"Detestable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and two hundred of these simple gentlemen cooped up at night in one great chamber! What a concert of barrel-organs in this great resounding saloon! And then their plan of marriage! The very birds of the air choose their mates from preference and inclination; but this detestable system of lot! The sentiment of love may be, and is, in a great measure, a fostered growth of poetry and romance, and balderdashed with false sentiment; but with all its vitiations, it is the beauty and the charm, the flavor and the fragrance, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... not read, I used an excellent substitute for reading. I went through 'Paradise Lost' in my head. I could still repeat half of it, and that the best half. I really never enjoyed it so much." In Dublin: "The rain was so heavy that I was forced to come back in a covered car. While in this detestable vehicle I looked rapidly through the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan and thought that Trajan made a most creditable figure." It may be that Macaulay did not always digest his knowledge well. Yet ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... quarrel was, that the Venetians had sent to Rome, several articles of complaint against two priests, the abbot of Nervesa, and a canon of Vicenza, for committing such abominable crimes, as Mr. Walton says, it would be a shame to mention: Their complaints met with no redress, and the detestable practices of these monsters in holy orders still continuing, they seized their persons ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... to own grudgingly that the Colonel was justified in his decision,—that as Second in Command he was the right man to remain in charge of the station. But the acknowledgment did not make the necessity one whit less detestable in his eyes; and to-night the two men's positions were reversed. It was Paul who moved to and fro with long restless strides; while Theo, enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke, sat watching him in profound sympathy and ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... consequence of his principles, Mr. Calhoun did not rest until through him religion, morality, statesmanship, the Constitution of the United States, the constitution of man, were all bound in black. Chattel slavery, the most nonsensical as well as detestable of oppressions, was, to him, the most beneficent contrivance of human wisdom. He called it an institution: Mr. Emerson has more happily styled it a destitution. At last the chains of his iron logic were heard clanking on the whole Southern intellect. Reasoning the most masterly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... cache of childish treasure buried by the former beneath a pine-tree in the garden. Later, when Archie had recovered from his disease and grown to suitor's estate, I could not but feel, despite the sardonically observed figure of Helena, the detestable girl who nearly ruins him, that the whole affair had become conventional, and by so much lost interest for its creator. Apart, however, from the bogie chapters of Possession (which I shall not further indicate) the most moving scenes in this latter part are those between Archie and his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... going up to bed with a better opinion of another person, or a worse one of myself. How could I go on with my thrice detestable undertaking? Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even think of it for another moment? Why not go back to London and tell his mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad did know how to take care of ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... harness up." "Why, what's the time?" "11.30." However, up we got, not knowing why, tossed on harness, and started straight away back for Lindley, supposing they were being attacked. It was a hard march over those detestable drifts, in pitch dark and freezing cold, with one halt only of ten minutes. The centre driver has a trying time in bad places of the road, for at steep bits on the down grade, if the wheelers get at all out of control, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... whispered the hot breath of Mr. Jones into his ear. "Can there be a more disgusting spectacle? It's enough to make the earth detestable. She seems to have found her affinity. Move on closer. If I have to shoot you in the end, then perhaps ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... same brown adobes everywhere; the same villainous-looking leperos lounging at the corners; the same bare-legged, slippered wenches; the same strings of belaboured donkeys; the same shrill and detestable cries. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... the Prophet, "when the plagues of earth (scorpions, serpents, etc.) afflict ye not." Yet the night- march in Arabia is detestable (Pilgrimage iii.). ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... of Greek in the College De Propaganda Fide expressed his admiration in some detestable hexameters and pentameters, of which the following specimen ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that, friend Bull," chuckled the "horse-dealer," calmly pouring the oil of his flask into a vase and soaking a sponge in it. "I knew you would get hot and resist. I might have had you bound by the keepers, but in your violence you would have bruised your limbs, a detestable sign for the sale. These bruises always denote a stubborn slave. And all the time, what cries you would have let out! What a rebellion, when your head had to be shaved, ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... our concerted plan, the death and interment of Lady Greville were formally announced to me, I repented of the detestable scheme which had been successfully executed. My soul revolted from the part of 'excellent dissembling' I had yet to act; and refused to sloop to a public exhibition of feigned affliction. I shuddered, too, when I contemplated the shame which awaited ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... My father, however, who is a passionate man, cast him down the steps. The wretch managed to creep up to me again under another form, and as I was on one occasion taking the fresh air in my garden, clad as a slave, he presented me a potion which changed me into this detestable figure. He brought me hither, swooning through fear, and exclaimed in my ear with awful voice, 'There shalt thou remain, frightful one, despised even by beasts, until thy death, or till one, of his own free will, even under this execrable form, take thee to wife. Thus revenge ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... the chance way in which those forces are distributed, and in a considerable measure may be influenced by the way in which the boundaries of constituencies are drawn. Such a system invites and encourages gerrymandering, both in its original and modern forms, but this detestable practice can be made of no avail and the results of elections rendered trustworthy if we so reform present methods as to give due weight to the strength of each political party irrespective of the way in which ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... the crevices of the granite. A shot fired among this swarm would have killed a great number, but to fire a shot a gun was needed, and neither Pencroft nor Herbert had one; besides this, gulls and sea-mews are scarcely eatable, and even their eggs have a detestable taste. However, Herbert, who had gone forward a little more to the left, soon came upon rocks covered with sea-weed, which, some hours later, would be hidden by the high tide. On these rocks, in the midst of slippery wrack, abounded bivalve shell-fish, not ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... thing, we did not like the white fungous growths which occasionally sprang up in rainy summer weather from the hard earth floor. Those fungi, grotesquely like the vegetation in the yard outside, were truly horrible in their outlines; detestable parodies of toadstools and Indian-pipes, whose like we had never seen in any other situation. They rotted quickly, and at one stage became slightly phosphorescent; so that nocturnal passers-by ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the animals which live in the forest and its outskirts towards the savannahs! There is the singular opossum, and there is the sluggish, scaly armadillo, which loves the detestable termites—those white ants which, with their sharp mandibles, gnaw to pieces paper, clothes, wood, the whole house in fact. Then there is the climbing sloth, with its round monkey head and large curved claws. All day long it remains sleepily hanging under a bough, and only ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... followed, broken only by the sound of breathing, and an occasional ticking as of some long-legged creature on the wall and window-blind. Mrs. Murphy could never remember if she actually went to sleep, but she is sure her husband did, as she distinctly heard him snore—and the sound, so detestable to her as a rule, was so welcome to her then. She was lying listening to it, and wishing with all her soul she could get to sleep, when she suddenly became aware of a smell—a most offensive, pungent odour, that blew across the room and crept up her nostrils. The cold perspiration of fear at once ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... do? It was,—the enormity you perceive. I was obliged to give it a place of honour,—fortunately, I seldom use this room when I am alone; I was forced to praise its tint, which I abominate, and its shape, which is wholly detestable. What would you? I could not wound my good Guiseppe; the vase has remained, the chief ornament—in his eyes—of my drawing-room. Now, thanks to you, my charming child, I am delivered of this encumbrance, and my poor white and gold can appear ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... the churchyard like a turkey-cock through rows of his parishioners, who bow to him with as much submission, and are as unregarded, as a set of servile courtiers by the proudest prince in Christendom. But if such temporal pride is ridiculous, surely the spiritual is odious and detestable; if such a puffed—up empty human bladder, strutting in princely robes, justly moves one's derision, surely in the habit of a priest it must ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... essentially unpopular with all Samoans. The law to be enforced, causes of dispute between white and brown to be eliminated, taxes to be raised, a central power created, the country opened up, the native race taught industry: all these were detestable to the natives, and to all of these he must set his hand. The more I learn of his brief term of rule, the more I learn to admire him, and to wish ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no slaves, the swamps and morasses of the south could not be cultivated. It has been found that the negro will dance, and sing, and starve, but he will not work in the fields when free. Besides, they assert, that the slaves are generally well cared for, and that it is only a few detestable masters that beat ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... as I last saw it was constantly before me. The babble of the people around seemed to me detestable. I answered at haphazard, and begged permission of Mademoiselle to keep my room for a day, as I thought I should be distracted if I could not get out of reach of M. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the party were to dine, Miss Pratt with joy discovered a harmonium in the parlor, and, seating herself, with all the girls, Flopit, and Mr. George Crooper gathered around her, she played an accompaniment, while George, in a thin tenor of detestable sweetness, sang "I'm Falling in Love with ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—I came away from Fredonia ashamed of myself; —almost too much humiliated to hold up my head and say good-bye. For I began to comprehend how much harm my conduct might do you socially in your village. I would have gone to that detestable oyster-brained bore and apologized for my inexcusable rudeness to him, but that I was satisfied he was of too small a calibre to know how to receive ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bold bit of dirt that would try to stand out against me," declared Mother Meraut, with a flourish of her dust-cloth, "for when I go after it I think to myself, 'Ah, if I but had one of those detestable Germans by the nose, how I would grind it!' and the very thought brings such power to my elbow that I check myself lest I wear through the stones of ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... so, they will choose the ant. They do not care to abase themselves, they will always choose the principal part—this is the choice of self-love, a very natural choice. But what a dreadful lesson for children! There could be no monster more detestable than a harsh and avaricious child, who realised what he was asked to give and what he refused. The ant does more; she teaches him not merely to refuse but ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... do not affect the more violent crimes; they feel their mortality, follow its common ends, are frivolous, contented, and die! Well; this is debasement. Be it so. But for what would you exchange it? The hard, cold, ferocious guilt of ancient Rome; the detestable hypocrisy, the secret villiany, fraud, murder, that stamped republican Venice? The days of glory that you lament are the days of the darkest guilt; and man shudders when he reads what the fair moralisers over the soft and idle Italy ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... to make in any connection, so violent and brutal is his temper at times. For my own part, however," she proceeded, "so soon as I can escape from such thraldom and associations, I shall try and make my own way in the world; for my impression is, my uncle has some idea of a union between me and the detestable creature, Smith, who accompanied you here last night, and who, after an hour's rest, was again driven off by my uncle, doubtless to whatever point he ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... knowledge that she had taken her life in her own hands nearly twenty years ago, and wrecked it more surely than if she had torn out her own eyes, that made her heart sick within her now. She, who loved dignity, who loved purity, who loved strength, must carry to her grave the knowledge of her own detestable weakness! She must instruct her daughter, guarding the blue eyes and the active mind from even the knowledge of life's ugly side, she must hold the highest standard of purity before her son, knowing, as she knew, that far back at her life's beginning, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... title of King." He declares that he wants peace and then adds forthwith: "Not a peace hollow, corrupt, feigned, violated, perjured, like that of Montereau, on which, by your fault and your consent, there followed that terrible and detestable murder, committed contrary to all law and honour of knighthood, on the person of our late dear and greatly loved Father, Jean, Duke ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... person," said the Rocket, "and very ill-bred. I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to talk about oneself, as I do. It is what I call selfishness, and selfishness is a most detestable thing, especially to any one of my temperament, for I am well known for my sympathetic nature. In fact, you should take example by me; you could not possibly have a better model. Now that you have the chance you had better ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... sure! I wish you would seize me and shake me, Marion, whenever you see me going off into dreamland like that. It is simply detestable. Yet, I can't help it. Oh!" with sudden impulse, "wait till you marry some one the least like Jack, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... it is the Weevil; elsewhere again it is the Cricket, the Locust and the Praying Mantis. Good in themselves, in a general way, these several victuals may be noxious to a consumer who is not used to them. The larva which dotes on Locust may find caterpillar a detestable fare; and that which revels in caterpillar may hold Locust in horror. It would be hard for us to discover in what manner Cricket-flesh and Ephippiger-flesh differ as juicy, nourishing foodstuffs; but it ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... become a member of the Committee of Public Safety, denounced Madame de Fleury, in the strange jargon of the day, as "the fosterer of a swarm of bad citizens, who were nourished in the anticivic prejudices de l'ancien regime, and fostered in the most detestable superstitions, in defiance of the law." He further observed, that he had good reason to believe that some of these little enemies to the constitution had contrived and abetted Monsieur de Fleury's ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... Normans. The first can be disposed of briefly: They are never adrift, never for Company Orders, always spotless and first on parade; perpetually shining and exhibiting glistening buttons before the Company-Sergeant-Major in vague hope of promotion. A detestable type, fortunately in the minority. Of "indifferent" in the above sense but inordinately proud of their Battalion on parade and who gave of their best when demanded, 80 per cent. of the Norman ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... detestable doctrine! It is the sophism which has destroyed families, devastated cities, and retarded the moral progress of the world more than anything else. No single act of injustice is ever done on this earth but it tends ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... in their application," I said. "No crime is held to be more detestable than disrespect of those to ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... 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 to portray Richard as even more detestable than history and tradition had presented him. In Holinshed Richard is not accused of the murder of Gloster, whereas Shakespeare directly charges him with it, or rather makes Gaunt do so, and the accusation is not denied, much less disproved. At the close of the first act we are astonished ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... Abbey, by law, and that he would still pay the entrance fee to go into Westminster Abbey like other liege subjects, resign himself meekly to the guidance of the beadle, and "listen without rebuke when he pointed out to his admiration detestable monuments, or show a hole in the wall for a confessional." "He would still visit the shrine of St. Edward, and meditate on the olden times when the church would fill without a coronation, and multitudes hourly worshipped ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... reviving influences to the dormant; for revival presupposes life. Their "works were not perfect before God," however they might appear to men. The majority were in a languishing condition, had "given themselves over to a detestable neutrality" in the Lord's cause. And as the whole body is justly characterized by the major part; this church is described as "dead." "Be watchful,—remember,—repent." These duties point out the prevailing sins, ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... so was forced to go to my old lodgings, where also my wardrobe is; and there I poured out millions of curses upon the whole crew, and refused to see either Sally or Polly; and this not only for suffering the lady to escape, but for the villanous arrest, and for their detestable insolence to ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... hoped that he would show her—that he did not want to be under any obligation to her. And Desmond would be hurt and lose her temper. The hard look would get into her face and destroy its beauty, and she would say detestable things in a detestable voice, and a dreadful ugliness would come between them, and the impulse of Nicky's yet unborn passion would be checked, and the memory of that abominable half-hour ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... ignominy; nor was it without the greatest exertions of the police, that the corpse was permitted to be carried along the streets, so great was the abhorrence expressed by the inhabitants at the idea of such an unnatural, detestable, and abominable offence. ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... nothing but convict discipline talked since. Frere is great upon this point, and wearies me with his explanations of convict tricks and wickedness. He is celebrated for his knowledge of such matters. Detestable wisdom! His servants hate him, but they obey him without a murmur. I have observed that habitual criminals—like all savage beasts—cower before the man who has once mastered them. I should not be surprised if the Van Diemen's Land Government selected Frere as their "disciplinarian". ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... complete abolition, first by Philip the Handsome, then by Philip the Long and Charles the Handsome, and, finally, by Philip of Valois, "for certain misdeeds and excesses notorious, enormous, and detestable, and on full deliberation of our council." The early portion of the history connected with the commune of Laon has been narrated for us by Guibert, an abbot of Nogent- sous-Coucy, in the diocese of Laon, a contemporary ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... gaff. Ben was out of the question, having his oars to look after, and even if he had been free the position would not allow me to bring the fish up to him. The gaff was strong and big, and it was furnished with a rank barb, generally a detestable implement in my estimation. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Lord Evandale so as to intercept any blow that should be aimed at him; "I owed my life to him this morning—my life, which was endangered solely by my having sheltered you; and to shed his blood when he can offer no effectual resistance, were not only a cruelty abhorrent to God and man, but detestable ingratitude both ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... voices are not at least tolerable were rejected, as unfit to preach! Saadi seems to have had a great horror of braying orators, and relates a number of anecdotes about them, such as this: A preacher who had a detestable voice, but thought he had a very sweet one, bawled out to no purpose. You would say the croaking of the crow in the desert was the burden of his song, and that this verse of the Kuran was intended for him, "Verily the most detestable of sounds is the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... be cited Rajah James Brooke's statement, as given by Captain Henry Keppel in his Expedition to Borneo (American edition, New York, 1846), p. 305: "The most detestable part of this traffic is Seriff Houseman ["a half-bred Arab" pirate in Borneo] selling, in cold blood, such of these slaves as are Borneans, to Pangeran Usop, of Bruni, for 100 rupees for each slave, and Pangeran ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... thankful that I was safe up the tree. I have since ascertained that the tree is called the Sterculia foetida. It is one of the greatest and tallest of the Ceylon forest trees, but the flowers as well as the fruit emit a stench so detestable as properly to entitle it to its characteristic botanical name. The fruit also is curious. It consists of several crimson cases of the consistency of leather, which enclose a number of black seeds, bead-like in form. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... officer, "that he had tho't ye New England men were Cowards—but now he tho't yt if they had a pick axe & spade, they w'd dig ye way to Hell & storm it." [Footnote: The autograph diary of Rev. Stephen Williams is in my possession. The handwriting is detestable.] ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... declares in a letter to Lord Bathurst, that his army, the army which fought on the 18th of June, 1815, was a "detestable army." What does that sombre intermingling of bones buried beneath the furrows of Waterloo ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... say a word in reply, Master Freddy changed suddenly from a darling boy to a detestable imp. "I say, Mr. Sax!" he called out, "Miss Morris doesn't mind you a bit—she ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... this is the stock in trade in most young girls in qualifying their conversation. The use of that tinsel gives a wholly unreal tone to what is being said and is so pregnant with affectation as to be tiresome. Between slang and adjectives, it is hard to choose, both are so detestable from a woman's lips. The difference is that the adjective insidiously captures the refined mind, while slang only holds captive the coarse mind. In a plain and intended to be truthful statement of any occurrence, the injection of three or four adjectives ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... delightful? We shall have a most heavenly drive. You are to thank your brother and me for the scheme; it darted into our heads at breakfast-time, I verily believe at the same instant; and we should have been off two hours ago if it had not been for this detestable rain. But it does not signify, the nights are moonlight, and we shall do delightfully. Oh! I am in such ecstasies at the thoughts of a little country air and quiet! So much better than going to the Lower Rooms. We shall drive directly to Clifton and dine there; and, as soon as dinner is over, if ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... place at the bottom. To these men nothing is so hateful as the prospect of a reconciliation between the orders of the State. A crisis like that which now makes every honest citizen sad and anxious fills these men with joy, and with a detestable hope. And how is it that such men, formed by nature and education to be objects of mere contempt, can ever inspire terror? How is it that such men, without talents or acquirements sufficient for the management of a vestry, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to go on, your highness; consider one moment how harmless my says I's are to the detestable you knows of Ali. That's what I always told him; 'Ali,' says I, 'if you only knew,' says I, 'how annoying you are! Why there,' says I!" At this moment the blow of the scimitar fell, and the head of Hussan rolled upon the floor; the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... returned to his old self, to my great relief, and I ventured somewhat timidly to remind him of the esteem in which he was held by all hands; even the skipper, I ventured to say, respected him, although, from some detestable form of ill-humour, he had chosen to be so sneering and insulting towards him. He shook his head sadly, and said, "My dear boy, youse de only man aboard dis ship—wite man, dat is—dat don't hate an' despise ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... buildings of the Preceptory, saluted the white-cloaked figures moving about it, with courtesy grim and distant in all but Sir Robert Darcy, who could not even hate a Templar, a creature to the ordinary Hospitalier far more detestable than a Saracen. On then, up ground beginning to rise, below which the little muddy stream called the Flete stagnated along its way, meandering to the Thames. Thatched hovels and wooden booths left so narrow a passage that the horsemen were forced to move in single file, and ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were statues of Jenner erected abroad, at Boulogne and at Brunn, in Moravia, before any in England. Thus the European countries showed their gratitude to the Englishman whose patience, genius and absence of self-seeking had rid them of the detestable world-plague of smallpox. Vaccination was made compulsory by law in no less than five European countries before it was so in the United Kingdom in 1853. In eight countries vaccination is provided free at the expense of the government. The clergy of Geneva and of Holland from their pulpits ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... guessing where or when there would be an end of impeachments."[49] At length she named as cognizant of the plot several persons "of known credit, fortune and reputations, and of religious principles superior to a suspicion of being concerned in such detestable practices; at which the judges were very much astonished."[50] This farcical extreme at length persuaded even the obsessed magistrates ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... impossible to find in St James's Street, or in certain buildings at no great distance from the Thames, the exact counterparts of Don Matthias de Silva and his companions? Gongora, indeed, in spite of his detestable taste, was a man of genius; and therefore to find his type among us would be difficult, if not impossible, unless an excess of the former quality, for which he was conspicuous, might counterbalance a deficiency in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... colonel; and, after some apologies on our part for the mistake, he went off in triumph, with the detestable poodle ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... many sick men to look after, I do not purpose again going to sea. In truth, fighting may be a very satisfactory amusement to people without brains; but I am a philosopher, and have seen enough of it to be satisfied that it is a most detestable occupation." ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... capable of speaking to you as I did the other night, now that I know you to be a wealthy woman, I could never look you in the face again. If I seem angry you must try to forgive me; you know me of old—I am always detestable when I am ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... will certainly not live to see it. It may be part of the detestable social order, but it is not responsible for it, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... tree, the leaves fall to the ground, and your hour has come at last, O detestable Li Ting!' said Yung, who had heard the speakers and crept upon them unperceived. 'As for my distinguished and immaculate father-in-law, doubtless the heat has affected his indefatigable brains, or he would not have listened to your contemptible suggestion. ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles. Its leading feature is glitter—and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express! Flickering, unquiet lights, are sometimes pleasing—to children and idiots always so—but in the embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth, even strong steady lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... proficiency, worthy of a Borgia or Brinvilliers, in the art of poisoning and in the use of drugs. The reputed witch, both in ancient and modern times, very often belonged, like the Ovidian Dipsas, to the real and detestable class of panders: wrinkled hags were experienced in the arts of seduction, as well as in the employment of poison and drugs more familiar to the wealthier class (Sat. vi.). The great Satirist wrote in the latter half of the first century of Christianity; but even in the Augustan period ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... difficult to imagine any ethical justification for the aggressions made upon alien peoples in the name of Christianity and enlightenment. Certainly the results in China of such aggression [478] have not been Christianity nor enlightenment, but revolts, massacres, detestable cruelties,—the destruction of cities, the devastation of provinces, the loss of tens of thousands of lives, the extortion of hundreds of millions of money. If all this be right, then might is might indeed; and our professed religion of ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... myself!" thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own eyes she should be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The fact, however, remained that Godfrey was a little altered toward her: she must have been telling him something against her— something she had heard from that detestable little hypocrite who was turned away on suspicion of theft! Yes—that was how Sepia talked to herself ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... then taking favour; but I went back to my father and mother, and aunt, and Preston, and others; and comfort found no lodgment with me. Then there was an extract from a Southern paper, calling Yankees "the most contemptible and detestable of God's creation" - speaking of their "mean, niggardly lives - their low, vulgar and sordid occupations" - and I thought, How can peace be? or what will it be ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... worship when fully performed. We cannot go farther into detail. It is profoundly saddening to think that such abominations are committed; it is still more saddening to think that they are performed as a part of divine worship. Conscience, however, is so far alive that these detestable rites are practiced only in secret, and few, if any, are willing to confess that they have ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... republicans? Liberty, fraternity and equality; we flaunt that flag as much as we ever did. Yet, what a howdy-do when a title comes along! What a craning of necks, what a kotowing! How many earldoms and dukedoms are not based upon some detestable action, some despicable service rendered some orgiastic sovereign! The most honorable thing about the so-called nobility is generally the box-hedge which surrounds the manse. Kotow; pour our millions into the bottomless purses of spendthrifts; ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... "This hurts me more than it hurts you." There must be hypocrisy as well as cruelty. The injury to the child would be far less if the voluptuary said frankly "I beat you because I like beating you; and I shall do it whenever I can contrive an excuse for it." But to represent this detestable lust to the child as Divine wrath, and the cruelty as the beneficent act of God, which is exactly what all our floggers do, is to add to the torture of the body, out of which the flogger at least gets some pleasure, the maiming and blinding of the ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... three kinds of vain conceit in our friends which we enumerated—the vain conceit of beauty, of wisdom, and of wealth, are ridiculous if they are weak, and detestable when they are powerful: May we not say, as I was saying before, that our friends who are in this state of mind, when harmless ...
— Philebus • Plato
... this time in this countrie, of these detestable slaues of the Deuill, the Witches or enchaunters, hath moved me (beloued reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine, not in any wise (as I protest) to serue for a shew of my learning & ingine, but onely (mooued of conscience) to preasse thereby, so farre as I can, ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... she cried, "Why can't we, say outright that we are going to run that detestable Captain Lyon and his Yankees and Hessians out of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in the best of cases, and under the most favourable start from a water, the ephemeral thread of a horse's life may be snapped in a moment, in the height of an Australian summer, in such a region as this, where that detestable vegetation, the triodia, and high and rolling sandhills exist for such enormous distances. The very sight of the country, in all its hideous terrors clad, is sufficient to daunt a man and kill a horse. I called the vile mountain which had caused me this ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... be a unit. It does not shock our idea of human honesty much when we learn that this crownless king played a double game with Russia and Turkey. It is intensely Jewish, but if it were only Jewish, then it would be very detestable; it is more, it is Divine in part. "Had the princes of this world known, they would not have crucified the Prince of Glory." Had the princes of the late Berlin Congress known the double game being played by one of the quietest of their number, they would not have done ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... the blood mingled with the rain that poured down his face. A pod of the fishhook-barbed cholla drove its points through his trousers into the flesh of his knee and, detaching itself from the stem, as is the detestable habit of this vegetable blood-seeker, clung there like a live thing of prey, from barbs which must later be removed delicately and separately with the cold steel. Blindly homing, a jack-rabbit ran almost beneath the horse's hooves, causing him to shy again, this time ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Ivanhoe;—good. Pray send me some tooth-powder and tincture of myrrh, by Waite, &c. Ricciardetto should have been translated literally, or not at all. As to puffing Whistlecraft, it won't do. I'll tell you why some day or other. Cornwall's a poet, but spoilt by the detestable schools of the day. Mrs. Hemans is a poet also, but too stiltified and apostrophic,—and quite wrong. Men died calmly before the Christian era, and since, without Christianity: witness the Romans, and, lately, Thistlewood, Sandt, and Lovel—men who ought to have ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... has no occupation, other than the occupation of mere amusement, who has no Ideal; who has no interest other than the interest of passing the time, is not only useless, but detestable as a member of human society, while his old age is of unhappiness the most unhappy. For what is Old Age worth if it has no "memories"; and what are "memories" worth if they are not memories of having lived one's life to the full? To me, to live one's own life is to live—or, perhaps I ought ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... opinions whatever until she attains a proper age. I have no doubt that Mrs. Besant is conscientious in her opinions upon all these matters, but I also have a conscientious opinion, and I am bound to give effect to it. I think such a course of education not only reprehensible but detestable, and likely to work utter ruin to the child, and I certainly should upon this ground alone decide that this child ought not to remain another day under the care ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... sense of triumph; now he felt very small, lonely, and forlorn. Only one thought far at the back of his mind cropped up now and then to give him comfort. He was entering on the last lap. Once get this detestable errand done and he would be a free man, free to go back to the kindly humdrum life from which he should never have strayed. Never again, he vowed, never again. Rather would he spend the rest of his days in hydropathics than come within the pale of such horrible adventures. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... of France. A change moreover in the whole scheme of French government was an admitted necessity. France might be uncertain as to the working of the new constitution, but France was absolutely certain that the ancien regime was detestable. Individuals or nations may wisely risk much when they are escaping from a social condition which they detest, they may know that an innovation is in itself of doubtful expediency, yet may consider any alleged reform worth a trial ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... in which foreign tea was totally discarded. They also voiced the public abhorrence for it, or what it represented, by applying to it all the objurgatory and abusive epithets they could muster—and their vocabulary was by no means limited—such as "detestable," "cruel," "villainous," "pernicious," "fatal," ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... the incidents their value, and so give dramatic interest to the plot, or story. The dialogue and the incidents are but two phases of the presentment of the story. The action may be rapid or slow, direct, or with episodes. All depends upon the treatment; and the play that one audience finds detestable may delight another. ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... these authors which report, that earle Edrike was the procurer of his death, doo also write, that when he knew the act to be done, he hasted vnto Cnute, and declared vnto him what he had brought to passe for his aduancement to the gouernment of the whole realme. Wherevpon Cnute, abhorring such a detestable fact, said vnto him: "Bicause thou hast for my sake, made away the worthiest bodie of the world, I shall raise thy head aboue all the lords of England," and so caused him to be put to death. [Sidenote: Some thinke that he was duke of Mercia before, and now had Essex adioined thereto.] Thus ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (7 of 8) - The Seventh Boke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... comrades, by telling them that, if after having solemnly promised to go, as they had done, they now failed to make the attempt, they would, in effect, brand themselves with cowardice, and might as well sit down, fold their arms, and acknowledge themselves as fit only to be slaves. This detestable character, all were unwilling to assume. Every man except Sandy (he, much to our regret, withdrew) stood firm; and at our last meeting we pledged ourselves afresh, and in the most solemn manner, that, at the time ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... world-wide celebrity for its oysters. We left the railway at La Gouesniere, five miles and a half from Cancale, to which we proceeded by the mail cart. It requires to travel in Brittany to form any notion of the detestable vehicles, whether public or "voitures a volonte," in which travellers in this country are condemned to ride. Uncleaned, unpainted, creaking, jolting machines—as fully tenanted with every kind of insect annoyance, as if one were travelling ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... around the office blankly. Everything was there just as usual, the little key and the sounder, over which had come all "C's" pleasant talk. "C!" That creature! The odor of his detestable musk hovered about her even now, but not yet could she realize that her "C" was ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... humour. We had a miserable time of it at dinner, for he badgered Derrick almost past bearing, and I think the poor old fellow minded it more when there was a third person present. Somehow through all he managed to keep his extraordinary capacity for reverencing mere age—even this degraded and detestable old age of the Major's. I often thought that in this he was like my own ancestor, Hugo Wharncliffe, whose deference and respectfulness and patience had not descended to me, while unfortunately the effects of his physical infirmities ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... her father should express his approval thus graciously, but she was not uplifted. It was Mr Ffolliot's way. He had been detestable all day, and now he was going to be charming. His compliments counted for little with Mary. Yesterday he had told her she moved like a Flanders mare, and hurt her feelings very much. Her dress was made in the house and ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... Park, at Madras, which he obtained in Burmah, and says of her: "'Evangeline,' as she is named, is certainly though an interesting and rare creature to have in a museum or wild-beast show, the most snarling, ill-mannered, and detestable beast I have ever owned." "Hawkeye," whose most interesting paper on the wild dog appeared in the South of India Observer, of January 7th, 1869, alludes to "Evangeline" in the following terms:—"I saw the beast at the People's Park, and a more untameable wretch I never met with; and ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... only that it spelled luxury beyond all dreams. It belonged, in short, to his Uncle Clem Cheesman, the rich butcher who lived in the village twelve miles away; and its presence here signaled the fact that Uncle Clem and Aunt Mollie had come to pay one of their detestable quarterly visits to their poor relations. They had come while he was out, and Maw was in there ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Cromwell-worship, it is impossible to resist the conviction, that it was with good faith that he could see in Cromwell 'the glimpses,' even the revelation 'of the god-like,' and that he would not attend to aught that disclosed Cromwell 'not' as 'august and divine, but hypocritical, pitiable, detestable.' Even though he claimed a familiar acquaintance with the 'Thurloe Papers,' he must have been ignorant, it is impossible to think otherwise, of the black stories which Cromwell's 'expertest of secretaries' could publish ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... sort of thing. Odd! I never realized it before. And there are endless wives suppressing an acute dislike. My wife does. I see now quite clearly that she detests me. Reasonably enough. From her angle I'm entirely detestable. But she won't admit it, won't know of it. She never will. To the end of my life, always, she will keep that detestation unconfessed. She puts a face on the matter. We both do. And this affair of yours.... Have you thought how unjust it is ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... Sent Leger—he, too, keeps to the old spelling—did not know of his uncle's death, or he would have taken steps to relieve our anxiety. Our anxiety, forsooth! We are not anxious; we only wish to know. And if we—and especially me—who have all the annoyance of thinking of the detestable and unfair death-duties, are anxious, we should be so. Well, anyhow, he'll get a properly bitter disappointment and set down when he does turn up and discovers that he is a ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... Katherine himself. Henceforward, they were to be together. He would buy more land, and improve his estate, and live happily, away from the turmoil of the town, and the disagreeable duties of active service in a detestable quarrel. So this purpose, though unexpressed, gave a joyous ring to his letter; it was lover-like in its fondness and hopefulness, and Katherine thought of Lady Suffolk and her ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... reply. "We were four daughters; and, painful as the admission is to make, a more detestable family could scarce be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conduct towards Mary Vasilievna and her husband base and disgusting? And my position with regard to money? To use riches considered by me unlawful on the plea that they are inherited from my mother? And the whole of my idle, detestable life? And my conduct towards Katusha to crown all? Knave and scoundrel! Let men judge me as they like, I can deceive them; ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the prelate was soon followed by popes and councils. Alexander VI forbade as a detestable evil the printing of books injurious to the Catholic faith, and made all archbishops official censors for their dioceses. This was enforced by a decree of the Fifth Lateran Council setting forth that {419} ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... me, of the magnanimity of virtue, and the obstinate impenetrable injustice of guilt. While your mind overflows with goodness, nothing can touch the heart of this thrice-refined villain. I shall never forgive myself for having once been entrapped by his detestable arts. This is no time for us to settle the question between chivalry and law. I shall therefore simply insist as a magistrate, having taken the evidence in this felony, upon my right and duty of following the course of justice, and committing the accused to ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... dull glance, which she let a sudden recognition burn through for a moment and then quenched. But in that moment the two women sealed a dislike that had been merely potential before. Their look said for each that the other was by nature, tradition, and aspiration whatever was most detestable ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells |
