it hinted and insinuated in a detestable undertone the most vile innuendoes. A Treasury Doctor and a Police Inspector, it said, had lately examined Miss Callingham again, and found her intellect in every respect perfectly normal, except ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... as representative of the inmates of Tregarrick Gaol! It would mean an inquiry on the spot. It would even reflect upon us. Ours is a decent county, as counties go, and I protest it shall not, with my consent, be injured by any such libel." ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... other reasons," said Henry, "in this case, for the manner you speak of.... But I won't say any more now." He bit off the stream of libel that had risen to his lips and armed himself in a careful silence, while the Spaniard cocked an inquiring dark eye at ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... woman at this moment existing in English society, Miss L—— ingenuously replied, "Oh dear! that she'd never thought of that: that she only knew it was a celebrated dramatic name, and so she had put it into her book." Sancta Simplicitas! I should think I might sue her for libel ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... chappie, just in time to drink to the health of the number. Ha, ha, ha! What damned libel have you in this ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... was the more artistic as well as the easier. The 'chose vue,' the 'tranche de la vie'—this was the thing to aim at. Honesty was the best policy. I must be nothing if not merciless. Maupassant was nothing if not merciless. He would not have spared Mlle. Ange'lique. Besides, why should I libel M. Joumand? Poor—no, not poor M. Joumand! I warned myself against pitying him. One touch of 'sentimentality,' and I should be lost. M. Joumand was ridiculous. I must keep him so. But—what was his position in life? Was he a lawyer perhaps?—or the proprietor of a shop in the Rue de Rivoli? ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... customer in his lumber-wagon, carrying that gross libel upon your place of business, to fill the prairies and the openings with its brood of gossiped offspring, until, some day, it comes back that your employer is a horsethief and has served a ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... libel!" said I warmly; "I'm sick of the whole thing. When this war's over, I hope never to hear a ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... would commit a libel on French honor and on French patriotism if we assumed that any step on our part could have prevented her from trying to redress the state of affairs produced by ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... last resource of Rome to rescue herself from a dictator. It asks, is it from a Corsican that a Frenchman must receive his chains? was it to crown a traitor that France had punished her kings? In another, a libel, which traced the rise of Bonaparte, and charged him with the intention of assuming imperial power, concluded in these words:—"Carried on the shield, let him be elected emperor; finally, (and Romulus ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... those who have been in error may see their own deformity, and many hints which have been given, have afterwards returned to the thoughts of those who have had influence, have been considered as their own ideas, and have been acted upon. The conduct of Captain Tartar may be considered as a libel on the service—is it not? The fault of Captain Tartar was not in sending them on board, or even putting them in irons as deserters, although, under the circumstances, he might have shown more delicacy. The fault was in stigmatising a young man as a swindler, and the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... with having published a false, malicious, and seditious libel. But the case for the prosecution speedily broke down in the hands of the crown lawyers. They were vehemently hissed by the audience. The jury gave the verdict of "Not Guilty." As the news spread all London broke out into acclamation. The bishops were greeted with cries of "God bless you; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... revolting spectacle was profound, and was heightened by the universal belief that Marie Antoinette was not less guilty in one direction than Madame de La Motte had been in another. The outbreak of slander and {41} of libel against the Queen goes on accumulating from this moment with ever-increasing force until her death, eight years later. A legend comes into existence, becomes blacker and blacker, and culminates in the atrocious accusations made against her by ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... time when the Duke of Valentino controlled the whole city and nearly all of Italy." We have not all the documents bearing on the case, but from the statements of witnesses for the accused it appears that she had grounds for bringing a suit for libel.[239] ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... "articles that make dynasties tremble next morning, and which call forth apologies or libel suits afterward, as the ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... dock, did ye—ran into Her Majesty's dock, and ye had room enough to turn a fleet in! Do you think we paint these docks for the fun of havin' you lubbers scrape it off? You'll pay for paintin' it over, sir—that's what you'll do, or I'll libel your boat, and send a file of marines down and tie her up,' and away he went up the dock to his ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the witness stand in a libel suit some fifteen years ago and admitted his ignorance of matters with which even grammar school children are familiar, the country laughed. His ignorance, however, is his own affair, but when he takes no step to curb his personal representative from working with secret foreign agents to undermine ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... used is that of an accusation of libel, and, in cases where it is desired to establish terror, ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... secretaries of state, the printer, publisher, author, or hander to the press of any of the said libels, so that full evidence may be made thereof to a Jury, without mentioning the informer, especially one libel, entitled An Account of the Growth of Popery; and another called A Reasonable Argument to all the Grand Juries, &c. the discoverer shall be rewarded as follows; he shall have fifty pounds for such discovery ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... had no intention of getting himself into trouble, nor of risking the just fury of an indignant British husband, who stood six feet in his stockings, nor did he desire, by any anonymous libel, to bring himself in any way under the arm of the law. All he meant to do was to dig his trench and to lay his mine, to place the fuse in Vera Nevill's hands—leave her to set fire to it—and then retire himself, covered ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... jurisdiction of the King's Council had been revived by Wolsey as a check on the nobles; and it had received great developement, especially on the side of criminal law, during the Tudor reigns. Forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance, fraud, libel, and conspiracy, were the chief offences cognizable in this court, but its scope extended to every misdemeanour, and especially to charges where, from the imperfection of the common law, or the power of offenders, ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... 'Every Man his Own Lawyer,'" he said, "giving all that it is necessary for any man to know regarding the laws of his native land, including laws of business, how to draw up legal papers, what constitutes libel, et cetery. This one division alone being worth the whole cost of the book, showing among other things what a paper should print and what it should not. Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art is a marvelous work, including as it does the chapter on ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... Allison prided himself on never having involved any of his papers in a libel suit, though he was usually the man who wrote the "danger-stuff." He had complaints, yes; libel suits, no. Dick Ryan, known in prehistoric newspaper circles in Louisville as "Cold Steel," because his ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... Epigram breaks out the more for repressive legislation; it is like steam in an engine without a safety-valve.—The King, for example, does right; if a newspaper is against him, the Minister gets all the credit of the measure, and vice versa. A newspaper invents a scandalous libel—it has been misinformed. If the victim complains, the paper gets off with an apology for taking so great a freedom. If the case is taken into court, the editor complains that nobody asked him to rectify the mistake; but ask for redress, and he ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... contributes but little to their full-blown complacency. But, when they hear that the Republic has been traduced by a foreign, and especially a British pen, their vanity is piqued, their curiosity excited, and their conscience smitten. Every one denounces the libel in public, and every one admits its truth to himself—"What!" say they, "does the Old World in truth judge us thus harshly? Is it really scandalised by such trifles as the repudiation of our debts, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... "using the best known means for accomplishing the particular end." Those who adopt the principle do most honour to their sagacity; while their shallow admirers, by abandoning the principle, and clinging to their necessarily imperfect mode of applying it, at once libel their good sense, and dishonour those whom they profess to revere. As society is rapidly advancing, paternal affection would undoubtedly have prompted them to advise their descendants to take the benefits of every advance;—and it would ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... two classes of society was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people's side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circumstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in those days of prosecution for libel, they could not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... There is a libel leveled at the Scotch and encouraged, I am very sorry to say, by Chauncey Depew, when he told of approaching the docks in Glasgow and seeing the people on shore convulsed with laughter, and was told that their mirth was the result of one ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... warmth and human sympathies. A shrewd reasoner in one thing, a sound philosopher is another. I admire your power and precision. Monks will admonish us how little the author of the Maxims knows of the world; and heads of colleges will cry out 'a libel on human nature!' but when they hear your titles, and, above all, your credit at court, they will cast back cowl, and peruke, and lick your boots. You start with great advantages. Throwing off from a dukedom, you are sure of enjoying, if not the tongue of these puzzlers, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... and in a moment I discovered that I knew far more about its contents than our pallid guide. He had some enthusiasm, but the most inaccurate smattering of his subject. He mixed up the first murderer with quite the wrong murder, and capped his mistake in the next breath with an intolerable libel on the very ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... war. They resisted the education of brutality and were not envenomed by the gospel of hate. Out of the dark depths of their experience they looked up to the light, and had visions of some better law of life than that which led to the world-tragedy. It would be a foul libel on many of them to besmirch their honor by a general accusation of lowered morality and brutal tendencies. Something in the spirit of our race and in the quality of our home life kept great numbers of them sound, chivalrous, generous-hearted, in spite of the frightful influences of ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... judge for the judicial district in which North Carolina is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney-General will instruct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confiscation, and sale property subject to confiscation and enforce the administration of justice within said State in all matters within the cognizance and jurisdiction of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... one case in which, without directly contesting the principle, the whole substance, energy, and virtue of the privilege is taken out of it,—that is, in the case of a trial by indictment or information for a libel. The doctrine in that case, laid down by several judges, amounts to this: that the jury have no competence, where a libel is alleged, except to find the gross corporeal facts of the writing and the publication, together with the identity of the things and persons to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Diderot to the young man, "I do not know you; I can never have offended you. Will you tell me the motive which has impelled you to make me read a libel for the first time in my life? I generally throw such things into the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... "and if I knew who the man was, I'd have him up for libel I reckon. I may or may not agree about the damn birds, but I wouldn't have made a policeman my fast friend in this place if I weren't a straight man, and I'm a good bit surprised, Joseph, that you thought it worth your while to name such a thing ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... It is a libel on the turtle. He grows to his shell, and his shell is in his body as much as his body is in his shell.—I don't think there is one of our boarders quite so testudineous as I am. Nothing but a combination of motives, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... cause the boats, stores, packages, and places of deposite of such person to be searched; and if any such spirituous liquor or wine is found, the goods, boats, packages, and peltries of such persons shall be seized and delivered to the proper officer, and shall be proceeded against by libel in the proper court, and forfeited, one half to the use of the informer, and the other half to the use of the United States; and if such person is a trader, his licence shall be revoked and his bond put in suit. And it shall moreover ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... Melbourne University, on a holiday trip to New Zealand, has just told me an amusing anecdote, for the literal truth of which he vouches. A couple of young Englishmen fresh from Oxford came to Melbourne in the course of a trip round the world to open up their minds! For fear of a libel suit I may at once say I am not alluding to the Messrs. Chamberlain. They brought letters of introduction to Professor S——, who proposed, according to the custom of the place, to 'show them round.' 'Have you seen the Public Library?' ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... his duty, as soon as he mounted the throne, to pardon all who had been convicted under it. But before he left the White House he attempted to put down Federal opposition in the same way. Judges were impeached; United States attorneys brought libel suits against editors, and even prosecuted such men as Judge Reeve and the Rev. Mr. Backus of Connecticut. It was a pet doctrine of Jefferson that one generation had no right to bind a succeeding one; hence every constitution and all laws should become null and every national debt void at the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... And, failing to find us at home, interviews were faked so badly that they verged on the burlesque ... where not vulgar, they were vicious ... words were slipped in that implied things which, expressed clearly, had furnished ample grounds for libel. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... a paragraph which appeared in a paper in the minority interest some time before this debate. "A very dark intrigue has lately been discovered, the authors of which are well known to us; but until the glorious day shall come when it will not be a LIBEL to tell the TRUTH, we must not be so regardless of our own safety as to publish their names. We will, however, state the fact, leaving it to the ingenuity of our readers to discover ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Consultation of the London Clergy Consultation at Lambeth Palace Petition of the Seven Bishops presented to the King The London Clergy disobey the Royal Order Hesitation of the Government It is determined to prosecute the Bishops for a Libel They are examined by the Privy Council They are committed to the Tower Birth of the Pretender He is generally believed to be supposititious The Bishops brought before the King's Bench and bailed Agitation of the public Mind Uneasiness ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... specimen has an air of dignity compared with the grosser exploits of the hired eavesdropper. Not long since there appeared in a Sunday paper a full list, with portraits and biographies, of all the ladies in New York who are habitual drunkards. From which it is clear that the law of libel has sunk into oblivion, and that the cowhide is no longer ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... private and public troubles, and was not to hold him long. The country was agitated by riots due to unemployment. The Government, frightened and vindictive, was multiplying trials for treason and blasphemous libel, and Shelley feared he might be put in the pillory himself. Mary's sister Fanny, to whom he was attached, killed herself in October; Harriet's suicide followed in December; and in the same winter the Westbrooks began to prepare their case for the Chancery suit, which ended in the ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... warfare; such, for instance, as the appearance of a neat little pamphlet which purported to give a full and complete account of Mutimer's life. In this pamphlet nothing untrue was set down, nor did it contain anything likely to render its publisher amenable to the law of libel; but the writer, a gentleman closely connected with Comrade Roodhouse, most skilfully managed to convey the worst possible impression throughout. Nor did the vicar hesitate to express his regret that Mutimer should be seeking election at ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... unforced, spontaneous crimes against human nature itself. They are upheld in high places; they are fortified by difficulty of "technical proof"; they are guarded by the menace of the spy system, and of criminal libel; but there is some reason to think that ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... application for a new trial, in the case of The King against William Davies Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph (1784), wherein was raised the important and interesting question, whether in libel cases the jury were judges of the law as well as the fact, Lord Mansfield, in giving judgment, remarked in reference to trials for libel, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... himself decent. "Not a bit of it," said the War Office. "If you choose to spend your leave playing with sailor-men and getting wet all over, that's your concern. You will return to duty by to-night's boat." (This may be a libel on the W.O., but it sounds very like them.) "And he had to," said the boy, "but I expect he spent the next week at Headquarters telling fat generals ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... life to be tamed and loved, haven't you, old man?" I asked. "You're nothing but a good pup, and the man who put the hyaeno in your name ought to be sued for libel." ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wistful look that rather contradicted all this. Nor indeed was the expression altogether misleading. It might truly be said of him, as for many journalists in authority, that his most familiar emotion was one of continuous fear; fear of libel actions, fear of lost advertisements, fear of ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... such autocrats in the Puritan community that they never hesitated to show their authority in any manner in the pulpit. Judge Sewall records with much bitterness a libel which his pastor, Mr. Pemberton, launched at him in the meeting through the medium of the psalm which he gave out to be sung. They had differed over the adjustment of some church-matter and on the following Sunday the clergyman assigned to be sung the libellous and significant psalm. ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... upon it, depends in a measure you can hardly conceive the future destiny of your race. You—you are to give the answer, whether the African race is doomed to unterminable degradation, a hideous blot on the fair face of Creation, a libel upon the dignity of human nature, or whether it is capable to take an honorable rank amongst the great family of nations! The friends of the colony are trembling: The enemies of the colored man are hoping. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... likes sparkling stars—stars of magnitude—stars that show what they are. PUNCHINELLO perhaps goes to NIBLO'S, and not only sees plenty stars, but plenty of them. But of April. It is called "fickle;" but that's a slander. "Every thing by turns and nothing long"—that is a libel on which a suit could be hung. The same vile falsehood is cruelly uttered of some women, when every body knows, or should know, that these same women are nothing of the sort. Who ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... still flourishing. There is an immense old brute that sporting Vice-Consuls periodically go after, which is known to contain the spirit of a Duke Town chief who shall be nameless, because they are getting on at such a pace just round Duke Town that haply I might be had up for libel. When I was in Calabar once, a peculiarly energetic officer had hit that crocodile and the chief was forthwith laid up by a wound in his leg. He said a dog had bit him. They, the chief and the crocodile, are quite well again now, and I will say this in favour of that ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... stewed fowl, and drinking out at two draughts a quart of claret, medicated with the drugs she recommended. According to the belief of the time, this Alison Pearson transferred the bishop's indisposition from himself to a white palfrey, which died in consequence. There is a very severe libel on him for this and other things unbecoming his order, with which he was charged, and from which we learn that Lethington and Buccleuch were seen by Dame Pearson in the Fairyland.[34] This poor woman's kinsman, Sympson, did not give ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... exempted him from the scandal of putting forth anonymous work. From other passages in this "Preface," it may be gathered the immediate cause of irritation was the assignment to his pen of "that infamous paultry libel" the Causidicade, a satire directed at the law in general, and some of the subscribers to the Miscellanies in particular. "This," he says, "accused me not only of being a bad writer, and a bad man, but with downright idiotism, in flying in the face of the greatest men of my profession." ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... now Barker has a libel suit pending against The Patriot, while the carbolic mat has not yet been ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... lukewarm went back in fright to monarchical and religious ideas; democracy, which was charged with being developed at last to its ultimate, was cursed and driven back. This accusation of the conservatives against the democrats was a libel. Democracy is by nature as hostile to the socialistic idea as incapable of filling the place of royalty, against which it is its destiny endlessly to conspire. This soon became evident, and we are witnesses of it daily in the professions of Christian and proprietary faith by democratic publicists, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... are avenged! The man humiliated and degraded you. He insulted me also, and did his best to make me resign my portfolio and put my private life on its defence. You set out to undo the effects of his libel and to punish him for his outrage. You've done it! You have avenged yourself for both of us! It's all your work! You are magnificent! And now let us draw the net closer ... let us hold him fast ... let us go on as we ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... "It's a libel—take that, you naughty boy!" she cried, and slapped him playfully on the hand. "Ephie, love, how ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... blowing horns in triumph about the harbour where they were shipped, besides placarding them in many scandalous libels pasted up at the corners of the streets. When informed that one James Ortir, who was governor of the hospital, had written a malicious libel against the admiral, which he read publickly in the market-place, so far from punishing his audacity, he seemed to be much gratified by it, which encouraged others to do the same thing. And perhaps from fear lest the admiral should swim on shore, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... the very same breath in which we read the paragraph we declared it to be a falsehood. Mr. Fox had too much judgment to institute the comparison—Mr. Fox had too much benignity to utter such a malicious libel upon that noble boy. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... therefore a period of constant bitterness and contention between the higher and the lower classes. Mass meetings which were called by the popular leaders were dissolved by the government, radical writers were prosecuted by the government for libel, the habeas corpus act was suspended repeatedly, and threatened rioting was met with severe measures. The actions of the ministers, while upheld by the higher classes, were bitterly attacked by others ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... he said, "has also had to pay damages in one or two rather expensive libel cases. And, between you and me, Mrs. Endicott, if our young friend Brooks chose to move in the matter, I am afraid Mr. Lavilette might have to sign the largest cheque he has ever signed in ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... began to walk about the room. 'But what's the reason? Drake's action, if this statement is a libel, is the action of ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... he never thought again of anything but Truth and the Church, and the enemies of Truth and the Church: the Manichees, the Arians, the Pelagians—the Donatists, above all. He lets no error go by without refuting it, no libel without an answer. He is always on the breach. He might well be compared, in much of his writings, to one of our fighting journalists. He put into this generally thankless business a wonderful vigour and dialectical subtlety. Always and everywhere ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... N. detraction, disparagement, depreciation, vilification, obloquy, scurrility, scandal, defamation, aspersion, traducement, slander, calumny, obtrectation^, evil-speaking, backbiting, scandalum magnatum [Lat.]. personality, libel, lampoon, skit, pasquinade; chronique scandaleuse [Fr.]; roorback [U.S.]. sarcasm, cynicism; criticism (disapprobation) 932; invective &c 932; envenomed tongue; spretae injuria formae [Lat.]. personality, libel, lampoon, skit, pasquinade; chronique scandaleuse ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Laune Convict. pro illicite Scribend. Imprimend. et Publicand. Libel. Seditios. dert. concernen. librum Communis praecationis. Fin. 100 Marc. Et committit, etc.! Et ulterius quousq; Inven. bon. de se bene gerend. per spacium Unius Anni Integri ex tunc prox. sequen. Et quad libel. sedit. cum igne Combust. sint apud Excambium Regal. in London, et si Del. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various |
