"Vile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... touch her," replied Delecresse, scornfully, "even with the tongs he took to my cap. I would not touch one of the vile insects for ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... in conversation with soldiers. Tommy may hold his own opinions on that point, but he resents hearing them expressed for him through a pro-Boer mouthpiece, and this man may consider himself lucky to escape summary chastisement as a preliminary to the durance vile which is intended to be a wholesome warning for others of ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... Words: And if he obstinately persists in the same Childish fondness for his Style, I shall be obliged to shew in how small a Compass the whole Substance of what he says, may be contained. All this vile Drudgery will I submit to for his sake, &c. But so little likelihood there is of his mending his Style by reading Tacitus, that he defies him and charges him with the Corruption of the Roman Tongue, by saying that in Two or Three Words, about which such a Genius as he is might have employ'd ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel; and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?" If ye have respect ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... The vile creature was absolutely incapable of replying, for her breath was nearly exhausted by the rapidity of the motion, and Eliza continued entreating her to stop, and struggled violently to ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... amazement at the reddening, beautiful face. Surely he had not heard aright. Had she really made vile charges against the girl? To implicate Jinnie with a thought of conspiracy brought hot blood about his temples. He wouldn't stand that even from an old-time friend. Of course he liked Molly very much, yes, very much indeed, but this ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... the way in which Guido destroyed all the home life which clung about him and himself remained dark and vile, by the burning of a nest-like hut in the Campagna, with all its vines and ivy and flowers; till nothing remains but the blackened walls of the malicious tower round which the hut ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... performing the Ghusl, or complete ablution, donned their dresses and retired as they had done before. When King Shahryar saw this infamy of his wife and concubines he became as one distraught and he cried out, "Only in utter solitude can man be safe from the doings of this vile world! By Allah, life is naught but one great wrong." Presently he added, "Do not thwart me, O my brother, in what I propose;" and the other answered, "I will not." So he said, "Let us up as we are and depart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... they are masterpieces, little or great, they exhibit human nature in all its aspects. And, further than this, it ought to be demonstrable, a priori, that a mind fed on the best and not confused by the weak and diluted, or corrupted by images of the essentially vulgar and vile, would be morally healthy and best fitted to cope with the social problems of life. The Testaments reveal about everything that is known about human nature, but such is their clear, high spirit, and their quality, that no one ever traced mental degeneration or low ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood, The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them, They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... dreamed! But then the instant we are away from her we find ourselves bankrupt, beggared. How is that? We do not ask. We hurry to her and bask hungrily in her orbs. The eye must be feminine to be thus creative: I cannot say why. Lady Judith understood Richard, and he feeling infinitely vile, somehow held to her more feverishly, as one who dreaded the worst in missing her. The spirit must rest; he was weak with what ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... another house on the other side of the Teverone, opposite to Maecenas's; and they told us there was a bridge of communication, by which andava il detto Signor per trastullarsi coll' istesso Orazio. In coming hither we crossed the Aquae Albulae, a vile little brook that stinks like a fury, and they say it has stunk so these thousand years. I forgot the Piscina of Quintilius Varus, where he used to keep certain little fishes. This is very entire, and there is a piece of the aqueduct that supplied it too; in the garden below is old Rome, built in ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... conduct? But I bore all meekly,—you know, niece, I never uttered a word of complaint, till now; no! That such a disposition as mine should be so imposed upon! That I, whose only faults are too much kindness, too much generosity, should be chained for life to such a vile, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... how it was a criminal act to uproot from the heart of the unfortunate the consoling thought of a Providence to reward and compensate and give them over without rein or bit to the passions that degrade men and make vile slaves of them; how, in fine, the monarchical Epicureanism of a Helvetius led to immorality, cruelty, and every wickedness. Now that he had learnt these lessons from the lips of a great man and a great citizen, he execrated the atheists—especially ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... Harry. "You have had nothing since the beginning of the day. We must not break down, any of us." And with a little persuasion he prevailed, and saw the lad make a tolerable supper and drink some brandy and water afterward. "Vile brandy!" said Hardwicke as he set his tumbler down. Archie was leaning with both elbows on the table, gazing at him. His eyes were heavy and swollen, and there were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... had met Rawlings tramping in the Transvaal and given him a lift. Rawlings was not particular as to locality, having inverted the theory of Dr. Pangloss, and settled to his own satisfaction that this was the worst of all possible worlds, he held all places to be more or less equally vile. So he had followed Niekerk grumblingly down the mountain pass leading to the Low Country, and had been wasting his pessimism on the desert air of the Crocodile River Valley for several weeks before ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... was me own fault. Whisky is me waikness. Its illigant perfume always sits me wild fur it. Mister Harvey was belaving, whin he brought me here, that I wouldn't be drinking any of the vile stuff, for the good rais'n that I couldn't git none; but, what'll he say now? Niver was I drunker at Donnybrook, and only once, an' that was at ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... if-it-be-true-what-they-say; in fine, to the entire sister and brother hood of tongue-waggers, I for one would subscribe my mite to have one kept in every church in the world, to be zealously applied to their vile jaws. For verily the mere Social Evil is an angel of light on this earth as regards doing evil, compared to the Sociable Evil,—and thus endeth the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... the coast? They did not understand how he came there. They asked him all manner of foolish questions, to which he gave quite as foolish answers, and, when this was at an end, they fitted a rusty pair of "bracelets" to his feet, and, thrusting him inside a vile-smelling tent, gave him vermin-infested blankets to sleep in and sour brown bread ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... kind of life you've been leading up here, have you still the assurance to lay a claim upon her! And to cast a reflection on her good name! Have you no mirror to see what you are? Go in the lake, then, and see the vile record written on ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... happy, did not Mr. Parris say such vile things of my father and myself. Do you think me one ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... Heselrigge fell, till I heard it from your lips. I can easily credit them, for I know his unmanly character. Wallace is a Scot, and acted in Scotland as Gilbert Hambledon would have done in England, were it possible for any vile foreigner to there put his foot upon the neck of a countryman of mine. Wherever you have concealed your husband, let it be a distant asylum. At present no tract within the jurisdiction of Lanark will be left unsearched by the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... trouble except in occasional border fights with rival Albanian clans, and their bravery is proverbial. Further, they are Roman Catholics. The country is most curious, great slabs of stone lying about in a promiscuous fashion as if it had once rained them, and the path was certainly the most vile of the whole trip, which is putting ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... flood—a task that took eight years to accomplish—he never entered his home till the work was done, although in the course of his labours he had thrice to pass his door. He founded the Hsia dynasty, which lasted till 1766 B.C. The last emperor of this line, a vile tyrant, was overthrown by T'ang, who became the first ruler of the house of Shang, or Yin. This dynasty again degenerated in course of time and came to an end in Chou, or Chou Hsin (1154-22 B.C.), a monster of lust, extravagance, and cruelty. The empire was only held together by the ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... said as a minister he would never be backward in reproving those whom he considered in the wrong, whether from the pulpit or from the gravestone. Then Maskew flies into a great passion, and pours out many vile and insolent words, saying Mr. Glennie is in league with the smugglers and fattens on their crimes; that the poetry is a libel; and that he, Maskew, will have the ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... smile of relief on his face. "Come, let me escort you to the Prince. You have been most courageous. Graustark shall not forget it. Nor shall I ever cease thanking you for the service you have rendered to me. I have succeeded in freeing my unhappy daughter from the vile beast to whom I sold her youth and beauty and purity. Come! You must ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sorry I ever uttered a word about the edition, and leave you to be the judge. I have had a vile cold which has prostrated me for more than a fortnight, and even now tears me nightly with spasmodic coughs; but it has been a great victory. I have never borne a cold with so little hurt; wait till the clouds blow by, before you begin to boast! I have had no fever; and though ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... To-night—this very night—they have planned an escape. They will attend as usual in the Place; they will fool us as they have fooled us before; and then, when the house is quiet—when the Six are at rest, exhausted by prayer and meditation—they will accomplish their vile work. They will plunder the ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... they are justified. He who told your Majesty that the wills of the governor, auditors, and royal officials in Filipinas could be unanimous, even for their private interests, has deceived you; for experience shows the contrary. Neither should your Majesty believe that we are all so vile that we would be making unlawful expenditures of your revenues in order to pleasure one another. Well assured can you be of this by the limitation and restriction that would have to be because of the majority of votes; and because the governor, in whom your Majesty trusts most fully, does ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... of aristocracy is essentially opposed to the greed of the industrial cities. Yet in France there are actually one or two nobles so vile as to drive coal and gas trades, and drive them hard." The Duke of Windsor looked at the carpet. The Duke of Aylesbury went and looked out of the window. At length the latter said: "That's rather stiff, you know. One ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... heirs, poor people who expected to be saved from misery by inheriting his fortune, he would have been touched by this consideration, undoubtedly. Robber! The word was yet more vile than that of assassin. But who would miss the few banknotes that he would take from the safe? To steal is to injure some one. Whom would he injure? He could see no one. But he saw distinctly an army of afflicted persons whom ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... you not prevent this vile Earth Being from addressing us? It is an insult to be spoken to by ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... entirely. "Do not wear them on your return," she had said and that was odd; although I could not yet believe that she was such a siren as Father Pierre had warned us of, telling tales from old poets. Yet I doubted, shuddering as I did so. Her companionship with that vile priest, her strange eagerness to secure Pavannes' return, her mysterious directions to me, her anxiety to take her sister home—home, where she would be exposed to danger, as being in a known Huguenot's ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... market. One morning the Artist had paused a moment to make a rough sketch of a plump, affable man who, shadowed by the green cotton awning of his stall, was selling segments of round flat cheeses of goat's milk; vile-smelling compounds that, judged from their outer coating of withered leaves, straw, and dirt, would appear to have been made in a stable and dried on a rubbish heap. The subject of the jotting, busy with his customers, was all unconscious; but an ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... intentions, dear little brother Leo crossed the bridge over the chasm, which you may see to this day, and entered into St. Francis's cell. There he found him in ecstasy, saying, 'Who art Thou, O most sweet, my God? What am I, most vile worm, and Thine unprofitable servant?' Again and again brother Leo heard him repeat these words, and wondering thereat, he lifted his eyes to the sky, and saw there among the stars, for it was dark, a torch of flame very beautiful ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... unventilated tubes on which we now pride ourselves. May we not also hope that the general application of electric force will do much to cleanse our atmosphere? With houses lit and warmed by electricity, factories run by electric force, cooking done in electric ovens, the vile smoke which darkens and destroys the city would disappear. The skies of London would be as pure as the sky of the Orkneys, and a hundred trees and plants, which now perish at the first touch of the fog-fiend, ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... men in their black coats and high hats, big fellows that did not look ungainly till they dressed themselves up; women as red as turkey-cocks, panting and puffing; crowds of children making the road odorous with the smell of pomade; the boys with their hair too long behind; the girls with vile white stockings, all out of drawing, and without a touch that could be construed into a national costume—the cheap shoddy shop in the country lane. All with an expression of Sunday goodness: 'To-day we are good, we are going to chapel, and we mean to stay till the very last word. We ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... increased, I found it required still greater care to separate the precious from the vile. In order to this, I determined, at least once in three months, to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their own mouth, as well as of their leaders and neighbours, whether they grew in grace and in the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... conditional," said Harrison, starting fiercely up. "Know'st thou not, Markham Everard, that I have followed the man Cromwell as close as the bull-dog follows his master?—and so I will yet;—but I am no spaniel, either to be beaten, or to have the food I have earned snatched from me, as if I were a vile cur, whose wages are a whipping, and free leave to wear my own skin. I looked, amongst the three of us, that we might honestly, and piously, and with advantage to the Commonwealth, have gained out of this commission three, or it may be five thousand ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... steal the Basil-pot, And to examine it in secret place: The thing was vile with green and livid spot, And yet they knew it was Lorenzo's face: The guerdon of their murder they had got, And so left Florence in a moment's space, Never to turn again.—Away they went, With blood upon their ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... of crownes. He possesseth or rather is possessed by a thing, wherein is neither force nor vertue: more vnprofitable, and more base, then the least hearbe of the earth. Yet hath he heaped togither this vile excrement, and so brutish is growne, as therewith to crowne his head, which naturally he should tread vnder his feete. But howsoeuer it be, is he therewith content? Nay contrarywise lesse now, then euer. We commend most those drinks that breede an alteration, and soonest extinguish thyrst: ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... pleasure and delight of adultery; but as prolification by adulteries corresponds to the bringing forth of evil through falsity and of falsity from evil, that pleasure or delight decreases and becomes vile by degrees until it is changed at last into aversion and disgust. Because, as has been said above, the delight of the love of marriage is a heavenly delight, so the delight of adultery is an infernal delight, so the delight of adultery is from a certain ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg
... his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concent'red all in self. Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... wailing can hear, No mother can hasten to banish thy fear; For the slave-owner drives her, o'er mountain and wild, And for one paltry dollar hath sold thee, poor child! Ah! who can in language of mortals reveal The anguish that none but a mother can feel, When man in his vile lust of mammon hath trod On her child, who is ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... estate, sayd unto him, In faith thou art worthy to sustaine the most extreame misery and calamity, which hast defiled and maculated thyne owne body, forsaken thy wife traitorously, and dishonoured thy children, parents, and friends, for the love of a vile harlot and old strumpet. When Socrates heard mee raile against Meroe in such sort, he held up his finger to mee, and as halfe abashed sayd, Peace peace I pray you, and looking about lest any body should heare, I pray you (quoth he) I pray you take heed what you say against ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... dedicated it instead to Henry. William Langland, too, the author of the "Vision of Piers Plowman," turned from Richard at the last, and used his deposition as a warning to ill-advised youth. It may be assumed, then, that tradition pictured Richard as a vile creature in whom weakness nourished crime. Shakespeare took his story partly from Holinshed's narrative, and partly either from the old play or from the traditional view of Richard's character. When he began to write the play he evidently intended ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... or Mr. de la Rouchefoucault's, 'Que l'envie est la plus basse de toutes les passions, puisqu'on avoue bien des crimes, mais que personae n'avoue l'envie'. I thank God, I never was sensible of that dark and vile passion, except that formerly I have sometimes envied a successful rival with a fine woman. But now that cause is ceased, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the pillory, the stocks, and Little Englandism. With deference to the cloth present in the person of our reverend friends here, let me quote you what to me is one of the most strikingly interesting passages in the Bible: 'The vile person shall be no more called liberal.' It will become clear to all men that the only possible party, the only people who can possibly stand for progress, movement, advance, are those who stand ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... from the American coast to the Bermuda Islands, the great Adamant blazed, thundered, and roared, not only because her commander saw, or fancied he saw, an American vessel, but to notify all crabs, repellers, and any other vile invention of the enemy that may have been recently put forth to blemish the sacred surface of the sea, that the Adamant still floated, with the heaviest coat of mail and the finest and most complete armament in the world, ready to sink anything hostile ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... age of general progress. No longer are men permitted to kill each other in vindication of opinion, but how mournful to witness persecution by inuendo, vituperation, and even falsehood. Individuals and classes are seen bombarding each other in vile, abusive, and certainly most unchristian language, all ostensibly in the name of a religion which has for a fundamental principle, an utter repudiation of strife! Whether any amendment is to be looked for in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... day), was then so unknown to the authorities of Valladolid that he had great ado to establish the innocence of himself and his household. To be sure, his Don Quixote had not yet appeared, though he is said to have finished the first part in that miserable abode in that vile region; but he had written poems and plays, especially his most noble tragedy of "Numancia," and he had held public employs and lived near enough to courts to be at least in their cold shade. It is all very Spanish and very strange, and perhaps the wonder ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... discoloration and disfigurement resulting from the blow. There was a calm, dark grin visible when he smiled, that argued a black and satanic disposition; and whenever the lips of his hard, contracted, and unfeeling mouth expanded by his devilish sneer, a portion of one of his vile side fangs became visible, which gave to his features a most hateful and viper-like aspect. It was the cold, sneering, cowardly face of a man who took delight in evil for its own sake, and who could neither feel happiness himself, nor ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... rascal," cried Medenham, stung beyond endurance by this extraordinary declaration of a vile purpose, "why should you imagine that I shall allow you to sit there and pour forth your venom unscathed? Stand up, you beast, or must I kick ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... is brought to penance, even while he is wandering and reveling afar off in the vile delights of sin, God is pursuing him, God is seeking after him, calling him by name, whispering to his heart, disposing him for repentance. We cannot return to God, once we have deserted Him, without His help. ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... compromises, the exaggeration and the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism, the party watch-words and the party nick-names, the schemes of the few paraded as the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth is in the votes they command—vile men, whose hands you would not grasp in friendship, whose presence you would not tolerate by your fireside—incompetent men, whose fitness is not in their capacity as functionaries, or legislators, but as organ pipes; the snatching at the ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... whimpered this hardy rascal, "bless me a little more than the others, a very little more! I am bad—eh, God, I am vile, enough!—but I will never let thee go save ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... teeth, of course, and a mouth that, even in prayer, talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had en fait d'ornements, as the modesties say. It may be added that she walked as if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over the whole earth, and the soil of it were too vile for her tread. Of course she did not buy her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was ordered from Paris, and came as regularly through the custom-house as the modes and robes to the milliners. She was furnished by a certain house there, just as one of a ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... made a resistance so noisy, as partly to attract the sleeper's attention, though not to awake him. Everard stood by his bedside, as he heard him mutter, "Is it morning already, jailor?—Why, you dog, an you had but a cast of humanity in you, you would qualify your vile news with a cup of sack;—hanging is sorry work, my masters—and ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... good lord by placing in his hands the fruit of infamy, as if he were a vile accomplice of thy crime? For shame, O sinful depredator, O defrauder of ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... estate. For asking the noble honours man * And asking the churl entails bane and bate: When abasement is not to be 'scaped by wight * Meet it asking boons of the good and great. Of Grandee to sue ne'er shall vilify man, * But tis vile on the vile of mankind ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... Farringay? I'd forgotten that." He shut his eyes. "And Laura's dying to renew the intimacy. It's dull for her down here. Take him into the garden, Lally. You'll excuse me now, Lawrence, I can't talk long without getting fagged. Wretched state of things, isn't it? I'm a vile bad host but I can't help it. At the present moment for example I'm undergoing grinding torments and it doesn't amuse me to make conversation, so you two can cut along and disport yourselves in any way you like. Give Lawrence a drink, will you, my love? . . . . Oh no, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... afraid," Captain Bayley said sternly, "that Fred Barkley is a vile young scoundrel; we have had our suspicions of him, Harry and I, and this seems to confirm them. I believe that villain is at the bottom of the whole affair. Have you ever ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... and compare it with ours. What should we think of our best dramatist if, in one of his tragedies, a man's eyes were plucked out on the stage, and if he that did it exclaimed as he trampled on them, 'Out, vile jelly! where is thy lustre now?' or of a Titus Andronicus cutting two throats, while his daughter ''tween her stumps doth hold a basin to ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... above the region of the heart, killing him instantly. I searched him, but found only a knife, a little money, and some tobacco; nothing which could identify him. He was well-made, middle-aged, and of a thoroughly vile ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... and most dishonest dealinge, being much abused, we thought it o^r dewties forthew^{th} to signifie the same unto yo^r L[p], humbly cravinge yo^r L[p]'s most ho^rable favor for some reformacon of this vile practize. And thus, w^{th} remembrance of oure dewties, wee humbly take o^r leaves. From Leic^r, this xx^{th} day ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... vile and anonymous stuff as one sometimes reads in the 'Morning Chronicle' be the duty of a good subject, or the privilege of a Peer of Parliament, then indeed we have nothing to object to Mr. Moore's title of Patriot, or Lord Byron's open, honourable, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Arthur was a madman. Defied, mocked, by this girl who had been a burden to his very life! He raged, he raved, he cursed; and so raging and raving, he cursed her, and then in vile, bitter words hurled his anathema at her dead ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... You're Jorth's backers. Have any of you a word to say in Ellen Jorth's defense? I tell you the Mexican lied. Believin' me or not doesn't matter. But this vile-mouthed Bruce hinted against ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... success, and without evil consequences. That lies in the nature of music, which cannot be degraded. Let a hoarse, beery voice, chant slang words to a melody of Mozart, and the next time you hear the melody, it is as fresh and beautiful as if it had never been turned "to such vile purpose;" but it is not so with the beautiful creations of impassioned fancy. Fancy is a Butterfly which must be delicately handled; if rude fingers tamper with it, the flower-dust is rubbed off and the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... gardener,' said my companion, 'and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to little shooting parties. And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face, that I would have knocked ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a shot, cringing at Auld Jock's feet. The most sensitive of four-footed creatures in the world, the Skye terrier is utterly abased by a rebuke from his master. The whole garret was soon in an uproar of vile accusation and shrill denial that spread from ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... confidence reposed in them, repaid it by exemplary behaviour. There was hardly a case of drunkenness throughout our stay—no bad record for men who had been teetotal, through necessity and not through choice, for months—and were now exposed to the dangers of the vile though seductive liquor sold in the ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... Divine Being. The one as what is unbecoming, the other as what forbidden. Thus Seneca speaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honor, when he declares that were there no God to see or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and so vile a nature. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... for nothing but evil from the man she forcibly unsexes; but if he must be kept in durance vile for the whole of his life there is little need for ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... in the collected courage of a brave man more impressive than any menace; and courage is a thing which acts upon all natures, however vile. Strongly moved by the calm audacity of the magistrate the ruffian, who had seized the knife with menacing vivacity, now set it down upon the table, and with a faltering voice said, "Vous etes un brave, citoyen!" then after a pause, "I am a lost man—it's all up ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... cried Militona to the torero, "I hold you vile, base, and a coward. I believe all that has been said of you; I believe that you could have saved Domingues when the bull knelt upon his breast, and that you would not, because you were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... far as I can tell at present his chief faults appear to me to be: that he suffers from a badly swelled head; that he fancies himself a budding Napoleon; that he is endowed by the fates with a very bad temper and a most vile tongue; that he is inconsiderate of his inferiors wherever his personal whims and ambitions are concerned; and that he is engrossed with an inordinate desire to be in the good graces of the Brigadier-General, who is really, I believe, ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... this vile passion sickened the young heart of Lilias, and filled it with the most intense compassion for him, unknown as he was, who had become the victim of such a fierce aversion. How she wondered who he was, and what he had done, to be so detested; and it ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... earliest portions of the lower arcades. But the moment we come to the windows of the Great Council Chamber the style is debased. The mouldings are the same, but they are coarsely worked, and the heads set amidst the leafage of the capitals quite valueless and vile. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and slipped away into the darkness, leaving Pink both melancholy and disturbed. Unaccustomed to night in the woods, he found his nerves twitching at every sound. In the war there had been a definite enemy, definitely placed. Even when he had gone into that vile strip between the trenches, there had been a general ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... himself with their dying agonies. The misdirected "humanitarianism," which in our country makes every murderer an object of popular sympathy, prevailed to save this creature from the gallows. Massachusetts has lately witnessed a similar instance of misplaced clemency in the case of a vile woman who had poisoned eight or ten persons, including some of her own children, in order to profit by their life insurance. Such instances help to explain the prolonged vitality of "Judge Lynch," and sometimes almost ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... out, it would be the duty of the clergy to take up arms against an enemy whom the Bishop of Rochester described as "instigated by that desperate malignity against the Faith he has abandoned, which in all ages has marked the horrible character of the vile apostate." ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... the first time I found this out. I felt like something was broken that could never be mended. What a shattered thing is betrayed confidence! Oh, husband, and wives, do not lie to each other, even though you should do a vile act; confess to the truth of the matter! There will be some trouble over it, but you can never lose your love for a truthful person. I hated lying because I loved the truth. I hated dishonesty because I loved honesty. I loved, therefore I hated. I love mankind therefore I hated the ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... "And if the knight, when a vile woman sues, His purpose shift, let him the evil bear: He will not, for the warrior's asking, lose What he has hardly conquered in a year. Alcestes to the king his suit renews, And next complains, that he rejects his prayer. At length ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the breast ornaments, which they call guanines were made of copper rather than gold, and it was surmised that they dealt with tricky strangers who sold them these guanines, palming off upon them vile metal for gold. Neither did the Spaniards discover the trick till ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... latter will add a sort of completeness to the firm, and make it truly Dombey and Son, while the girl, for all commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. And through his pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. Mr. Carker, his confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends, first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into large and unsound business ventures. The second wife, whom he marries, certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her birth and connections, and because her great beauty ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... who have saved whole empires from oblivion. What more will you ever learn? Yet the dismal change is ordained, and then, thin meagre Latin (the same for everybody), with small shreds and patches of Greek, is thrown like a pauper’s pall over all your early lore. Instead of sweet knowledge, vile, monkish, doggerel grammars and graduses, dictionaries and lexicons, and horrible odds and ends of dead languages, are given you for your portion, and down you fall, from Roman story to a three-inch scrap of “Scriptores Romani,”—from ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... that his plots against the King had been found out, and that he was going to be put into a place where it would be out of his power to execute any of his mischievous purposes. On hearing this, the Marquis broke out into a violent rage, abusing the King, and calling him every vile name he could think of; after which he became sullen, and continued so to the end of his journey. The Marchioness cried almost without ceasing, calling herself the most miserable of women, and wishing she had never ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... she did so that her husband should still be her hero. The intelligence at any rate was there, and, in spite of his roughness, the affection which she craved. And the ambition, too, was there. But, alas, alas! why should such vile suspicions have ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... were standing; so we hurried down by a rough zigzag path cut in the cliff, and were ready on the shore to receive her when she pulled in. Who should we see in the boat but Stretcher, whom we fancied all the time held in durance vile by the smugglers. The honest fellow's satisfaction at seeing us was even greater than our surprise; for he had fully believed that we had been murdered, and had reported our death on board. The boat's ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... hear me say, scornfully; and I have told you, in some of my teaching in "Aratra Pentelici," that all great art must be popular. Yes, but great art is popular, as bread and water are to children fed by a father. And vile art is popular, as poisonous jelly is, to children cheated by a confectioner. And it is quite possible to make any kind of art popular on those last terms. The color school may become just as poisonous ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... the stifling forecastle, Bedient had swooned from the heat, the vile air and his utter weakness. Only he had nailed to his brain surfaces, through terrific concentration, an expectancy for Miss Mallory's signals; otherwise they would have failed to rouse him. He had come forth more dead than alive, with only a glimmering of what he was to do, until ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... to the licentious song, the impure jest, and the most shocking oaths, and heaven-daring impiety and blasphemy. The hands which were once like the spirit within, were now not unfrequently joined in the dance, with the vilest of the vile! ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... bright, and beautiful, and beloved, a being, how can I remain on the earth? Since that moment I have wished much to die; every day have I asked the Master of Life to take from me the breath he has given, and permit me to go to the land that holds the spirit of my affianced wife. I loathe the vile chain which binds me from her; I hate all the things I see, for they are all less beautiful than she; and all sounds pain mine ear, for is it not filled with her voice, a hundred times sweeter than aught ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Margrave, no longer with gasp and effort, but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below—"and this witch, whom I trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my life. She thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake her, that in death I should die in her arms! Sorceress, avaunt! Art thou useless and powerless now when I need thee most? Go! Let the world be one funeral pyre! What to ME is the world? ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... education in the secrets and mysteries of life, in the stable-boy and gutter way,—by passing about among us books from a sort of underground library ... vile things, fluently conceived and made even more vivid and animal with obscene and unimaginable illustrations. And our minds were trailed ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... I want to bring up Emile in the country, far from those miserable lacqueys, the most degraded of men except their masters; far from the vile morals of the town, whose gilded surface makes them seductive and contagious to children; while the vices of peasants, unadorned and in their naked grossness, are more fitted to repel than to seduce, when there is no ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... intensest give-and-take of discussion thus far, in which they give vent to their bitterest degree of vile language in calling Him "a Samaritan," and accusing Him of being possessed with "a demon." And then the terrible climax is reached in the enraged passionate attempt of stoning. It is the worst yet to which their fanatical ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... his complaint, and the jury was empanelled. Then counsel rose, and with the customary circumlocution opened the case against the prisoners. In the first place, he undertook to indicate the motive and occasion of the horrid, vile, and barbarous crime which had been committed, and which, he declared, scarce anything in the annals of justice could parallel; then, he would set forth the circumstances under which the act was perpetrated; and, finally, he proposed to show what grounds existed for inferring ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... that it was a lion, just disappearing over the hill. At once we turned our horses to cross. It was a heavy job. We were naturally in a tremendous hurry; and the footing among those boulders and rounded rocks was so vile that a very slow trot was the best we could accomplish. And that was only by standing in our stirrups, and holding up our horses' heads by main strength. We reached the sky-line in time to see a herd of game stampeding away from a depression ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... World of Pure and boundless Love What hast thou found? alas! a narrow room! Put out that Light, Restore thy Soul its Sight, For better 'tis to dwell in outward Gloom, Than thus, by the vile Body's eye, To rob the Soul of ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... queens of obscure neighborhoods, while mixed with these one saw the faded and shabby wrecks that perennially drifted about the Board of Trade, the failures who sat on the chairs of the customers' rooms day in and day out, reading old newspapers, smoking vile cigars. And there were young men of the type of clerks and bookkeepers, young men with drawn, worn faces, and hot, tired eyes, who pressed upward, silent, their lips compressed, listening intently to the indefinite echoing murmur that was filling ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... wicked enchanters!" he sighed, "to turn my beautiful Dulcinea into so vile a shape as that: to take from her the sweet and delicate scent of fragrant flowers, and give to her what she has. For, to tell the truth, Sancho, she gave me such a whiff of raw onions that it was like to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... that beset the exit from the wharf, we are soon tearing over the Belgian blocks to the Hotel de l'Europe. The Russian drosky-driver, whether in Baku or in Moscow, seems incapable of driving at a moderate pace. Over rough streets or smooth he plies the cruel whip, shouts vile epithets at his half-wild steed, and rattles along at ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... For the ideal perfection of perfidy, foreshadowed by the philosopher who died in the year of Philip's birth, was thoroughly embodied at last by this potentate. Certainly Nicholas Macchiavelli could have hoped for no more docile pupil. That all men are vile, that they are liars; scoundrels, poltroons, and idiots alike—ever ready to deceive and yet easily to be duped, and that he only is fit to be king who excels his kind in the arts of deception; by this great maxim of the Florentine, Philip was ever guided. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... me trouble,' said Tarrant; 'I have only to treat him like a fool. My poor darling, what vile torments you have endured! And you pretend that you would rather live on this fellow's interested generosity—for, of course, he hopes to be rewarded—than throw the whole squalid entanglement behind you and be a free, honest woman, even ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... a vile thing to do," he pursued, still with that accent of incredulous abhorrence. "Doubly vile for you ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... was the sudden, sickening sense that HE himself had been deceived, tricked, and fooled! For it flashed upon him for the first time that the vague sense of wrong which had always haunted him was this—that this was the vile culmination of a plan to GET RID OF HIM, and that he had been deliberately lost and led astray by his relatives as helplessly and completely as a useless ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... been waiting for her with the patience and the artfulness of the hunter, but no game had ever inspired such ferocity in him as this woman, vile and little, who yet had abased him to ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... piteously to himself, "if only I could send word home to Scotland to my father, he would not leave me long in this vile prison. He is rich, and he would spare nothing for my ransom. He would send a trusty servant with a bag of good red gold, and another of bonnie white silver, to soften the cruel heart of ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... these years of fruitful rain and abundant growth something new has appeared on the scene. Many have essayed to attack me heretofore with vile abuse and glorious lies, yet without much success. But the latest to distinguish themselves are the brave heroes at Leipzig on the market-place, who desire not only to be seen and admired, but to break a lance with ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... girl,' he went away saying to himself. 'Pity she should be serving at a bar—hearing doubtful talk, and seeing very often vile sights. A nice, soft-spoken ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... here who did the same on a small scale—selfish fathers and mothers who made homes miserable; boys who were bullies at school and tyrants in the world, in offices, and places of authority. This is the place of discipline for all base selfishness and vile authority, for all who have oppressed ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... vile mob with fury glows; Death is his doom; and straight the tyrant throws The youth to be his savage lions' prey: But faith and piety Thou still dost save, For lo! the untamed brutes no longer rave, But round God's unscathed child ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... abode of the elect. I learned then from the mouth of the angel who brought me here, that Barjas, the tavern-keeper of the Porta Capena, had sold for wine a decoction of roots and barks in which there was not a single drop of the juice of the grape. I had been unable to transmute this vile brew into blood, for it was not wine, and wine alone is changed into the blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore all my consecrations were invalid, and unknown to us, my faithful and myself had for forty years been deprived of the sacrament and were in fact in a state of excommunication. This revelation ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... fairly shrieked the name and, leaping to his feet, bounded about the room like an animated rubber ball, while from his lips poured a steady stream of vile epithets, mingled with every curse and gem of profanity known to ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... as great amazement at what her son told her as at the appearance of the genie, and said to him, "But, son, what have we to do with genies? I never heard that any of my acquaintance had ever seen one. How came that vile genie to address himself to me, and not to you, to whom he had ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... d'Eau; if this were the only way open to me, I should pack my bundle tomorrow and settle down in a German village; work I will as much as I can, but to sell my ware in this market is impossible to me. Artistic affairs here are in so vile a condition, so rotten, so fit for decay, that only a bold scytheman is required who understands the right cut. Dearest friend, apart from all political speculation, I am compelled to say openly that in the soil of the anti-Revolution no art can grow, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... of the seed do remain, They’re vile as the thistles and briars of the plain; They ply for their neighbours the pick and the hoe: Thy murder, Brown William, fills ...
— Brown William - The Power of the Harp and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise |
