"Imprecation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chant, improvised by women at funerals over the bodies of the dead. Nothing illustrates the ferocious temper and savage passions of the race better than these voceri, many of which have been written down and preserved. Most of them are songs of vengeance and imprecation, mingled with hyperbolical laments and utterances of extravagant grief, poured forth by wives and sisters at the side of murdered husbands and brothers. The women who sing them seem to have lost all milk of human kindness, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... sudden exclamation of horror; a fearful imprecation escaped the lips of the ruffian, and then the wonderful spell, which had bound me for I know not how long, was dissipated, and weak and trembling, I staggered back, and sank upon the floor, too much exhausted to escape from the building, and too much overcome with horror, at the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... informer, who had remained with his stick raised, turned white with passion, as he stood listening to the lad's scathing words, and had either of the boys flinched he might have struck at them. As it was, he uttered a fierce imprecation, let the point of his stick drop to the ground, and turned away to hobble for a few steps, and, as if from habit, began to cough; but Andrew burst into a bitter laugh, and with a fierce oath the man turned again and shook his stick ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... fulfilled. 'If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be devoted and destroyed. Our Lord comes.' The only other thing to be noticed by way of introduction is that this first clause is not an imprecation, nor any wish on the part of the Apostle, but is a solemn prophetic warning (acquiesced in by every righteous heart) of that which will certainly come. The significance of the whole may be gathered into one simple sentence—The ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... vial from his pocket and sprang to my feet, just in time to hear the click of a revolver behind me. I was betrayed! I remember only a flash and an explosion—a deathly sensation, a whirl of the rocks and trees about me, a hideous imprecation from the lips of my murderer, and I fell senseless to the earth. When I awoke to consciousness it was past midnight. I looked up at the stars, and recognized Lyra shining full in my face. That constellation, I knew, passed the meridian at this season of ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... No doubt many an imprecation was afterwards heaped on my devoted head; and the only apology I can make is to speak the simple truth—that with me it was a matter of life or death, and the bonnets had to go. It was not likely that this would be satisfactory in the quarter where the bonnets were expected. I never ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... words she took the glass, but the thick black liquid of which it was full aroused such repulsion that she would have attempted a last appeal; but a horrible imprecation from the abbe and a threatening movement from his brother took from her the very last gleam of hope. She put the glass to her lips, and murmuring once more, "God! Saviour! have pity on me!" she ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... that curses another would seem to wish him some evil either of fault or of punishment, since a curse appears to be a kind of imprecation. But it is not lawful to wish ill to anyone, indeed we are bound to pray that all may be delivered from evil. Therefore it is unlawful ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... that he was being devoured alive!" and thus did he toss upon his bed till toward evening, when a change for the worse came over him. Sampson saw that the seal of death was stamped upon his features, and at set of sun, with an imprecation upon his dying lips, he had breathed his last. O, how fearful to enter that spirit land thus unprepared! to come before our Judge with a soul stained in the deepest sins, trembling with its burden of guilt. Lord, grant that we be not thus found when thou shalt call! Give ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... here!" or "Come off of that quick, and line up alongside!" and the immediate obedience of all concerned, and the sharp "keep them hands up, gentlemen, or somebody'll be gettin' hurt," or perhaps a fierce imprecation, if the bandit was less of the "Gentleman George" type than has so often ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... in its sinister wrath; he shot forth a foul imprecation, and once more he hurled himself resistlessly on his foe. This time I thought my champion must go down, but no! With a dexterity that seemed marvellous, he dodged, ducked and side-stepped; and once more Locasto's blows went wide and short. Jeers began to go up from the ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... but all in vain. He listened patiently, even reverently, although I was much the younger; at intervals he replied, "Oui, mon pere," and the next day he said his prayers to the dead Emperor as usual. And this was not the worst; in place of an amen, there came a fierce imprecation against the whole English nation. After some months I succeeded in persuading him to abandon this termination; but I always suspected that it was but a verbal abandonment, and that, mentally, the curse was ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... battalion of foot, in case so many times I do not boult my future wife the first night of our marriage! Of that, forsooth, I make no doubt at all, quoth Pantagruel. You needed not to have rapped forth such a horrid imprecation, the sooner to procure credit for the performance of so small a business, seeing possibly the first bout will be amiss, and that you know is usually at tennis called fifteen. At the next justling turn you may readily amend that fault, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... barely in time to avoid disaster as the car shot past and hurtled on into the dusk. He turned in his saddle and watched its unlighted shape swerve drunkenly from side to side of the road, until a further turn hid it from view. With a muttered imprecation, he gave the sure-footed pinto its head, and as it floundered out of the ditch the white, jeering face of the man at the wheel, as he had seen it in that flashing glimpse, rose again before his consciousness. It seemed for a startling instant to be grimly, portentously ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... he strode to the picture lying upon the floor, ground it under his heel, and spurned it from him with an imprecation. ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... were some, at the time, who said that Catiline, having ended his speech, and wishing to bind his accomplices in guilt by an oath, handed round among them, in goblets, the blood of a human body mixed with wine; and that when all, after an imprecation, had tasted of it, as is usual in sacred rites, he disclosed his design; and they asserted[130] that he did this, in order that they might be the more closely attached to one another, by being mutually conscious of such an atrocity. But some thought that this report, and many others, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... forward and seized the German's arm even as his finger pressed the trigger and the bullet went wild. With a muttered imprecation, the German whirled on Frank, reversed his revolver quickly and brought it down on the ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... imprecation burst from the lips of Macgregor, as, with a face convulsed with passion, he rushed into the fort, shouting: "To horse! to horse, men! and see that your horns and pouches are full of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... language for a gentle lady to use to a little infant boy, but the Druze and Moslem women use this kind of imprecation in many of their nursery songs. Katrina says that many of the Greek and Maronite women sing them too. This young woman Laia, who sits here, has repeated for me not less than a hundred and twenty of these nursery rhymes, songs for weddings, funeral wails, etc. Some of the ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... an imprecation of genuine rage, he flung the weapon at Talbot, who, in his turn, was so surprised by the action that he did not get out of the way in time. It struck him fair in the chest and staggered him for a moment, whereupon Dubois ran off again into the ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... his head and looked at us. His countenance bore an expression of rage and hatred. It was that, I felt sure, of Captain Hansleig. Before, however, we could reach him, shaking his fist at us, and uttering a fearful imprecation, he let go of the spar, and throwing himself back, sank beneath the waves. Horrified as I was, there was no time to lose in thinking of the circumstance, as I had to look round to see if there was anybody else to whom we could render assistance. I caught sight ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... dissimulation and of politeness, as a circuitous mode of expressing that the king's conduct was making the queen and the queen-mother pine away through sheer grief and vexation, and when, in the most guarded and polished phrases, they had fulminated every variety of imprecation against Mademoiselle de la Valliere, the queen-mother terminated her attack by an exclamation indicative of her own reflections and character. "Estos hijos!" said she to Molina—which means, "These children!" words full of meaning on a mother's lips—words ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... full possession of his faculties, he raved in a manner which could have been expected only from a creature bred up without notions of morality or religion. Neither complacency nor 'joyful hope' soothed his bed of death. His language was, too frequently, the language of imprecation; and his wishes and apprehensions such as no rational Christian can think upon without agony of heart. Although I am not disposed to admit the whole of the testimony of the good woman who watched by ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... prove the safety of the shackles. "Right! right! all right!" the man of chains responds; he had forgot this very necessary piece of amusement. He places both hands upon the shackles; grasps them firmly; places his left foot against Harry's stomach; and then, uttering a fierce imprecation, makes his victim pull with might and main while he braces against him with full power. The victim, groaning under the pain, begs for mercy. Mercy was not made for him. Freedom and mercy, in this our land of greatness, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... viper-like, who coil Around the guileless female, so to sting The heart that loves them?" "Them," the spirit replied, A long and dreadful punishment awaits. For when the prey of want and infamy, Lower and lower still the victim sinks, Even to the depth of shame, not one lewd word, One impious imprecation from her lips Escapes, nay not a thought of evil lurks In the polluted mind, that does not plead Before the throne of Justice, thunder-tongued Against the foul Seducer." Now they reach'd The house of PENITENCE. ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and sometimes for greater security, the most remarkable of these deeds were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish Bible, which thus became a register too sacred to be falsified. It was not unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be guilty of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... desire to strike, but he dared not touch her, nor dared he go forward one step. Her advancing motherhood crowned her with unapproachable dignity, and the man muttered an imprecation under his breath. To have her appear in court so austerely lovely would be to lose his case. He had expected she would plead, cry, perhaps scream. What should he say to break that steady calm? He did not know ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... however, whether this was always so. In Rajputana on the stone which the Regent of Kotah set up to commemorate the abolition of forced taxes were carved the effigies of the sun, the moon, the cow and the hog, with an imprecation on whoever should revoke the edict. [8] Colonel Tod says that the pig was included as being execrated by all classes, but this seems very doubtful. It would scarcely occur to any Hindu nowadays to associate the image of the impure pig with those ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... had apparently no idea of doing anything of the sort. I heard the latch lifted, and the tall bulky form of a man filled the threshold. With him came the wind, playing havoc about my room, sending papers and ornaments flying around in wild confusion. He closed the door quickly with a little imprecation. I heard the scratching of a match, saw it carefully shielded in the hollow of the man's hand. Then it burned clearly, and I ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... words Ledscha again turned her back upon him, but Bias, with a low imprecation, pushed the boat from the shore ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Toft, who was held back by the bystanders, Peter again broke forth into his eldritch laugh; and staring right into the face of his adversary, with eyes glistening, and hands uplifted, as if in the act of calling down an imprecation on his head, he screamed, in a shrill and discordant voice, "Soh! you will not take my warning? you revile me—you flout me! 'Tis well! your fate shall prove a warning to all unbelievers—they shall remember this night, though you will not. Fool! fool!—your doom has long been sealed! ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... is not light; and to him who holds the one the other is not given till it give itself. Real being comes moreover and goes from any concept at its own sweet will, with no permission asked of the conceiver. In despair must Hegel lift vain hands of imprecation; and since he will take nothing but the whole, he must throw away even the part he might retain, and call the nature of things an absolute muddle ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... the last moment Fate, or that other Higher Power of which we know too little to speak with any familiarity, intervened to restrain his impulse, and with a muttered imprecation at his own unusual vacillation he turned away from the telephone and went out ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the life of man!"—The clock struck ten.—When he was got down-stairs, he found that he had forgot the note of her lodgings; he gnawed his lips at the delay: he was fairly on the pavement, when he recollected having left his purse; he did but just prevent himself from articulating an imprecation. He rushed a second time up into his chamber. "What a wretch I am!" said he; "ere this time, perhaps—" 'Twas a perhaps not to be borne;—two vibrations of a pendulum would have served him to lock his bureau; but they ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... ere she could reply—utter the words that sprang to her lips—an exclamation of the deepest annoyance, mingled with a fierce imprecation, was ground out from ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... imprecation that must have made his ancestors, asleep behind the old Quaker meeting-house down in Buck Creek, gasp in their ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... imprecation, Blueskin placed the knife between his teeth, and endeavoured to seize the poor woman by the throat. In the struggle her cap fell off. The ruffian caught hold of her hair, and held her fast. The chamber rang ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "I shall not weary Heaven with ineffectual supplications. I well know I am past all forgiveness. No," he added, with a fearful imprecation, "since Nizza is alive, I ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... you at the Willandra. Anyhow it was raining like (incongruous comparison) when I drawed up at the store; an' Moriarty he fetches me inter the office, an' gives me a stiffener o' brandy. Or whisky? Now, (hair-raising imprecation) if I don't disremember which. But I think it was brandy. Yes, it ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... ranks were Henry B. Payne of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and James A. Bayard of Delaware. These men were towers of strength in the North. They were the men to whom Robert Toombs had appealed in the Senate, when he turned from his fiery imprecation and, lowering his great voice, declared, with tenderness and pride, "I have no word of invocation to those who stand to-day in the ranks of Northern Democracy, but to remember and emulate their past history. From the beginning ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... pause, spoke once more, but in a foreign tongue. The words sounded first like entreaty, then like command, and at last, almost like imprecation. The ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... with his bags in the next compartment, apparently settling himself, when of a sudden, my quick ear caught an imprecation which he uttered to himself ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... evening and its base in purple shadow, descending abruptly into the darkening waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the surf-fringed beach, the great mountain seem to bar our further progress, but with a guttural imprecation and a loud cracking of the whip, our coachman deftly guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the Capo del' Orso, and in a trice Amalfi, whither we have been straining our eyes, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... himself or the public. Should he wish to devote his arms to Vulcan or to any other god, he has a right, whether he shall please, by a victim, or in any other manner. It is not proper that the enemy should get possession of the weapon, on which the consul, standing, pronounced the imprecation: if they should get possession of it, then an expiation must be made to Mars by the sacrifices called the Suove-taurilia. Although the memory of every divine and human custom has been obliterated, in consequence of preferring what ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... stanza, evidently a part of the imprecation which Boadicea "hurled" at her enemies, ought to be enclosed with quotation marks, but in most versions of the ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... dashed forward, and barely succeeded in snatching the child from under the wheel. A scramble of horses' feet, an imprecation or two shouted by the irritated driver, a noisy declaration from the "fare" that he should lose his train, and the scuffle ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... moreover, strenuously recommends to the brethren and sisters, to avoid all words tending to swearing or imprecation, the theatre, dancing, and all profane meetings; to undertake no law-suits, and to live in fraternal union; to take great care of the sick of the Order, to bury the dead, and to pray ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... election of Lucius Cinna,[200] who was of the opposite faction, to the consulship, having first bound him by solemn imprecations and oaths to favour his measures. Cinna ascended the Capitol with a stone in his hand and took the oath; then pronouncing an imprecation on himself, that, if he did not keep faithful to Sulla, he might be cast out of the city as the stone from his hand, he hurled it to the ground in the presence of a large number of persons. But as soon as Cinna had received the consulship, he attempted to disturb the present settlement ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... you," replied the first voice, thickly, "I shan't go that way; I shall go home, I shall. Let me alone, I tell you,"—then there followed a loud imprecation. ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... hollow the mirth and revelry that night! How he loathed the singing, the drunken shouting, the fierce imprecation over the wine cup—the sensuality, which now distinguished his bloodthirsty companions. The very knives he saw used for their meals had served as daggers to despatch the wounded or the helpless prisoner. The eyes, now weak with debauch, had glowed with the maniacal fury of the berserkir in the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... croaking frogs and whip-poor-wills. At first the way was enlivened by humorous suggestions on the part of my companions as to what had become of Colonel Gaylord, but as I did not respond very freely to their bantering, they finally fell silent with only an occasional imprecation as someone stubbed his toe or caught his clothing on a brier. After a half hour or so of plodding we came to a clear path through the woods and in a few minutes reached ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... magic looking-glass, exchanging kindly words with Drago, but there is no appearance of guilt in their intercourse. The third image shows Genoveva sleeping on her couch, and Drago approaching her. With an imprecation Siegfried starts up, bidding Golo avenge him, but at the same instant the glass flies in pieces with a terrible crash, and Drago's ghost stands before Margaretha, commanding her ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... with a shriek. 'My curse be upon you, Henry L'Hommedieu!' And whether it was the look with which she uttered this imprecation, or whether there was some latent love left in his heart for this long-suffering and once beautiful woman, he shrank at her words, and, stumbling like a man in the darkness, uttered a heart-rending groan, and rushed from the house. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway, told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some suspense, common to all, held them speechless if not dumbly apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this, he could not have been quite blind to it, for ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... have none; they never attend mass, nor confess themselves, and never employ the names of God, Christ and the Virgin, but in imprecation and blasphemy. From what I learnt from them it appeared that their ancestors had some belief in metempsychosis, but they themselves laughed at the idea, and were decidedly of opinion that the soul perished when the body ceased to breathe; and the argument which ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... long time to say this; it only required an instant to see it. The loud explosion of my pistol had hardly ceased to ring before the baron, with a fearful imprecation, was upon me. First he lashed at me with his whip as we tore along side by side, and then I saw him wind the reins round his off arm and bend over, and I felt his angry fingers close tightly on my right foot. The ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... rage—she screamed for succor—cried "murder" "rape," "robbery," and heaven knows what besides. A moment before, though she scratched and scuffled to the utmost, she had not employed her lungs. A momentary imprecation alone had broken from her, as it were, perforce and unavoidably. Now, nothing could exceed the stentorian tumult which her tongue maintained. She called upon her husband to put me to death—to tear me in pieces—to do anything and everything ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Shimon Happikoli had arranged the eighteen benedictions before Rabbon Gamliel at Javneh. Rabbon Gamliel appealed to the sages, "Is there not a man who knows how to compose an imprecation against the Sadducees?" Then Samuel the Little ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... An imprecation trembled on Dan's lips, and one of his hands left the wheel in an involuntary gesture of resignation. Then he shut his teeth tight and ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... so great was the impression the scene made on me. Of course it was not, but it all seemed so real that one might be pardoned for expecting the impossible, especially when her body was thrown, with many a muttered imprecation, by the roadside, and in the last picture the man was cleaning the exploded gun. One single still picture followed. It was ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... where a clump of hazel permitted me to rise without being seen. Thence I fled the spot. And as I went, my heart seemed as it must burst, and my lips could frame but one word which I kept hurling out of me like an imprecation, and that word ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... door of the "Forlorn Hope" Stevens whirled about with a bitter imprecation. He had already lost time needlessly—with a lookout plate he could cover more ground in ten minutes than he could cover afoot in a week. He flipped on the power and shot the violet beam out over the plateau to the district where he knew Nadia was wont to hunt. Not finding her there, he swung the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... particles and small portions of genuine ore. This woman was of exceedingly low and coarse habits, and was noted to be a profane swearer, curser, liar and thief; and her usual way of asserting things was with an imprecation, as, 'I would I might sink into the earth, if it be not so,' or, 'I would that God would make the earth open and swallow me up, if I tell ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... his family. The widow, who survived him seven years, lies nearest the wall, and on the other side Susanna and her husband, Dr. Hall. The removal of the dust to Westminster Abbey has been prevented by the profane imprecation of the inexplicable epitaph by which the tenant of the tomb, as if in anticipation of the irreconcilable mysteries posterity would discover in his history, bequeathed an undying curse to him who should disturb ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... legends upon the terrible power of a parent's curse. The "hasty word" of a father or a mother will condemn even an innocent child to slavery among devils, and when it has once been uttered, it is irrevocable. It might have been supposed that the fearful efficacy of such an imprecation would have silenced bad language, as that of the Vril rendered war impossible among the Vril-ya of "The Coming Race;" but that such was not the case is proved by the number of narratives which turn on uncalled-for parental cursing. Here is an abridgment ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... a piece of imprecation for you, when joined to the lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course of your business. But don't forget the addition of the above three lines, which ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... at my knees, with prayer Perpetual importuned me to embrace 560 The damsel first, that she might loathe my sire. I did so; and my father soon possess'd With hot suspicion of the fact, let loose A storm of imprecation, in his rage Invoking all the Furies to forbid 565 That ever son of mine should press his knees. Tartarian Jove[14] and dread Persephone Fulfill'd his curses; with my pointed spear I would have pierced his heart, but that ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... pretty hot, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff said as they rode off. "You don't seem to be in her good books." Jackson muttered an imprecation. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... to hurry back to the chamber of penitence, when a loud cry of despair came vibrating down, and in another instant the heavy form of a man was precipitated into the well. The wicker chair fortunately broke his fall, and he rose with a dreadful imprecation. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... blind sire. These maidens did not so. Wherefore my curse Prevails against thy prayer for Thebe's throne, If ancient Zeus, the eternal lawgiver, Have primal Justice for his counsellor. Begone, renounced and fatherless for me, And take with thee, vilest of villanous men, This imprecation:—Vain be thine attempt In levying war against thy father's race, Frustrate be thy return to Argos' vale: Die foully by a fratricidal hand And foully slay him who hath banished thee! Further, I bid the horror breathing gloom Tartarean, of the vault that holds my ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... ailments occurring up to certain ages, and except in certain cases, are generally assumed to be the work of someone acting in connection with a spirit; but, speaking generally, no efforts appear to be made by imprecation or other supernatural method to propitiate or contend against these spirits, except by the use of general charms against illness, and except, so far as the propitiation or driving out of the spirit is involved, ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... heard these boding words gave them different interpretations, according to their different shades of ignorance and of fear; all, however, concurred in imagining them to convey some awful imprecation. They regarded the Christian as the enemy of mankind; the epithets they lavished upon him, of which 'Atheist' was the most favored and frequent, may serve, perhaps, to warn us, believers of that same creed now triumphant, how we indulge the persecution of opinion Olinthus then underwent, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... muttered imprecation the Doctor flung back the rug to cover it, and sprang to his feet, steadying himself ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... he heard a sudden rush of unshod soles across the empty blackness, and at a little distance a scuffling sound, heavy breathing, and once what he thought the muttered imprecation of a man battling against great odds. Then the clanging of a chain, and a noise as of the snapping back against stone ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this most intelligible and authentic narrative. The traveller was acknowledged by all to have been the spectre of the suicide, called up by the Evil One to tempt the convivial sexton into a violation of his promise, sealed, as it was, by an imprecation. Had he succeeded, no doubt the dusky steed, which Bob had seen saddled in attendance, was destined to have carried back a double burden to the place from whence ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... poor man was doomed to disappointment, for there was no sign or vestige of pearl in the fish, save the lovely iridescent lining of the two shells. A second attempt fared no better, and the disappointed seeker flung the shells far from him with a muttered something that sounded not unlike an imprecation. But the good man was not to be so easily put off. A third oyster was seized and savagely wrenched open, and this time three diminutive seed pearls rewarded his perseverance. Yet still he was not satisfied. A fourth oyster was opened, and proved a blank; a fifth was seized, and as the two ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... cast off his slayer from his breast; started erect upon his feet! tore out, from the deep wound, the fatal weapon which had made it; hurled it far—far as his remaining strength permitted—into the rayless night; burst forth into a wild and yelling cry, half laughter and half imprecation; fell headlong to the earth—which was no more insensible than he, what time he struck it, to any sense of mortal pain or sorrow—and perished ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... said the ex-foreigner, with an awful imprecation on all Leander's salient features; "but you shall have it all in black and white. We're the party that invented and carried out that ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... protracted head-wind,—"Now, this is really scandalous usage of the clerk of the weather-office!" The scandal, however, lay not so much with the clerk's usage as with his own limited knowledge; for if, at the very time of his imprecation, instead of abusing the foul wind, and keeping his yards braced sharp up, and making his sails stand like a board, the grumbler had known how to take advantage of it, and had kept away two or three points, set his fore-topmast studding-sail, and flanked across ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... virtue of maniacs like Tourneur's Vindici and Hippolito; a crypt-like moral stillness, haunted by strange evil murmurs, broken only by the hysterical sobs and laughs of Marston's Antonios and Pandulphos. At the most there issues out of the blood-reeking depth a mighty yell of pain, a tremendous imprecation not only at sinful man but at unsympathizing nature, like that of Marston's old Doge, dethroned, hunted down, crying aloud into the grey dawn-mists of the desolate marsh by ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... Paris! In the Halles and other usual markets, you may see women who sell provisions; if you offer them less than they want, were you the most renowned person in France, there you will be immediately blazoned with every possible insult, imprecation, malediction, dishonor, and the whole with an accompaniment of oaths ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... an imprecation and strode forward, only to have his way once more barred by Still Bill Stover. "He can talk if ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... but he repeated the imprecation. He repeated it because it shocked him. It struck at what he held to be most sacred. It profaned his holy of holies, and left it bare to sacrilege. It gave him a fierce, perverted joy to feel that she whom he would have ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... they entered the warehouse and went noiselessly on, until they stood at the door. The process of unbarring the gate was nearly accomplished. As it swung open, John Wilkes put his whistle to his lips and blew a loud, shrill call, and the three rushed forward. There was a shout of alarm, a fierce imprecation, and three of the four figures at the gate sprang at them. Scarce a blow had been struck when the two constables ran up and joined in the fray. Two men fought stoutly, but were soon overpowered. Robert ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... Horrible thought! Cen. That if she ever have a child; and thou, Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God, That thou be fruitful in her, and encrease And multiply, fulfilling his command, And my deep imprecation! May it be A hideous likeness of herself, that as From a distorting mirror, she may see Her image mixed with what she most abhors, Smiling upon her from her nursing breast. And that the child may from its infancy Grow, day by day, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... caught her hand with a fierce imprecation on his lips, and the struggle that ensued between them made the boat rock like a cradle. In an instant he had forced her back into her seat, and drawn the veil down over her ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... Bettina. But no; all was orderly and void. Then he passed on to the dressing-table and opened the drawers, one by one. In the last there lay a small hair-pin of fine bent wire. He had an impulse to take it, but, with a muttered imprecation on his folly, he called to aid his recent resolution, and ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... against his chest, Dartie had pulled the trigger several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an imprecation, he had muttered: "For shake o' the children," and sank into a chair. Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave him some soda water. The liquor had a magical effect. Life had illused him; Winifred had never 'unshtood'm.' If he hadn't the right to take the pearls he had given her himself, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Lear I pour'd for the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdom and reason depriv'd: Till fir'd by loud plaudits, and self adulation, I consider'd myself as a ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... revolver leaped—the finger pulled. With a shrill screech of hopeless, hideous imprecation, a shriek that died still-born, the bullet pierced flesh and bone and brain; and that which had been a man that should have been a boy, lurched drunkenly and lay a crumpled nothing upon the deck. There was blood upon the deck—beside the hem of the crimson gown, near to the ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... resistance or remonstrance would be useless, and only lead to bitter cursing and imprecation on the part of the old woman, rose and walked back to the sallyport, where he slipped into his boat and pulled on board of the Yungfrau, which lay at anchor in the harbour, about a cable's ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rose I turned my eyes for a moment upon the Throne, now vacant as at first. Another Chief, followed by the voices of the assembly, repeated, in a low deep tone, which fell on our ears as distinctly as the loudest trumpet-note in the midst of absolute silence, the solemn imprecation— ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... plundered people?—no life and animation in the picture which might be drawn of the woes of hundreds of impoverished and ruined families? of the wealthy of yesterday become the beggars of to-day? of the powerful and influential changed into exiles and outcasts, and the voice of self-reproach and imprecation resounding from every corner of the land? Is it a dull or uninstructive picture to see a whole people shaking suddenly off the trammels of reason, and running wild after a golden vision, refusing obstinately to believe that it is not real, till, like a deluded hind running after an ignis ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... a broom, take her drunken husband by the collar, shout a few lines of imprecation and complaint and then drag him out forcibly through the door. She did all this a trifle too violently, but with such realism that she gave the impression of ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... which he pronounces a poetical curse upon him who should regard with insensibility the place where the Poet's remains were deposited. The Poems of the mourner himself have now passed through innumerable editions, and are universally known, but if, when Collins died, the same kind of imprecation had been pronounced by a surviving admirer, small is the number whom it would not have comprehended. The notice which his poems attained during his lifetime was so small, and of course the sale so insignificant, that not long before ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... much for puddings, cakes, and made dishes. (May I venture parenthetically to add, any appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, that I am not a vegetarian, and that I am far from desiring to bring down upon my devoted head the imprecation pronounced against the rash person who would rob a poor man of his beer. It is quite possible to believe that vegetarianism was the starting point of the race, without wishing to consider it also as the goal; just as it is ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... overboard. The next day Billy appeared whilst Aaron, off duty, was strolling up and down outside the pilot-house, and strolled offensively in his wake. Never a hostile glance or a word from Aaron. At last, tired of dumb show, Billy broke forth with a torrent of imprecation closing with "When are you going to pitch me off the boat, you blankety-blank ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... nothing more or less than what we should write Hiccup! or Hiccough! so, at least, I have always supposed; misled, perhaps, by Sir Toby's surname, and his parenthetical imprecation on "pickle herring". I do not pretend to be a critic of Shakspeare, and must confess that I do not possess a copy of the "Twelfth Night" but after seeing your correspondent R.R.'s letter (Vol. i., ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... eyes. Even then he did not speak; but so long as he lived, times uncounted in his after life, Clayton Craig remembered that look; remembered it and was silent, remembered it with a tingling of hot blood and a mental imprecation—for as indelibly as a red-hot iron seals a brand on a maverick, that look left its impress. No voice could have spoken as that simple action spoke, no tongue thrust could have been so pointed. With no intent of discourtesy, no premeditated malice was it given; and therein lay the ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... General Abercrombie was a fiercely-uttered imprecation. Seizing at the same time the arm she had dropped from his, he drew her out of the vestibule and down the snow-covered step with a sudden violence that threw her to the ground. As he dragged her up he cursed her again in a cruel undertone, ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... teaches to his slave the crimes and the cruelties which he inflicts; blood will have blood; and the ferocious oppressor is involved in the natural reaction of his own wickedness, by the frenzied retaliation of the oppressed. Now was indeed beheld the realization of the sublime imprecation in Shakspeare: "one spirit of the first-born Cain" did indeed reign in the hearts of men; and now, if ever upon this earth, it seemed likely, from the dreadful acharnement which marked the war on both sides,—the acharnement of long-hoarded vengeance ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... for some time with the sort of resolute determination, with which, to do him justice, he was accustomed to meet pain. At last the aching became so intolerable that it was scarcely to be endured; and after ringing twenty times to inquire whether Randall was come home, and uttering a heavy imprecation each time he was answered in the negative; what between pain and impatience he became so fevered that he really seemed quite ill, and his sufferings were evidently more than he could well endure. Poor Mrs. Melwyn, helpless and feeble, dared not propose to do any thing for him, though she suffered—soft, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various |
