"Abusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... temper, and Ernest was forced to admit that unforeseen developments might arise to disconcert him. They say it takes nine tailors to make a man, but Ernest felt that it would take at least nine Ernests to make a Mr Holt. How if, as soon as Ernest came in, the tailor were to become violent and abusive? What could he do? Mr Holt was in his own lodgings, and had a right to be undisturbed. A legal right, yes, but had he a moral right? Ernest thought not, considering his mode of life. But put this on one side; if the man were to be violent, what should he do? Paul ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and above all things ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... drove the men to their work but they were less abusive than usual. They seemed to reflect Blackbeard's milder humor and it was manifest that they wished to avoid the crew's resentment. Joe Hawkridge was puzzled and began to ferret it out among his ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... exposed to this oppression without a remedy. Though men of reflection, too, have some times complained of the law of settlements as a public grievance; yet it has never been the object of any general popular clamour, such as that against general warrants, an abusive practice undoubtedly, but such a one as was not likely to occasion any general oppression. There is scarce a poor man in England, of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who has not, in some part of his life, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... always anxious to conciliate public favor. They know that they exist by sufferance—by sufferance of a mightier than themselves. In proportion as they know themselves to be aggressors and spoliators their anxiety increases. Every abusive power in the world is thus driven to adopt schemes and devices—some dangerous and some merely ludicrous—to keep a footing at that silent bar of opinion before which all wrong must, sooner or later, quail ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... girls without the savage brutality of the lash, and the teacher who met his pupils with a caressing smile was considered unworthy his vocation. Learning must be thrashed into the tender mind; nothing was such a stimulus to the young memory as the lash and the vulgar, abusive reproof of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... Creed, and dined together, and then I went to the Theatre and there saw Bartholomew Faire, the first time it was acted now a-days. It is a most admirable play and well acted, but too much prophane and abusive. From thence, meeting Mr. Creed at the door, he and I went to the tobacco shop under Temple Bar gate, and there went up to the top of the house and there sat drinking Lambeth ale a good while. Then away home, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Trenchard, who was, very clumsily, climbing into the carriage. Nikolai looked at him gravely. His round, red face was quite expressionless as he turned back and began to abjure his horses in that half-affectionate, half-abusive and wholly human whispering exclamation that Russians use ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... hour, in order to traverse the bit of way to the Manege, where the National Assembly met. Before the doors of this building the cries were doubled; the attorney-general harangued the mob, and sought to quiet it, and pushed the royal family into the narrow corridor, in which, hemmed in by abusive crowds, they made their way forward slowly. At last the hall doors opened, and as Marie Antoinette passed in behind the king, Toulan gave the little dauphin to her, who flung both his arms around ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... will become of those long groans and unsatisfied complaints of your slaves, for vexing them with insulting words, placing them in the power of dogish and abusive overseers, or under your stripling, misguided, hot-headed son, to drive and whip at pleasure, and for selling parts or whole families to Georgia? They will all meet you at that bar. Uncle James True, Charles Cooper, Aunt Jenny, ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... was so enraged at the replies made by the prisoner, that he struck him on the face, used many abusive speeches, and attempted to stab him, which he had certainly done had he not been prevented by the Jesuits: and from this time he ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... That said Richd. Haddon's Lieut. Chrsr. Miller by Name, with some of the Mariners belonging to said Privateer, did treat this Deponent and Comp'y belonging to said Spanish Schooner with threatning and abusive Language on Returning them on board said Spanish Vessel. That said Rd. Haddon did not offer to bring this Depont. and People to New York, for as was declared before He did not mention New York nor did this Deponent and People know he came ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... in dispute. An affront to a lad was answered at the pistol's mouth. The sense of quick responsibility tempered the tongues of even the most violent, and the newspapers of South Carolina for eight years, it is said, did not contain one abusive word. The ownership of slaves, even more than of realty, held families steadfast on their estates, and everywhere prevailed the sociability of established neighborhoods. Money counted least in making the social status, and constantly ambitious and brilliant youngsters from ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... retorted, trembling with rage—for he saw the advantage he had given the enemy. 'Since when had laundry maids lawyers? Client! Pho! Begone, sir! You are abusive. I'll have you looked up on the rolls. I'll have your ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... forgot her own situation, thinking only of the man she loved. Never having been called to endure any kind of abusive treatment, Isabella was not fitted to sustain herself against the brutality of Mrs. Miller, much less the combined ferociousness of the old woman and the overseer too. Suffice it to say, that instead of whipping Isabella, Mrs. Miller transferred her to the negro-speculator, who took her ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... seldom in command, the master was proportionally tyrannical and abusive—he swore at the men, made them do the duty twice and thrice over on the pretence that it was not smartly done, and found fault with ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... handsome; and feeling that his dignity would suffer if an inferior should venture to intrude on him information of such a nature. We know that a common fellow will take pleasure in saying, "That prince is humpbacked;" therefore, it is abusive to say that a lord is deformed. To the few words dropped on the subject by the queen the Lord Chancellor had contented himself with replying, "The face of a peer is ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... remained in the background, looking anxious. "We're attending to man the iniquitous now," she called to them kindly to relieve their minds. "He's been too much for you, it seems, but we'll soon settle him." "You're a nasty-minded woman," said the pope. "Always abusive, old candles and vestments," Angelica retorted. "Candles and vestments—in excess" said the Archbishop of York hurriedly. "Where?" And he went off to see about them. "To the pure all things are pure," a powerful voice proclaimed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Mopsus and his donkey reached the old man, and as the youth, without looking to the right or left, dealt the animal another thwack, again uttering the house-keeper's name, and in connection with it a succession of harsh, abusive words, Jason looked at the young man ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cried the gentleman thus addressed, grinning in mingled rage and triumph. 'She can't deny it if her life depended on it!' and muttering some more abusive language, he walked into the hall, and took up his hat and ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... abusive thing—if it is so," said she, with much feeling; for if anything could move her gentle heart to anger, it was cruelty to animals. "What made Mr. Grimes behave so strangely, ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... their advice. He was still commanding officer de jure, but he had lost all stomach for its functions. He would have been glad to send for Blake and beg his pardon for submitting to his insubordinate and abusive language, if that course could have stopped inquiry; but he well knew that the whole thing would be noised abroad in less than no time. At first he thought to give orders against the telegraph-operator's sending any messages concerning ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... doubt it would be quite Ossianic—equal to any of the abusive scenes in Homer. But, my dear Harding, how are you? You are come to eat your Christmas ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing and upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, as far as I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and abusive." p. 133. "Another objection to their movements is, that they have sought to accomplish their object by a system of agitation; that is, by a system of affiliated societies gathered, and held together, and extended, by passionate ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... woman to dream that she hears abusive language, foretells that she will fall under the ban of some person's jealousy and envy. If she uses the language herself, she will meet with unexpected rebuffs, that may fill her with mortification and remorse for her past unworthy conduct ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... with you, about this matter or any other, here and now. Later on, perhaps, when you can speak without being abusive, I shall take the liberty of telling you what I think of you." And at that, he gave his horses the rein and drove on, swiftly, abruptly, leaving the president and his guests to follow ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... contained the "Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript," contained two articles, one probably by Wilson, on Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria," the other, signed "Z," by Lockhart, being the first of a series on "The Cockney School of Poetry." They were both clever, but abusive, and ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... then, should be to prevent a breach; our second, to secure that, if it does occur, our friendship should seem to have died a natural rather than a violent death. Next, we should take care that friendship is not converted into active hostility, from which flow personal quarrels, abusive language, and angry recriminations. These last, however, provided that they do not pass all reasonable limits of forbearance, we ought to put up with, and, in compliment to an old friendship, allow the party that inflicts the injury, not the one that submits to ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... many men, by their own vice and intemperance, disqualify themselves for conversation. Conversation is immoral, where the discourse is undecent, immodest, scandalous, slanderous, and abusive. How great is their folly, and how much do they expose themselves when they affront their best friend, even God himself, who laughs at the fool when his ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... treatment of the Launceston prisoners, and their release followed after a little while. It was noted also, in proof of his personal kindness towards the Quakers, that, though he received letters from some of them violently abusive of himself and his government, he never showed ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Malone. I declined to come to you. Then you came to me. As yet you have shown no reason for the visit except to swear around my office like a drunken and abusive pirate. If you have nothing for temperate discussion, I will now say good-day to you. Take with you the honors of war, sir. You have outcussed me. I acknowledge your superiority in billingsgate—"—he paused and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... body. If a man sat even a few inches apart from his fellows, people would say he was out of caste; and in recent times, since those out of caste have been allowed to attend the feasts, they sit a little apart in this manner. The Gowaris fine a man who uses abusive language to a fellow-casteman at a caste feast, and also one who gets up and leaves the feast without the permission of the caste headman. The Hatkars have as the names of two exogamous groups Wakmar, or one who left the Pangat or caste feast while his fellows were eating; and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... hours of these weeks and months of torture did he lose his dignity or his lofty bearing quail before his tormentor. He was too refined and dignified to be abusive, and too proud in General ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the national tradition. He was easiest intrigued, not by force and originality, but by a sickly, Ladies' Home Journal sort of piquancy; it was this that made him see a genius in the Philadelphia Zola, W. B. Trites, and that led him to hymn an abusive business letter by Frank A. Munsey, author of "The Boy Broker" and "Afloat in a Great City," as a significant human document. Moreover Howells ran true to type in another way, for he long reigned as the leading Anglo-Saxon authority on the Russian novelists ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... low-skilled work in Iraq; some of these workers are deceived as to the true location and nature of this work, and others are subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude in Iraq tier rating: Tier 3 - insufficient efforts in 2007 to prosecute and punish abusive employers and those who traffic women for sexual exploitation; the government failed for the fourth year in a row to live up to promises to provide shelter and protective services for victims of involuntary domestic servitude and other ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... I think we had refused some form of quarantine that modern medical science considers worse than useless. The tone of the press all through the Transvaal War did attract some attention in this country, and since then from time to time we are presented with quotations from abusive articles about our greed, our perfidy, and our presumption. I am not writing as a journalist, for I know nothing whatever of journalism; but as a member of the general public I believe that we are inclined to overrate the importance of these amenities, because we overrate the ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... affairs. When she had learned all she wished to know, and had given her advice in the tone of a command not to be disobeyed, she would retire, leaving the evidence of her trail behind her in the shape of a nauseous little tract with an abusive title. It was no use any poor creature refusing to see Mrs Pansey, for she forced herself into the most private chambers, and never would retire unless she thought fit to do so of her own will. It was for this reason that Cargrim ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Short-sightedly to school. Then the "free-lover," Mouthing out IBSEN, or some cynic ballad Made against matrimony. Then a spouter, Full of long words and windy; a wire-puller, Jealous of office, fond of platform-posing, Seeking that bubble She-enfranchisement E'en with abusive mouth. Then County-Councillor, Her meagre bosom shrunk and harshly lined, Full of "land-laws" and "unearned increment"; Or playing M.P. part. The sixth age shifts Into the withered sour She-pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and "Gamp" at side, Her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... experiments the "party truce," in the moral as distinct from the formal sense, still held good. Outside the circles of strict pacifism—and with pacifism in any but a merely abusive sense we never had any concern—English people were agreed upon the great questions of the war. Such differences of opinion as there were concerned only questions of method and expediency, not questions of principle. ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... city of Siena. The two young fellows wagged their heads without saying a word, and withdrew inside the house. Their father, stung to fury by the scolding of that respectable gentleman, poured out a volley of abusive blasphemies, and levelled his spontoon, swearing he would murder me. When I saw him determined to do some act of bestial violence, I pointed the muzzle of my arquebuse, with the object only of keeping him at a distance. Doubly enraged by this, he flung himself upon me. Though I ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... knocked a man down in Gracechurch Street has summoned him for using abusive language. It seems a pity that pedestrians cannot be knocked down without ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... grisly kind of practical joke. And Mr. Downing and his house realised this. The house's way of signifying its comprehension of the fact was to be cold and distant as far as the seniors were concerned, and abusive and pugnacious as regards the juniors. Young blood had been shed overnight, and more flowed during the eleven o'clock interval that morning ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... them. On looking round he saw a dram shop near at hand; steps led down from the footpath to the basement, and Raskolnikoff saw two drunkards coming out at that moment, leaning heavily on each other and exchanging abusive language. The young man barely paused before he descended the steps. He had never before entered such a place, but he felt dizzy and was also suffering from intense thirst. He had a craving for some beer, partly because he attributed his weakness to an empty stomach. Seating himself in a dark ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the nonsense, which ill becomes a sedate young attorney taking his vacation with an invalid father. Drop me a line, dear Jack, and tell me how you really are. State your case. Write me a long, quite letter. If you are violent or abusive, I'll take ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and howling. Poems came fluttering down on all sides; the first that fell upon Corilla's head, Cardinal Albani eagerly seized and unfolded for the purpose of reading it aloud. But after the first few lines his voice was silenced—it was an abusive poem, full of mockery ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... carried much too far in the State, and if it is not stopped, will soon prove to be a very heavy tax on the white man. Every native demands a tip on every possible occasion whether he has done a service or not, and if he has done some work and is only paid his due, is as discontented and abusive as a cabman who has only received his ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... and the city magistrates, from whom he vainly demanded satisfaction in a dignified letter,[20] were snubbed by their superiors. About the same time (April 1645) Schoock was summoned before the university of Groningen, of which he was a member, and forthwith disavowed the more abusive passages in his book. So did the effects of the odium theologicum, for the meanwhile at least, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... with bags of rice and bales of paper; the hands aboard this boat indulge in a lively quarrel, during the evening chow-chow, and bang one another about in the liveliest manner. The peculiar indignation that finds expression in abusive language no doubt reaches its highest state of perfection in the Celestial mind. No other human being is capable of soaring to the height of the Chinaman's falsetto modulations, as he heaps reproaches and cuss-words on his enemy's queue-adorned head. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... abundantly. The story in this newspaper is rather awkwardly and pompously told. It has been gathered up, I presume, from different relations of the facts. This newspaper (The Washington Federalist) has been for months past, and, for aught I know (for I read none of them), still is, one of the most abusive against A. Burr. I am told that several papers lately make some qualified compliments; thus, for instance, referring to Judge Chace's trial—"He conducted with the dignity and impartiality of an angel, but with the rigour of a devil." May God have ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Puloroon was surrendered to us, and our consequent right to keep possession for the king of England, which we were determined upon doing to the utmost of our power, wishing them to be well advised in their proceedings, as they might expect to be shortly called to answer for their abusive words and injurious conduct to the English. We also demanded the restoration of Puloway, which had likewise been lawfully surrendered to the king of England. After this, we enquired if they had received any previous surrender at Puloroon, but they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... Allah make cold thy face!"may it show want and misery. "By Allah, a cold speech!"a silly or abusive tirade (Pilgrimage, ii. 22). ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... abusive, wrong-headed fellow," he mused, as he made his way home. "Who would ever have thought, though, that the queer little chemist had so much in him? A failure? ... yes, he was right there; and as unlovely as failures always are—at close quarters." But ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... York efforts were now being made to gain support for a liberal divorce bill, patterned after the Indiana law, and a variety of proposals were before the legislature, making drunkenness, insanity, desertion, and cruel and abusive treatment grounds for divorce. Horace Greeley in his Tribune had been vigorously opposing a more liberal law for New York, while Robert Dale Owen of Indiana wrote in its defense. Everywhere people were reading the Greeley-Owen debates in the Tribune. Through his widely circulated ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... rather a cooler for Cowels. It took a vast amount of wind out of his sails, but he was on his feet and so had to make a speech. He was not very abusive, but managed to make it plain that there were others ready and able to lead if their leader failed to do his duty. When he had succeeded in getting his train of thought out over the switches his hearers, especially the no-surrenderers, began to enthuse. His speech was made picturesque ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... and tended him when he was unwell. "Gad, it's a hard thing to lose a fellow of that sort: but he must go," thought the Major. "He has grown rich, and impudent since he has grown rich. He was horribly tipsy and abusive to-night. We must part, and I must go out of the lodgings. Dammy, I like the lodgings; I'm used to 'em. It's very unpleasant, at my time of life, to change my quarters." And so on, mused the old ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the party which promised to better their lot, rather than for the party which could only recommend them to be contented and to improve themselves. To secure their support it was only necessary to be extravagant of promises and abusive of employers who refused to pay them ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... drew them together, as wickedness is in general most congenial to wickedness; but the beginning of the general confusion originated with the woman. Accustomed to the secret conversations of the husband of another, there was no abusive language that she did not use about her husband to his brother, about her sister to her sister's husband, asserting that it would have been better for herself to remain unmarried, and he single, than ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... is very peremptory, and even abusive. He charges every body who has said any thing to the contrary with imposture. "Egli non v' ha dubbio, che le troppe imprudenti e temerarie parole, che il Tasso si lascio uscir di bocca in questo incontro, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... witness of its ferocious feasting, the true motive of which was unknown to me, I treated it to all the unfavourable epithets I could think of; called it assassin, bandit, pirate, robber of the dead. Ignorance is always abusive; the man who does not know is full of violent affirmations and malign interpretations. Undeceived by the facts, I hasten to apologise and express my esteem for the Philanthus. In emptying the stomach of the bee the mother is performing the most praiseworthy ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... that the good schoolmaster never lost his temper. There was a man who thought he would try to make him angry. He said many harsh and abusive words to the teacher, and even cursed him. But the only reply the teacher made was, "Friend, may the Lord have mercy ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... opened, and three or four policemen came in, each leading a man by the collar, the ordinary riffraff of the street, charged with petty offences. One was very drunk and abusive. He attracted the attention of everybody in the room by his antics. He insisted on dancing a breakdown which he called the "Essence of Jeems' River"; and in the scuffle which followed, first one and then the other ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... by Winthrop to this arrangement were of a nature so violent, so vigorous, at one moment so specious and conciliatory, and the next so abusive, that his listeners were moved by awe, but ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... blazing down upon them in the white sand and almost parboiling them, brought anything but relief. The circle of torturers formed about Jerry again, and again was wreaked upon him all abusive contempt for having lost his taboo. What drove Jerry the maddest were not the blows and physical torment, but the laughter. No dog enjoys being laughed at, and Jerry, least of all, could restrain his wrath when they jeered him and cackled close in ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... field will be better tilled, the bullocks will be better driven, the wife will be more wisely, tenderly, and sacredly loved if in your hearts Christ is enthroned, and whatsoever you do you do as for Him. It is only the excessive and abusive possession of His gifts and absorption in our duties and relations that turns them into impediments in the path of our Christian life. And the flimsiness of the excuse is manifest by the fact that the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... adversary's Brutus, grand as you survey his chin, heroic at the last button of his waistcoat, unappeased at the very knees of his superior kersey continuations, inexorable at the commencement of his straps, and about to become abusive at his shoe-ties, the first cooler of your wrath will be the Hoby-like arched instep of his genuine Wellingtons, which, even as a drop of oil upon the troubled ocean, will extend itself over the heretofore ruffled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... listening with that agonizing wakefulness with which we follow something that threatens us, that is about to attack us. For this sound grew strangely expressive. Billy thought she could hear in it quick, angry words, a voice that discontentedly muttered abusive epithets to itself. Then when the rhythm of this voice changed, Billy held her breath with agitation. "Now he is walking on tiptoe," she thought, "now he is approaching the door." Boris cautiously reentered the room and stood still at the foot of the bed. She heard distinctly the faint clink ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... South at once to intercept Castro. On the twenty-eighth, Stockton issued a proclamation in which he asserted that Mexico was the instigator of the present difficulties, and justified the United States in seizing the Californias. He denounced Castro in violent terms as an usurper, a boasting and abusive chief, and accused him of having violated every principle of national hospitality and good faith toward Captain Fremont and his surveying party. Stockton sailed for the South the same day in the Congress, leaving a number of officers ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... arrived there the cabman's extortionate charge was refused. He persisted in it, and she sent into the house for her employer. Of all men, Mark Twain was the last one to countenance an extortion. He reasoned with the man kindly enough at first; when the driver at last became abusive Clemens demanded his number, which was at first refused. In the end he paid the legal fare, and in the morning entered a formal complaint, something altogether unexpected, for the American public is accustomed to suffering ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... lectures. He does not answer my arguments—he attacks me; and the replies that I have seen are not worth answering. They are far below the dignity of the question under discussion. Most of them are ill-mannered, as abusive as illogical, and as malicious as weak. I cannot reply without feeling humiliated. I cannot use their weapons, and my weapons they do not understand. I attack Christianity because it is cruel, and they account for all my actions ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "A friend told me, that the Patriarch wondered how I should pretend that I held to the Christian religion, and still converse in such abusive terms against it. And I also wondered, after he saw this, that he should not be willing so much as to ask me, in mildness and forbearance, for what reasons I was unwilling to receive the doctrines of the Pope, or to say, that I believed ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... at the Gen. Assem. of the Pres. Ch. He wrote home lately that he never saw a mob that made use of viler language than did the best of citizens there in their denouncings of the South. I confess, however, that this is not a one-sided affair; for I have heard equally abusive language applied to the North by the people South. As before, then, let us "strike hands" on this point also, for both sections are equally culpable. As to the strength of individuals in the two sections, it must ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... general's position, but Jackson's course in the matter was certainly rather high-handed. General Winfield Scott criticised it in private conversation, and a mischief-maker brought his words to Jackson's attention. The result was some fiery and abusive letters to Scott, and a challenge to a duel, which Scott, on religious grounds, very properly declined. Jackson also carried on an angry correspondence with General Adair, of Kentucky, who defended the Kentucky troops from the charge of cowardice ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... Bentley in his attack on Collins the freethinker, enjoying "rare sport,"—"rat-hunting in an old rick;" and "laying about him in high glee, braining an authority at every blow." (p. 308.) "Coarse, arrogant, and abusive, with all Bentley's worst faults of style and temper, this masterly critique is decisive." (p. 307.) And yet, you are not to rejoice! "The 'Discourse of Freethinking' was a small tract published in 1713 by Anthony Collins, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... heard them breathe one generous hope that other men or women would grow happy and prosperous. I never heard them speak a kindly sentence for one of their ranks who had fallen upon evil days. They were selfish, they were brutally abusive, they were ridiculously conceited, they were all geniuses held down by a conspiracy of managers, they were card and dice sharpers, they were willing at any time to act the part of procurer or procuress for a consideration of drinks and suppers. I was rejoiced ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... occasion of some dispute between Fimbria and the quaestor Flaccus threatened to send him back to Rome whether he liked it or not, and when the other consequently made some abusive reply deprived him of his command. Fimbria set out upon his return with the worst possible will and on reaching the soldiers at Byzantium greeted them as if he were upon the point of departure, asked for a letter, and lamented ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... by my wife for the sake of her son!' In his insane fury he jumbled together indiscriminately the abusive patois of his native hillside, 'Ah la garso! Ah li bongri!' with the classical exclamations of Harpagon bewailing his casket, Justice, justice du ciel!' and other select extracts often recited to his pupils. It was as light as day in the bright rays of the tall electric ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... and stormy in the "parvas" that ensue. The two enormous hosts march to the field, generalissimos are selected, and defiances of the most violent and abusive sort exchanged. Yet there are traces of a singular civilisation in the rules which the leaders draw up to be observed in the war. Thus, no stratagems are to be used; the fighting men are to fraternise, if they will, after each combat; none may slay the flier, the unarmed, the charioteer, ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... such fervency Of gesture, and similitude; Such depths of love, and purity His hearers marvelled, as they stood; Nor through his discourse, was there heard, Abusive, vain, or ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... wanting to keep the ship afloat longer than there was any absolute need for; and that the time had now arrived when they must begin to think of saving their own personal belongings. When I attempted to remonstrate with them and point out the folly of their behaviour they became virulently abusive, and declared that if I wanted the pumps kept going I might keep them going myself—and this although I had already done considerably more than my fair share of that back- breaking labour. Therewith they abandoned the pumps and betook themselves forward ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... off the moment they drop, considering it a disgrace to leave them on the field of battle. If they get any of the bodies of their enemies they immediately strike off the head and fix it on a long pole, carrying it to their village as a trophy, and addressing to it every sort of abusive language. Those taken alive in battle are made slaves. After completely destroying everything in the battery we marched, and arrived at the top of a very high hill, where we built our huts for the evening. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... Canales, who represented the Catholic King at Westminster, received instructions to remonstrate in strong language, and was not afraid to go beyond those instructions. He delivered to the Secretary of State a note abusive and impertinent beyond all example and all endurance. His master, he wrote, had learnt with amazement that King William, Holland and other powers,—for the ambassador, prudent even in his blustering, did not choose to name the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wish to read the whole of my defence, which lasted over two hours, will find it in the "Three Trials for Blasphemy." One portion of it, at least, is likely to be of permanent interest. With Mr. Wheeler's aid I drew up a long list of the abusive epithets applied by Christian controversialists to their Pagan opponents or to each other. It fills more than two pages of small type, and pretty nearly exhausts the vocabulary of vituperation. I added a few ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... place that there seemed to be a strong prejudice among some of the soldiers against the Salvation Army for some reason. The soldiers stood about swearing at the Staff-Captain and his helper as they worked, and saying the most abusive and contemptible things to them. At last the Staff-Captain turned about and, looking at them, in ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... Church. A paper in the German language was published at Berlin, in the Gore Settlement, for the use of the German settlers. Lower Canadian and American newspapers were also circulated in great numbers. She deprecates the abusive, narrow tone of the local papers, but at the same time admits—a valuable admission from one far from prepossessed in favour of Canadians—that, on the whole, the press did good in the absence and scarcity of books. In some of the provincial papers she 'had ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... the reason why Anne Royall made no greater mark, why she was "unsuccessful," why most of us never heard of her—she attacked great powers, and she fought unwisely. Her abusive writing sounds abominably to-day, but must be judged, of course, by the standard of her time. The worst things she said were not as bad as things Shelley said—as the bitter invective and scurrilous attacks common to pamphleteers of the time. If our newspapers are yellow, theirs ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... the dose of the anodyne? Probably the fellow was abusive. It might have been some shameful extremity that had forced upon her this act in self-defence. But such a situation would have called for violence, some swift blow. The man had died in insidious calm. He ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... admonition. From the contents, it appeared to have been decreed, how long ago I had no means of judging, that, for the better sustentation of good morals and good-breeding, and for the prevention of quarrelling, or unseemly and abusive conversation, any person who should call or designate any other person in the said town by the name of thief, villain, rascal, rogue (schurke), cheat, charlatan, impostor, wretch, coward, sneak, suborner, slanderer, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... could reply there came from behind the grub shack a torrent of abusive speech florid with profane language and other adornment and in a voice ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... their hatred of Catholic piety, railed in the most abusive language against the veneration of images, and especially of the cross. The images and statues of the saints were to them nothing but idols, which ought to be destroyed. The cross on which Jesus died ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... be added the satiric poem, which derives its name from the satyrs, rural gods, who were always the chief characters in it; and not from the "satire," a kind of abusive poetry, which has no resemblance to this, and is of a much later date. The satiric poem was neither tragedy nor comedy, but something between both, participating of the character of each. The poets, who disputed the prize, generally ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... not use abusive language" the babu retorted mildly, stopping to speak, and then again to wipe his spectacles, and his forehead, and his hands, and to glance at the clock, and to mutter what may or may not ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... abuse, and have long learned to call mathematicians and astronomers cheats and charlatans. They freely used their vocabulary for the benefit of De Morgan, whom they denounced as a scurrilous scribbler, a defamatory, dishonest, abusive, ungentlemanly, and ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... outright; two or three men were also killed, and several others were wounded. The great mass of the people on that occasion were simply curious spectators, though men were sprinkled through the crowd calling out, "Hurrah for Jeff Davis!" and others were particularly abusive of the "damned Dutch" Lyon posted a guard in charge of the vacant camp, and marched his prisoners down to the arsenal; some were paroled, and others held, till afterward they ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... daughter of a poor cottager, by whom he has several children, and was employed about the house as a ploughman and carter. To be sure, the fellow has a dry sort of humour about him; but he was universally hated among the servants, for his abusive tongue and perverse disposition, which often brought him into trouble; for, though the fellow is as strong as an elephant, he has no more courage naturally than a chicken; I say naturally, because, since his being a member of knight-errantry, he has done ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... is a quiet town of about twelve thousand people on the Parrett, a half dozen miles from the sea, and in its churchyard reposes Oldmixon, who was made collector of customs here as a reward for his abusive writings, in the course of which he virulently attacked Pope. The poet retorted by giving Oldmixon a prominent place in the Dunciad, where at a diving-match in the putrid waters of Fleet Ditch, which "rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... her, feeling himself baffled and his endeavours useless, yet with a glow at his heart notwithstanding. His Margaret had spoken to him at last. That her words were angry, even abusive, was a consideration lost in the larger fact. Tears which did not fall welled up from the soft heart to the dove-like eyes, and he went out to the terrace to compose himself. "O Margaret, Margaret! if you could ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... were produced by his exile and his return. These are remarkable for the praise lavished on himself, and by the violence with which he attacked his enemies. It must be owned that never was abuse more abusive, or self-praise uttered in language more laudatory.[1] Cicero had now done all that was useful in his public life. The great monuments of his literature are to come. None of these had as yet been written except a small portion of his letters—about a tenth—and of these he thought no more ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... but this aspect of his work never caused Page the slightest unhappiness. Almost every crank in England who disliked the American policy had seemed to feel it his duty to express his opinions to the American Ambassador. These letters, at times sorrowful, at others abusive, even occasionally threatening, varying in their style from cultivated English to the grossest illiteracy, now written in red ink to emphasize their bitterness, now printed in large block letters to preserve their anonymity, aroused in Page only a temporary ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... tracing the books at once harder and more fascinating than in the case of France or Germany, where a whole library may be found practically intact in a town near its old home. Of course, what was done there ought to have been done here. Leland, the King's antiquary, the abusive Protestant, John Bale, and the foolish but learned Dr. John Dee, begged that it might be done. Yet, whatever Henry VIII's or Mary's or Elizabeth's intentions may have been at times as to the foundation of a "solempne ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... the money well which they have expended badly.—In the first place, it abolishes tithes, not gradually and by means of a process of redemption, as in England, but at one stroke, and with no indemnity, on the ground that the tax, being an abusive, illegitimate impost, a private tax levied by individuals in cowl and cassock on others in smock frocks, is a vexatious usurpation, and resembles the feudal dues. It is a radical operation, and in conformity with principle. Unfortunately, the puerility of the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... acquired that sort of good breeding, sir, which isn't founded on good sense;—and when I call the betrayer of female innocence a bad character, the term, I think, is too true to be abusive. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... in men in office by degradation or suspension. In making thus the exterior and public manners of the people a concern of the legislature, society in many respects was considerably benefited. Between equals, and among the lower orders of people, abusive language is very unusual, and they seldom proceed to blows. If a quarrel should be carried to this extremity, the contest is rarely attended with more serious consequences than the loss of the long lock of hair growing from the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... fit!" cried a woman, hurrying to Virginia's assistance; "you've druv her to distraction; you shouldn't a ben so abusive; I could hear ye clear into my room a scoldin' and accusin' of her of makin' your ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... allowed to go about the streets. He was told that could not be the case, for it was a direct violation of the rules for Nuns to depart from the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. He replied—"Ce n'est pas vrai. That is not true," Mr. Bonthillier then became very angry, and applied to Maria Monk some very abusive epithets, for which a gentleman in the room reproved him. It was evident, that he lost his temper because he had lost his argument, and his ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk |
