"Stab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It is just a steady down tug that makes the line cut your fingers and likely takes your hand under water. If he is a good one you will need to sit back and snub the line over the gunwale in that first plunge which follows the stab of the hook. Then it is a steady, muscle-grinding pull to get him up. It is a stogy, heavy resistance which he offers. To lift him out of his depths is a good deal like explaining to a middle-class Englishman something that he does not wish to comprehend, but by and by, leaning ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... until the breach was clear, a knife-point pressed sharply into the back effectively prevented a dash. But the seamen were not in such a fix. Little, in bursting through a cane brake, cringing with the pain of a sharp stab between his shoulders, found himself momentarily alongside one of the sailors of his own ship; and, daring even further visitation of the knife, he let fly the canes with a rattling crash into his guard's face and whispered ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... that followed were heavy with sorrow, for each strove ardently to pain the other, and with every stab thus inflicted there were two wounds, one in the giver and one in the stricken person. O'olo spent his two dollars in riot and debauchery, and when released from prison fell into greater evil, so that his communion-ticket ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... course of events, lie down to slumber. For in such case, worn out by anxiety, and it may be by much watching, our very excess of grief rocks itself to sleep, before we have had time to realise its cause; and we waken, with a start of agony like a fresh stab, to the consciousness of the one awful vacancy, which shall never, while the world endures, be ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... standing there with those flowing, shimmering curls and the tender, throbbing voice pleading to be taught the fullness of human love, that she might find the largeness of the Infinite. Turning swiftly to the window, he pressed his lips together to stifle his emotion. He could no longer bear the stab at his heart, nor risk the mist rising in his eyes. Tessibel, wholly unconscious of the stir she was making, sang on and on, her gaze on the sheet in her hand. Suddenly she raised her eyes and there near the door was Frederick Graves, his face waxen white, his dark gaze bent upon ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... ignores womanhood suffrage, whether coming from the President or the Republican party and sanctioned by the Anti-Slavery Society, should be repudiated as at war with the whole spirit and genius of a true Democracy, and a deadly stab into the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... first place, what other defence can we wish Hamlet to have made? I can think of none. He cannot tell the truth. He cannot say to Laertes, 'I meant to stab the King, not your father.' He cannot explain why he was unkind to Ophelia. Even on the false supposition that he is referring simply to his behaviour at the grave, he can hardly say, I suppose, 'You ranted so abominably that you put me into a towering passion.' Whatever he said, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... i' mi Sundy clooas an went for a walk throo th' market, an when aw coom to th' butter-cross aw saw a chap 'at had a cock an two hens in a basket for sale, an he offered 'em to me for ten shillin'. 'Ten fiddlesticks!' aw sed, 'awl gie thee five,' an he put on a luk as if awd stab'd him to th' heart, an begun tellin' me hah mich they'd cost him, an 'at he'd nivver ha tried to sell 'em but he wor behund wi his rent, an wor foorced to pairt wi 'em to keep th' bums aght, an ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... would have done from a serpent which was crawling toward him, and his sword coming in contact with his nervous hand, he drew it almost unconsciously from the scabbard. But without taking any heed of the sword, Milady endeavored to get near enough to him to stab him, and did not stop till she felt the sharp point ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... incredible conception, that a voluntary sacrifice of life should be unacceptable to God, unless offered by ferocious and impious hands. If Jesus had "authority from the Father to lay down his life," was he unable to stab himself in the desert, or on the sacred altar of the Temple, without involving guilt to any human being? Did He, who is at once "High Priest" and Victim, when "offering up himself" and "presenting ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... wicked, and you have something very valuable in your hand, so listen to me. I give you this handkerchief, it is made neither of gold, silver, silk, nor pearls, but striped linen; take good care of it, it is enchanted. Whoever carries it no thunderbolt can strike, no lance stab, no sword ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... moral and machinery; Your plot, too, has such scope for Scenery! 10 Your dialogue is apt and smart; The play's concoction full of art; Your hero raves, your heroine cries, All stab, and every body dies. In short, your tragedy would be The very thing to hear and see: And for a piece of publication, If I decline on this occasion, It is not that I am not sensible To merits in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Slone could no longer restrain conjecture and dread. He searched and searched. He got on his knees. He crawled through the sage all around the trampled space. Suddenly his heart seemed to receive a stab. He had found prints of Lucy's boots in the soft earth! And he leaped up, wild and fierce, needing to know ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... his graspless hand, and essayed to write. Oh, the agony of that effort! How every futile stroke of that pen went to the girl's heart like a stab of remorse! The name was signed at length, and in some sorry fashion. The dying man ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... utmost endeavour; since he must know that to lay open his vanity in public is no less absurd than to lay open his bosom to an enemy whose drawn sword is pointed against it; for every man hath a dagger in his hand ready to stab the vanity of another wherever ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... heard the detective's story; "but you must be aware that you run a great risk in going about the country without disguise, avowedly in search of the perpetrators of the express robbery. Of course, this man has friends, and they will not hesitate to shoot or stab, as they did in the ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... wounded—not bad neither. Chane has got a stab in the hip—he gin the feller goss for it. Let me louze the darned thing off o' your neck. It kum mighty ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... real truth struck her more clearly than usual—for she was a shrewd old woman for all her kindness of heart—sometimes when she saw the sneers of the people who ate his salt and drank his champagne her mind went back with a bitter stab of memory to those early days in Birmingham. What had they got in exchange for their love and dreams over the kitchen fire—what Dead Sea Fruit had they plucked? If only something could happen; if only he could lose all his money, how willingly, ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... prepared to go with me all the way to Talifu. But now he feared the loneliness of the road to Chaotong. The way, he said, was mountainous and little trodden, and robbers would see the smallness of our party and "come down and stab us." I was then glad that I had not paid him the retaining fee he had asked in Chungking ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... desires to become an oborot, let him seek in the forest a hewn-down tree; let him stab it with a small copper knife, and walk round the ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... it was swimming, and putting the knife into its throat. When the buck discovered the pursuer it redoubled its efforts to reach the shore, but Paul was faster and was soon close on the antlered beauty. As he raised the knife to stab, the deer also raised and struck viciously with its front feet, and Paul barely dodged the blow which would have cut through the rubber suit like a keen edged knife. Again and again did he try to get an opening for a thrust, and as often did the deer, with ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... rain came on, and the wind was so high that all the windows and doors in the old house shook and rattled. In fact, it was just such weather as he loved. His plan of action was this. He was to make his way quietly to Washington Otis's room, gibber at him from the foot of the bed, and stab himself three times in the throat to the sound of low music. He bore Washington a special grudge, being quite aware that it was he who was in the habit of removing the famous Canterville blood-stain by means of Pinkerton's Paragon Detergent. Having reduced the ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... stab of her disclosures drew blood from Raven she could not have told. The road was narrower still, and rougher. Nan had forgotten where the stepping stones came out. He was slackening now. She knew the curve and the point where the cliff broke on the ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... ball to the | |Navy's 43-yard line. | | | |Westphal fought a path for five yards, but then the | |Army defense held, and Von Heimberg kicked to | |Gerhardt on the Army's 10-yard line. The cadet | |quarterback flashed back thirty yards before he was | |driven out of bounds and brought to earth. A stab at| |the line failed to gain for the cadets and Coffin | |punted to Craig. | | | |The ball sailed far down the field and the Navy | |quarterback had to run back a few yards to get under| |it. But he did not get back quite far enough. As the| |ball dropped he saw he had misjudged it and threw ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... it, I will 'noint my naked throat, Which when you stab, look on your weapon's point, And you shall see't rebated [219] ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... foolish woman, Madeleine Winterbourne," nor as she had seen her first, on the terrace with Harry Wharton. It did not please Lady Selina to feel herself in any way eclipsed or even rivalled by such an unimportant person as this strange and ridiculous girl. Yet it crossed her mind with a stab, as she lay resting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that never in all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into her face with the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she had seen ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... villagers who live among the padi fields, away there across the river, dimly seen now when the moon is high? And has he helped to make them happy?—did they always sit singing there before he or others came, or did they have to watch with Krises ready, for fear of stealthy foes—foes who crept to stab beneath the raised bamboo floors. Perhaps he, too, has aided with his mite—perhaps—who knows? And as this thought occurs, the discontent will fade, while content ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... violent, silent weeping. Dillon felt the stab of that hopeless grief, which for the moment revived his own, although he could not quite understand it. Ledwith dashed away the tears after ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take a stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... throat steps out afterwards, and that's his sergeant. His living lies within the city, but his conscience lies bed-rid in one of the holes of a counter. This eel is bred too out of the mud of a bankrupt, and dies commonly with his guts ripped up, or else a sudden stab sends him of his last errand. He will very greedily take a cut with a sword, and suck more silver out of the wound than his surgeon shall. His beginning is detestable, his courses desperate, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... the soldiers told off to escort the king through the city. The procession was marching on quite smoothly, when a man, armed with a dagger, rushed out of an alley straight towards the king. Nur Mahomed, who was the nearest of the guards, threw himself in the way, and received the stab that had been apparently intended for the king. Luckily the blow was a hurried one, and the dagger glanced on his breastbone, so that, although he received a severe wound, his youth and strength quickly got the better of it. The king was, of course, obliged to take some notice of ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... severest tests of friendship to tell your friend of his faults. If you are angry with a man, or hate him, it is not hard to go to him and stab him with words; but so to love a man that you cannot hear to see the stain of sin upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words—that is friendship. But few have such friends. Our enemies usually teach us what we are, at the ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... baffled by a mind too complex to be active on the common planes. The baffling of Fate's purpose leads to a condition in life like the "slack water" between tides. Laertes, when his father is killed, raises the town and comes raving to the presence to stab the killer. He is baffled by the King's wisdom. Ophelia, "incapable of her own distress," goes mad and drowns herself. The play seems to hesitate and stand still while the energies spilled in the baffling of Fate work and simmer and grow strong, till they combine ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... divine Commands them, forth to sacrifice are led. Over their brows she pours the sacred wine, Then plucks the hairs that sprouted on the head And burns them, as the first-fruits to the dead, Calling aloud on Hecate, whose reign In Heaven and Erebus is owned with dread. These stab the victims in the throat, and drain In bowls the steaming blood that ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... loved her still if anything, more passionately than ever. But ah! what were his feelings in those days toward the flag which he had loved so dearly, which had floated proudly and undisturbed, while color prejudice, upheld by it, sent, as he thought, cruel want with drawn sword to stab his family honor to death. Belton had now lost all hope of personal happiness in this life, and as he grew more and more composed he found himself better prepared than ever to give his life wholly to the righting of ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... of Ormond's son,) and they two had hard words, upon which the latter sends a challenge to the former; of which the former complains to the House, and so the business is to be heard on Monday next. Then as to the Commons; some ugly knives, like poignards, to stab people with, about two or three hundred of them were brought in yesterday to the House, found in one of the houses rubbish that was burned, and said to be the house of a Catholique. This and several letters out of the country, saying how high the Catholiques are every where and bold in the ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... struck. Even when I daured to look, my arm was shaking so that I could see Rob both above it and below it. He was on the edge, crouching to leap. I didna see wha had haud o' the other end o' the rope. I heard the minister cry, 'No, Dow, no!' and it gae through me as quick as a stab that if Rob jumped he would knock them both into the water. But he did jump, and you ken how it was that he didna knock ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... because he failed to get an intercalary month, without the slightest ado he has stepped over to the popular side, and begun to harangue in favor of Csar." In replying to this, Cicero wrote: "The paragraph you added was indeed a stab from the point of your pen. What! Curio now become a supporter of Csar. Who could ever have expected this but myself? for, upon my life, I really did expect it. Good heavens! how I miss our laughing ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... they had gone ten miles on their way that the regret came, sudden and painful as the stab of a dagger. ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... ascended the stairs, stepping over the body of the postman, he encountered Quintero, and to him he made the same appeal, with the same success; when Blanco, springing forward, held his sword to Quintero's breast, and swearing a great oath, exclaimed, "If you do not stab him, I will kill you on the spot!" Conceive, for one moment, the situation of the unfortunate Dongo, surrounded by the murdered and the murderers in his own house, at the dead of the night, and without a hope of assistance! ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... injustice (whatever may be the object, or wheresoever it may be perpetrated) as if I was the immediate sufferer. When I read the history of a merciless tyrant, or the dark and the subtle machination of a knavish designing priest, I could on the instant set off to stab the miscreants, though I was certain to perish ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... rhetorician ought not to abuse his strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of fence;—because he has powers which are more than a match either for friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in detestation ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... am I very susceptible to friendship; but no man shall drive me from a place by terror. I had camped in Graden Sea-Wood ere he came; I camp in it still. If you think I mean harm to you or yours, madam, the remedy is in your hand. Tell him that my camp is in the Hemlock Den, and to-night he can stab me in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have intuition. Nothing else warned him. In the very nick of time he stepped back, and Yasmini's long dagger that shot forward like a stab of lightning only cut the cheek beneath the eye, and slit it to ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... floor. In my dream or vision I saw distinctly a woman in a white nightgown, with dark hair streaming down her back, rushing up this second flight of stairs in the most distraught and reckless fashion. In one hand she held a knife, and was trying to stab herself with it, as a musjig—in crimson coat—rushed after her, and endeavoured to wrench it out of her hand. Two or three other people ran up the stairs behind her, but only this peasant seemed to have the courage or presence ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... a cry of rage as he finished this awkwardly written, but tolerably intelligible letter. What could he do about it? It would hardly do to stab Myrtle Hazard, and shoot Byles Gridley, and strangle Mrs. Hopkins, every one of which homicides he felt at the moment that he could have committed. And here he was in a frantic paroxysm, and the next day was Sunday, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... though you say that their fate does not concern you, the lives of all those penned-up thousands are hostages for my own. Should you by chance find a means to stab me unawares, then to-night fire and sword would rage through the city of Zimboe. Nor do I fear the future, since I know well that you who think you hate me now, very soon ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... you send her? Think of it well. Will you put your wayward foot on her tender and feeble heart? Is her breathing so easy that you would impede it with a brutal stab? Oh, if you know no pity for yourself, have some for her. You will not murder her, will you? Yes, you reply, and the laughter of mocking devils floats up from the caves of hell—"Yes! give me more rum!" Now, hear the truth: The ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... a stab at his heart. He remembered that in a conversation with Signora Roselli and her daughter about serfdom, which, in his own words, aroused his deepest indignation, he had repeatedly assured them that never on any account would he sell his peasants, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... this Reign, the Parliamentary Constitution of Ireland received a deeper Stab than had ever before, or since, been inflicted thereon, by a Statute Law, commonly called Poynin's Act; by which a new, and, till that wretched Period, an unheard of Order, was added to the three established Ranks of the State. By this Law, the English Privy-Council may impose ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... a second put in. "Is there a man of our faith who will not, when he hears the tale, rise up and stab the nearest of this black brood—though it be his brother? If ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... stab of fear. The sound of the latch clicking into its place brought home to her the irrevocability of the step she had taken. That tall, self-locking door stood henceforth betwixt her and the dear, familiar world she had known—the world ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... sunset's fleeting glow, Kiss of friend, and stab of foe, Ooze of moon, and foam of brine, Noose of Thug, and creeper's twine, Hottest flame, and coldest ash, Priceless gems, and poorest trash; Throw away the solid part, And ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... effect that the want of healthy training leaves girls in a fit state to be the subjects of mesmerism. I would not on any condition hurt Elliotson's feelings (as I should deeply) by leaving that depreciatory kind of reference in any page of H. W. He has suffered quite enough without a stab from a friend. So pray, whatever the inconvenience may be in what Bradbury calls "the Friars," take that passage out. By some extraordinary accident, after observing it, I ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... while Olive's eyes continued to search her, accuse her, condemn her. "It's all the more reason you shouldn't give me stab after stab," she replied, with a gentleness which was ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... matter I've already told you: that it almost spoils my pleasure for you to keep reminding me that a bit of luck like this—luck for ME: I see you coming!—is after all for you but a question of business. Hang business! Good—don't stab me with that paper-knife. I listen. What IS the great affair?" Then as it looked for an instant as if the words she had prepared were just, in the supreme pinch of her need, falling apart, he once more tried his advantage. "Oh if there's any difficulty about it let it go—we'll take it for granted. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... the singing of wind at the porthole, and, now and then, the swish of waters as they swept past the schooner. He wondered what Tayoga was doing and what would Willet think when he came back to Albany and found him gone. It gave him a stab of agony. His pride was hurt, too, that he had been trapped so thoroughly. Then his resolution returned to his aid. Making a supreme effort of his will, he dismissed the thought, concentrating his mind on hope. Would Tayoga's ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of the stab his news had given me. I had not counted on anything so sudden as this parting. While he was in the house, while I was again to look upon his face, the end had not come; there was a sort of hope, though only a hope of suffering, something to look ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and he poisons all their lives. For many of us the word "God" first came into our lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, as the All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is a great convenience to the nursery-maid who wants ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... our domination, and of the puppet thrust upon them by us, seems to have found its origin in a deeper feeling. The patriotism of a savage race is marked by features repulsive to civilised communities, but through the ruthless cruelty of the indiscriminate massacre, the treachery of the stealthy stab, and the lightly broken pledges, there may shine out the noblest virtue that a virile people can possess. A semi-barbarian nation whose manhood pours out its blood like water in stubborn resistance against an alien yoke, may be pardoned for many acts shocking to civilised communities which ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... certainly saved his life; for he received in his arm a furious stab, which would have instantly killed him ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... police of Brooklyn have another | |murder mystery to unravel through the | |finding early today of the body of Peter | |Barilla on Lincoln road, near Nostrand | |avenue, Flatbush. There were two bullet | |wounds in the body and four stab wounds | ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... Spaniards, a few of whom are here among us. They are rattlesnakes; shining, glossy, malignant and revengeful beyond any fellows I ever met with. They are void, however, of one virtue of our rattlesnakes; they will stab a man to the heart without giving him any warning. I have charitably supposed that when in a violent passion, they are bereft of reason, and become entirely insane. My observations, however, like my remarks on Frenchmen are confined to ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Brother, they would, believe it: so should I (Like one of these penurious quack-salvers) But try experiments upon myself, Open the gates unto mine own disgrace, Lend bare-ribb'd envy opportunity To stab my reputation, and ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... Delhi town was very near when Lalun whispered: — "Slay! Lord of my life, the mare sinks fast — stab deep and let me die!" But Scindia would not, and the maid tore free and flung away, And turning as she fell we ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... in an address many years ago, to illustrate the differences between people of different sections, said: "If you call a Mississippian a liar, he will challenge you to a duel; call a Kentuckian a liar, he will stab you with a bowie-knife or shoot you down; call an Indianian a liar, he will say, 'You're another;' call a New Englander a liar, he will say, 'I bet you a dollar ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... "that is the man who has called upon me for orders from the English tailors. His name, I believe, was, as you say, Allen. But can you tell me, Monsieur the Commissioner, how it was possible for a man to stab himself from the shoulder downwards through ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that long agony, Helbeck's soul parted for ever with the first fresh power to suffer. Neither life nor death could ever stab in such wise again. The half of personality—the chief forces of that Helbeck whom Laura had loved, were already dead with Laura, when, after many hours, his arms gave her back to the Sisters, and she dropped ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Cassius knelt with the rest before Caesar. Hugh saw his hand seek the handle of his sword, saw the end of the sheath tilt upwards under his robe as the blade slipped out of it. Then came the sudden outburst of animal ferocity long held in leash, of stab on stab, the self-recovery, the cold stare at the dead figure with ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... faithlessness; I wish to be the first to break with you, and you shall not have the pleasure of driving me away. I shall find it hard, I know, to conquer the love I feel for you; it will bring grief to me; I am sure, to suffer for a while; but I will overcome it, and I had rather stab myself to the heart than be weak ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)
... one of the wounds given by the bravo Scoronconcolo, whom Lorenzino had hired to assist him in the murder, and who ran up to complete the job when his master was disabled by being fast held by the teeth of Alexander, was a stab in the face. And of the truth of this tradition also the skull of the murdered man still affords evidence; for on the left-hand side of the face, a little below the socket of the eye, there is a mark in the bone beneath the cheek which must have been made by the point of the sword or dagger ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... demands it, Ernani shall be prepared to take his own life. Charles's magnanimity frustrates the conspiracy, and Silva, defeated alike in love and ambition, claims the fulfilment of Ernani's oath, despite the prayers of Elvira, who is condemned to see her lover stab himself in her presence. Hugo's melodrama suited Verdi's blood-and-thunder style exactly. 'Ernani' is crude and sensational, but its rough vigour never descends to weakness, though it often comes dangerously near to vulgarity. 'Ernani' is the opera most typical of Verdi's earliest period. ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... marrying, (except when sent for,) always eating or sleeping, and annually having their throats cut. The bee-massacre takes place in July; when accordingly all our nobility and gentry would be out of town, with a vengeance! The women would draw their swords, and hunt and stab them all about the West end, till Brompton and Bayswater would be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... you have to lure and humour your antagonist like a child. The wooing is as intricate and delicate as any wooing can well be. To quarrel now, indeed, requires an infinity of patience. The good old days of thumb-biting—"Do you bite your thumbs at us, sir?" and so to clash and stab—are gone ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... few hours the space surrounding the system of the Fenachrone was clear; then progress slackened as it became harder and harder to locate each vessel as the distance between it and its torpedo increased. Time after time Seaton would stab forward with his detector screen extended to its utmost possible spread, upon the most carefully plotted prolongation of the line of the torpedo's flight, only to have the projection flash far beyond the vessel's furthest possible position ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... hurt you, so you see how I am proven mean. Give me your hand and laugh to me; laugh with your heart and eyes and lips. I am jealous of your pain. I am a woman. I would have it all, gather it all into my bosom, and cherish each sharp stab like a flower my lover gives to me. I am glad of them. They are flowers that will not wither. Add a kiss, sweetheart, the sharpest stab, and so the chief flower, the very rose of flowers. There, that is well," and she rose from her knees ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... if then the tyrants dare, Let them ride among you there, Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew— What they like, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... trampled, steel rang. A furious pass from the Jerseyman was with difficulty caught in Elliot's cloak, and the sword for a moment hampered. Before Le Gallais could extricate it, Elliot, with a savage cry, ran in upon him, drawing back his elbow, so as to stab his adversary with a shortened sword. A scuffle ensued, of which no bystander could follow with his eye the full details, till the Scot's sword was seen to turn upwards, and the point to pierce his own throat. Each combatant fell backwards, Le Gallais ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... stab of memory, he saw that desperate smile on her lips. Then she spoke with the clear courage of her ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of the same length then as now, a pike-thrust was as effective as the stab of the most improved bayonet, and when it came, as it was always the purpose to do, to the close embrace of foemen, the work was done as thoroughly as it could be in this second half of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I've ever seen, this young Hollister was a nice, quiet, peaceable chap, with all the earmarks of a perfect gent. He'd been brought up from the South and put into Purdy-Pell's offices, and he'd made a fair stab at holdin' down his job. But of course, bein' turned loose in New York for the first time, I expect he went out now and then to see what was goin' on under ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... Words can be like Blows, and Blue Eyes stab deep; how Queed sits by a Bedside and reviews his Life; and how a Thought leaps at him ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... cowardice—fortunately they know me well enough to despise the accusation, and discipline will not suffer. Of the outrage to myself I say nothing. I make all allowance for your excited state. Many would think it necessary to repay your hard words by a shot or a stab; I can afford to laugh at any who blame my forbearance. When next we meet the enemy, look where the fire is hottest, and you will be convinced that the names of coward and of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... salty stuff that had filled his eyes and ears, so that when he got to a branch of one of the rivers up there that was bubbling over rocks and stones just as this may be, and—ah, stoopid! Missed him!" cried Joses, after making a tremendous stab at a salmon. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... round and round the table, making snatches at one another, gradually assuming the characters of hunter and Red Indian. Only when the hunter had snatched up Aunt Jane's tortoise-shell paper-cutter to stab with, complaining direfully that it was a stupid place, with nothing for a gun, and the Red Indian's crinoline had knocked down two chairs, she recollected the consequences in time to strangle her own war-whoop, and suggested that they should be ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... know! It isn't like a needle prick in the finger; it's far more painful than that. You see the cursed thing consumes a man. From jealousy people stab one another, and poison one another with arsenic! [Laughs spasmodically and coughs] But when any one falls in love with an old man, then all is peaceful for his wife. And here's something else I will tell you, my dear ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... recompense. They cared for their cause as well as for the English Queen, and they had their reward. If they saved her they saved their own country. She too did not lie on a bed of roses. To prevent open war she was exposing her own life to the assassin. At any moment a pistol-shot or a stab with a dagger might add Elizabeth to the list of victims. She knew it, yet she went on upon her own policy, and faced in her person her own share of the risk. One thing only she did. If she would ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... together; they seemed sharply marked off then from all the unprecedented world storm that rushed together without, vividly aware of one another, only concerned with one another. Then the door would open again, messengers would enter, or a sharp bell would stab their quiet privacy, and it was like a window in a well built brightly lit house flung open suddenly to a hurricane. The dark hurry and tumult, the stress and vehemence of the battle rushed in and overwhelmed them. They were no longer persons but mere spectators, mere impressions of ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... caused the lady, who was standing at Newman's elbow, to turn around; or perhaps it was the feel of Swope's burning eyes that spun her about so quickly. He was raising his arm, the arm that held the gun, not quickly but slowly and carefully. With a stab of horror I saw him aim, not at the man, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... introduced into all their political measures corruption, cruelty, and avarice. And indeed the story is well known, and celebrated in many literary compositions, that a certain Decimus Virginius was obliged, on account of the libidinous violence of one of these decemvirs, to stab his virgin daughter in the midst of the forum. Then, when he in his desperation had fled to the Roman army which was encamped on Mount Algidum, the soldiers abandoned the war in which they were engaged, and took possession of the Sacred Mount, as they had done before on a similar ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... were our fond dreams baffled! - Novara's sad mischance, The Kaiser's sword and fetter-lock, And the traitor stab of France; Till at last came glorious Venice, In storm and tempest home; And now God maddens the greedy kings, And ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... public censure of folly; never did man stay in his company unentertained, or leave it uninstructed; never was his understanding biassed, or his pleasantness forced; never did he laugh in the wrong place, or prostitute his sense to serve his luxury; never did he stab into the wounds of fallen virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of prosperous villany, with the paint and washes of a mercenary wit; never did he spare a sop for being rich, or flatter a knave for being great. He had a wit that was accompanied with an unaffected greatness ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... smoking swords, but ere they could stab again, the Abbot leaped full five feet high, and fell with a tremendous crash against the door below, carrying it away with him like a sheet of paper, and through the aperture the glare of torches burst on the awe-struck faces ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... was down with the fever when they found me, and Alvarez gave me the appointment. And this is how I reward them. If I stay I do more harm. If I go away I leave them surrounded by enemies, and not enemies who fight fair, but damned thieves and scoundrels, who stab at women and who fight in the dark. I wouldn't have had it happen, old man, for my right arm! They—they have been so kind to me, and I have been so happy here—and now!" The boy bowed his face in his hands and ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... about these recent biological experiments of Dr. Carrel, of the Rockefeller Institute: they seem to prove that the life of a man is not merely the sum of the life of the myriad cells of his body. Stab the man to death, and the cells of his body still live and will continue to live if grafted upon another live man. Probably every part of the body would continue to live and grow indefinitely, in the proper ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... the casket and took out the ring, which shone through her fingers like the brightest sun-ray. Then she placed it in jest on the middle finger of her left hand, and told the youth to take a knife and stab her with it wherever he liked, for it would not hurt her. The youth protested against the proposed experiment; but, as she insisted, he was obliged to humour her. At first he began in play, and then in earnest to try to strike the maiden ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... boy had drawn his knife also, but Edgar exclaimed to him in his own language, "No, no, pick up the other knife, and then stand over him, but don't stab him." Then he turned to his first assailant, who was rising to his feet, still confused and bewildered. He ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... director in New York. He'll do innumerable things to it while he's 'setting it,' as he calls getting it ready for rehearsals. All the actors and actresses will be allowed at times to butcher and scalp their parts and everybody will stab. And if you are a plucky girl you'll sit still and see it done. There will come lots of times that everything you suggest, even very timidly, will be thrust down your throat; but if they are vital they will get under the hide of Bill and opening night you'll see that your pluck ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Duncannon, provided for its introduction. Later on the historian Grote became its chief supporter in the House of Commons; and from 1833 to 1839, in spite of the ridicule cast by Sydney Smith on the "mouse-trap," and on Grote's "dagger-box, in which you stab the card of your favourite candidate with a dagger,"[1] the minority for the ballot increased from 106 to 217. In 1838 the ballot was the fourth point of the People's Charter. In the same year the abolition of the land qualification introduced rich commercial candidates to the constituencies. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... chimney-sweeper above, is the very quintessence of affectation. He has all the airs and graces of a boarding-school miss. The sanctified quaker adjoining, and the fellow beneath, who, by the way, is a very similar figure to Captain Stab, in the Rake's Progress, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... Though two things there be hidden in one name, And Shame can be slow poison if it will; This is the truth I saw then, and see still; Nor is there any magic that can stain That white truth for me, or make me blind again. Come, I will show thee how my spirit hath moved. When the first stab came, and I knew I loved, I cast about how best to face mine ill. And the first thought that came, was to be still And hide my sickness.—For no trust there is In man's tongue, that so well admonishes And counsels and betrays, and waxes fat With griefs of its own gathering!—After that ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... moral law within." He makes the latter sense a development of the gregarious and social instincts; and so travellers have observed that the moral is the last step in mental progress. His Moors are the savage Dankali and other negroid tribes, who offer a cup of milk with one hand and stab with the other. He translates literally the Indian word Hathi (an elephant), the animal with the Hath (hand, or trunk). Finally he alludes to the age of active volcanoes, the present, which is merely temporary, the shifting of the Pole, and ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... years old again. I go through every stage of that agony. I once had it sitting in my own postchaise, with my wife actually by my side. Who dared to sully her sweet love with suspicion? Who had a right to stab such a soft bosom? Don't you see my ladies getting their knives ready, and the poor child baring it? My wife comes in. She has been serving out tea or tobacco to some of her pensioners. "What is it makes you look so angry, papa?" she says. "My love!" I say, "it is the thirteenth of April." ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... despairingly, "kill me! send me to Heaven! send me to my mother, but don't stab me with such bitter words;" and she trembled with an emotion so much more powerful and convulsing than his, in which temper had a large share, that she ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... enemy, darted with redoubled fury upon this second antagonist; and so fierce and sudden was his onset, that before the boor could stab him with his hunting-knife, he had struck him in the eyes with his claws, and torn the scalp over his forehead. In this frightful condition the hunter grappled with the raging beast, and struggling for life, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... For the vessel bearing orders to the Legions sails from Alexandria at the following dawn; and alone with Cleopatra, since she wills that the thing be kept secret as the sea, thou wilt read the message of the stars. And as she pores over the papyrus, then must thou stab her in the back, so that she dies; and see thou that thy will and arm fail thee not! The deed being done—and indeed it will be easy—thou wilt take the signet and pass out to where the eunuch is—for the others will be wanting. If by any chance there is trouble ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... what it meant. It was Napoleon's last great effort to crush us. There were but two more hours of light, and if we could hold our own for those all would be well. Starved and weary and spent, we prayed that we might have strength to load and stab and fire while one of us stood upon ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... murder done second-hand is quite cheap and easy—just a stab with a dah, or long knife, and the body flung into the Irrawaddy; you know the pace of that racing current and how it tells no tales! Well, here we are! You see, for once I can discourse of other things than horses; and, talking of horses, these fellows had better ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... therapy 24 hours a day! And it makes use of all that empty wire. We've revived the ideas of a pioneer dynamic psycher named Dr. Coue. For instance, right now my tickler is saying to me—in tones too soft to reach my conscious mind, but do they stab into the unconscious!—'Day by day in every way I'm getting sharper and sharper.' It alternates that with 'gutsier and gutsier' and ... well, forget that. Coue mostly used 'better and better' but that seems too general. ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... given to the glorious phrase, "the Will of God." I do not exaggerate when I say that in most Caucasian minds the Will of God is a bitter, ruthless force, to which we can only drug ourselves into submission. It is always ready to thwart us, to stab us in the back, or to strike us where our affections are tenderest. We hold our blessings only on the tenure of its caprice. Our pleasures are but the stolen moments we can snatch from ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King |
