"Repugnant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reach, which seemed to be a check to their progress, for it was extensively covered with willow bushes. Cheenbuk climbed a neighbouring berg with Nazinred to have a look at it. The Eskimo looked rather glum, for the idea of land-travelling and struggling among willows was repugnant to him. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... with his cowardice, and shame, and guilt, was so detestable, that they turned away from him, as if he were some obscene and filthy animal, repugnant to the sight. And here that last black crime was busy with him too; working within him to his perdition. But for that, the old clerk's story might have touched him, though never so lightly; but for that, the sudden removal of so great a load might ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... when he returns." Morrow spoke with reassuring confidence, but a swift feeling of apprehension came over him. What indeed would Jimmy Brunell say? The thought of lying to Emily's father was repugnant beyond expression, and yet what account could he give of himself, of his profession and earlier career? What credentials, what proof of his integrity and clean, honest life could he present to the man whose daughter he sought to marry? At the first hint of "detective" the old forger ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... Brothers Minor may be said to have gone from lazaretto to lazaretto, preaching by day in the towns and villages, and retiring at night to these refuges, where they rendered to these patients of God the most repugnant services. ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... on the 15th of November. The public mind was at this moment in a considerable ferment, and the King's speech invited Parliament "to discourage that licentious spirit which is repugnant to the true principles of liberty and of this happy constitution." It was expected that these words would, from their being understood as a direct attack on Mr. Wilkes, have opened a debate on his question, which was then uppermost in every mind; but the opposition were unwilling ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... death, in the Palazzo Rossa in Genoa. Whoever has read the swan-song which Addison makes Cato sing, will not jeer at the sword half-buried in his abdomen. In our minds this mode of death is associated with instances of noblest deeds and of most touching pathos, so that nothing repugnant, much less ludicrous, mars our conception of it. So wonderful is the transforming power of virtue, of greatness, of tenderness, that the vilest form of death assumes a sublimity and becomes a symbol of new life, or else—the ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... remained completely powerless in presence of the hostile powers that had been, not for the general weal, aroused by Gracchus. The proletariate of the capital continued to have a recognized title to aliment; the senate likewise acquiesced in the taking of the jurymen from the mercantile order, repugnant though this yoke was to the better and prouder portion of the aristocracy. The fetters which the aristocracy wore did not beseem its dignity; but we do not find that it seriously set itself to get rid of them. The law of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus in 632, which at least enforced the constitutional ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... but both parties were active in getting it through. This charter, and others passed in the same manner, incorporated Nauvoo, provided for the election of a mayor, four aldermen, and nine councillors, and gave them power to pass all ordinances necessary for the benefit of the city which were not repugnant to the Constitution. This seemed to give them power to pass ordinances in violation of the laws of the State, and to erect a system of government for themselves. This charter also incorporated the Nauvoo Legion,—entirely independent ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... 1780, did condemn and prohibit the continuation of the allowances above mentioned to Sir Eyre Coote in the following words: "These allowances appear to us in a light so very extraordinary, and so repugnant to the spirit of a resolution of the General Court of Proprietors respecting the allowance made to General Clavering, that we positively direct that they be discontinued immediately, and no part thereof paid after the receipt of this letter." ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the stout girl. Suppose Constance had taken it. What if she were one of those persons one reads of in books whom continued poverty had made dishonest, or perhaps she was a kleptomaniac? The last idea, though unpleasant to contemplate, was not so repugnant to her as the first; but she did not believe it to be true. Constance's partial confession, coupled with her ready tears, was positive proof that she had been conscious of her act of theft. There was only one other theory left; she had found the pin and succumbed to the temptation of keeping ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... but that he should have yielded to the temptation without the slightest appearance of a struggle, did somewhat surprise her, as indeed, from their knowledge of his character, it did Mr and Mrs Gaskoin. Not that they would have expected him to adhere to the contract, if doing so proved repugnant either to himself or the young lady; but under all the circumstances of the case, they would have thought his conduct less open to exception, if he had deferred entering into any other engagement till he had seen Miss Seymour. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... this in a visit he made to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine; and it is very certain that, if under other circumstances he had been able to bend from his dignity to propitiate the people, a means which was most repugnant to the Emperor in consequence of his remembrances of the Revolution, all the faubourgs of Paris would have armed themselves in his defense. How can this be doubted after the event which I ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... her with a smile. "There is one way we could carry out the provisions of your aunt's will and still force no repugnant companionship upon you." ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... once, with the service of your majesty in view, descended (repugnant as it was to my feelings) to play the eavesdropper, and I overheard all that was said, and I can convince your majesty that there are far greater traitors in your dominions than you ever supposed me to be. The gnat does not ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... miserable political life, when one actually forms a part of that Olympus of madmen called Congress, one needs to be purified. How miserable, how vile that political life is! How many faces pale with envy there are! What low and repugnant hatreds! When I come out nauseated by seeing those people; when I am soaked with repugnance, then I come out here to walk, I look at those serious mountains, so frowning and strong, and the mere sight of them seems like a purifying flame which ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... between men? Whence errors, miseries and vices, the constant companions of human life from its infancy? Whence good to evil men, evil to the good? If we behold anything irregular in the work of men, if any machine serves not the end it was made for, if we find something in it repugnant to itself or others, we attribute that to the ignorance, impatience or malice of the workman. But since these qualities have no place in God, how come they to have place in anything? Or why does God suffer his works to be deformed by them?"—Chap. ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... rigid adherence to the scripture standard, "Be not unequally yoked, together with unbelievers." It is even desirable that husband and wife belong to the same branch of the church, that they may walk together on the sabbath to the house of God. There is indeed something repugnant to the feelings of a Christian to see the husband go in one direction to worship, and the wife in another. They cannot be thus divided, without serious injury to the religious interests of their family, as well as of their own souls. It is impossible for ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... many of them shine with the distinctive ray of womanhood? These are so rare that they have a place in the pages of history. The truly emancipated woman—it was Godwin's conviction—is almost always asexual; to him, therefore, utterly repugnant. If, then, he were not content to waste his life in a vain search for the priceless jewel, which is won and worn only by fortune's supreme favourites, he must acquiesce in the imperfect marriage commonly the lot of men whose intellect allows them but ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... strolled into Jerusalem for a trade. It cannot be that the relation between Christians is like that between the Hebrew and the criminal Canaanites who were convicted of capital crimes and under sentence of death. As usury was repugnant to that spirit of justice and brotherly love that obtained in the Hebrew State, much more is it repugnant to that closer brotherhood into which we are drawn by the ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... favourite disciple of Parmenides, had a considerable following at Athens. He made it his business to champion the doctrine of his master by showing that those who refused to accept it were obliged to give their assent to views which were at least as repugnant to common sense, and in this way he incidentally did much for mathematics and philosophy by raising the difficulties of infinite divisibility and continuity in an acute form. All that is something quite apart from the influence ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... but the order is so entirely opposed to the monastic spirit. What I mean is—well, their worldliness is repugnant to me—fashionable friends, confidences, meddling in family affairs, dining out, letters from ladies who need consolation.... I don't mean anything wrong; pray don't misunderstand me. I merely mean to say that I hate their meddling in family affairs. ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... relation to Messieurs de Lameth and their friends).—According to a squib of the day: "What Duport thinks, Barnave says and Lameth does"—This trio was named the Triumvirate. Mirabeau, a government man, and a man to whom brutal disorder was repugnant, called it the Triumgueusat. (A trinity of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... guess the full measure of my scorn for this foolish, title-hunting class of creatures who, like silly moths, blindly sacrifice themselves in folly's funereal flame. The bare idea of marriage to gain a foreign title has always been exceedingly repugnant to me. With passing years, I am each day more thankful that since my early childhood there has been buried deep in my heart, a determination that when the time came for me to select a husband, the only title of the one chosen should be the stamp of honor which marked him as ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... spoke with enhanced severity; his professional honour had been touched in a delicate place. The bare suggestion that a footpad might dare operate in a district under his immediate personal supervision would have been to him deeply repugnant, and here was this weirdly attired wanderer making the ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... have refused to enter the coalition at all, and confined himself to giving his general support to confederation. By this means he would not have been responsible for the methods by which the new constitution was brought into effect, methods that were in many respects repugnant to those essential principles of Liberalism of which Brown had been one of the foremost champions. At almost every stage in the proceedings there was a violation of those rights of self-government which had been so hardly won by Canada, ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... preface, and enters upon his argument with a secondary title: "The First Blast to awake Women degenerate." We are in the land of assertion without delay. That a woman should bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire over any realm, nation, or city, he tells us, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order. Women are weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish. God has denied to woman wisdom to consider, or providence to foresee, what is profitable to a commonwealth. Women have been ever ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man was descended from an ape or monkey. Evolutionists, ashamed of a doctrine so repugnant to all reason and so revolting to mankind, vainly imagine they can escape the odium of such a view, by declaring that man is not descended from an ape or monkey, but that all the primates including all monkeys, apes, and man, sprang from a common ancestor. Of this alleged ancestor ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... can," said John, biting his lip with that resolute half-combative air which I now saw in him at times, roused by things which continually met him in his dealings with the world—things repugnant alike to his feelings and his principles, but which he had still to endure, not having risen high enough to oppose, single-handed, the great mass of social corruption which at this crisis of English history kept gathering and gathering, until ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... shuld do otherwise then his daughter either wolde / or then her necessitie required / then shuld he neither will / nor do well. Thus to do a goode worcke / or to make an acte prefect / yt sufficithe not to take heede that it be not euell of nature / or repugnant vnto gods worde / but vnto this ys also required / that we do go about the same with an vpright and perfect mynde and will. S. Paul / therfor / doth not simply permitt this going / but with certayn circumstances. ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... writer is more master of himself, more outwardly calm, more sure of his meaning. His voice is never boisterous; he expresses the most powerful thoughts with moderation. There is no gesticulation; exclamations, the abandonment of impulse, all that is irreconcilable with decorum is repugnant to his tact, his reserve, his dignity. He seems to be always addressing a select circle of people with acute minds, and in such a way as to render them at every moment conscious of their acuteness. No flattery ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... but what she's a goddess loath as you must feel to admit such a thing, and I ask you if it would be downright wicked in me to do what she tells me I must do. Indeed I wont do it, being no less than flying with her immediate to a distant climb, and you know how repugnant I am to such a action—not if you advise me against it or even if you was but to assure me your affections were unchanged in spite of all! But you know we parted under pigulier circs, and I cannot disgise from myself that you may be thinking ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... framework in an upright position by the eating of animals has developed a higher self. After having reached this stage of evolution the nature of some people has become so highly sensitized that meat, as a food, becomes repugnant to them. What they need is a stepping stone. The very food which has produced this state of over refinement or destruction must be used for construction ...
— Food for the Traveler - What to Eat and Why • Dora Cathrine Cristine Liebel Roper
... Walter stood silent, a superstitious dread creeping over him. "Dreaming, dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." A horror grew upon him, a feeling that something, some being antagonistic, repugnant to his very nature was sharing the darkness with him. The strokes of the bell above him seemed to grow horribly menacing to his feverish fancy. He struggled with himself to throw off the mantle of terror descending upon him but the feeling ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... who lives near by. Doesn't he look repugnant, eh? And the way he worries me about being very careful with his mouth. However, a fellow must ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... expected that their master would settle down among them at Vasilievskoe, when he had such a fine estate, with a well-appointed manor-house close by. They did not suspect what was really the truth, that Lavriki was repugnant to its owner, that it aroused in his mind too painful recollections. After they had whispered to each other enough, Anton took a stick, and struck the watchman's board, which had long hung silently by the barn. Then he lay down in the open yard, without troubling ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... of war." He adds, what we may very well believe, that the Earl of Tyrone complained he had so many eyes upon him, that he could not drink a cup of sack without the government being advertised of it within a few hours afterwards. This system of social espionage, so repugnant to all the habits of the Celtic family, was not the only mode of annoyance resorted to against the veteran chief. Every former dependent who could be induced to dispute his claims as a landlord, under the new relations established by the late decision, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... charming creature's behaviour, as he could only call it, some confirmation of his theory that she also had her inward flutter and anxiously counted on him. He found support, happily for the conviction just named, in the idea, at no moment as yet really repugnant to him, the idea bound up in fact with the finer essence of her appeal, that she had her own vision too of her quality and her price, and that the last appearance she would have liked to bristle with was that ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... good to believe that our Mario (Bianchi) is united to Candido (another dead friend) and to Gori, that they are talking and thinking about us, and that we shall meet them all some day, than to believe that they are all of them reduced to a handful of ashes. If such a belief as the first is repugnant to physics and to mathematical evidence, it is not, therefore, to be despised. The principal advantage and honour of mankind is that it can feel, and science teaches us how not to feel. Long live, therefore, ignorance and poetry, and let us accept the imaginary as ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... of all claims to Katie was in itself so far from being repugnant to Ashby, that, as the reader knows, he had already virtually renounced her, and formally, too, by word of mouth to Dolores. But to do this to Lopez was a far different thing. It would, he felt, be base; it would be cowardly; it would be a vile ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... inhabitants were warlike, but they were comparatively poor, and the true sinews of war are money; moreover, they were divided amongst themselves, locally split up by the physical conformation of their country, and politically repugnant to anything like centralization or union. A Persian king like Cambyses or Darius might be excused if, when his thoughts turned to Greece, he had a complacent feeling that no danger could threaten him ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... apologist and defender, Mr. Bancroft, says: "The Charter confers on the colonists the rights of English subjects; it does not confer on them new and greater rights. On the contrary, they are strictly forbidden to make laws or ordinances repugnant to the laws or statutes of the realm of England. The express concession of power to administer the oath of supremacy demonstrates that universal toleration was not designed; and the freemen of the Corporation, it should be remembered, were not at that time Separatists. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... it is the poor who make the law, and they usually reserve the greatest social advantages to themselves. The explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in England; the laws of which I speak are English,[55] and the Americans have retained them, however repugnant they may be to the tenor of their legislation, and ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... letter, as it was thus modified, it was necessary to insert this clause in the discourse, which would else to contradict the letter entirely. The two alterations, however necessary they were to preserve some consistency between the two documents, are, nevertheless, both alike repugnant ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... year, I have no hesitation in stating that, although in point of law on the authorities I have referred to, and particularly the case of Felling v. Armitage, the petitioner's suit could not be sustained, yet noticing can be more repugnant to the principles of natural justice than that a landlord should look on at a great expenditure carried on by a tenant from year to year, without warning the tenant of his intention to turn him out of possession. The defendant's offer to allow Dr. O'Fay to remove the buildings ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... high regard, and who had been invariably kind to him. I spoke to him pretty roundly on the impropriety of his conduct, and the folly of which he had been guilty in offering a challenge,—a proceeding peculiarly repugnant to American, or at least to New England notions, and which only made him ridiculous. There was something so frank and childlike in his character, that, though I had known him but an hour, we seemed already ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... well known to the leaders of the Left, who are merely endeavoring to get the power into their own hands. If (which Heaven forbid) the middle classes ranged under the banner of the opposition should succeed in overthrowing those social superiorities which are so repugnant to their vanity, another struggle would follow hard upon their victory. It would not be very long before the middle classes in their turn would be looked upon by the people as a sort of noblesse; they would be a sorry kind of noblesse, it is true, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... owing to the weakness of their tobacco that they can smoke so continuously. The pipe is in almost constant requisition, the operator swallowing the smoke and emitting it in a double stream through his nostrils. They rarely offered us Chinese wine, as that article is repugnant to any but Celestials. Sometimes they brought sherry ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the chief outlet at that period for British imperial sentiment. It is true that Great Britain laid down in solemn official language, in 1784, that the acquisition of territory was repugnant to the principles of British government. But so had Frederick the Great begun his career by writing a refutation of Machiavelli; circumstances, and something within which made for empire, proved too strong for liberal intentions, and the only British war waged between the Peace of Versailles ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... misery. The Ancient Britons used always to wear the hair on the upper lip, and so strongly were they attached to this custom, that when William the Conqueror ordered them to shave their upper lip, it was so repugnant to their feelings, that many of them chose rather to abandon their country than resign their mustachios. In the 15th century, the beard was worn long. In the 16th, it was suffered to grow to an amazing length, (see the portraits of Bishop Gardiner, and Cardinal Pole, during Queen Mary's reign,) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... not want to die in space—wasted, forever undevoured. At least, he must die on a planet, where there might be creatures with the compassion and wisdom to give his body the proper ingestion. The thought of feeding inferior creatures was repugnant, but it was better than rotting to feed monocells or ectogenes, and far superior ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... walls are not made agreeable there is in them something of restraint to the eye and the sense which is altogether disagreeable. Apparent confinement within given limits, is, on the whole, repugnant to either the natural or civilised man, and for this reason we are constantly tempted to disguise the limit and to cover the wall in such a way as shall interest and make us forget our bounds. In this case, ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... was yet repugnant to the feelings of France, and if the Assembly had feared they had given birth to a republic prematurely, the third course was yet open, to proclaim the temporary cessation of royalty during ten years, and govern in a republican form in its name until the constitution was firmly ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... arms against their countrymen, and the Indians to whom the poor colonists were bound by so many ties of obligation and affection. The consciences of these simple people revolted at a requisition "so repugnant to the feelings of human nature." Three hundred of the younger and braver Acadians took up arms against their oppressors. This overt act was just what was desired by the wily Puritans. Acadia, with ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... be a nun,—but I do not think she will ever succeed. She admitted that she greatly disliked the ordinary work of the sisters, and wished to employ herself in some way which would be just as lucrative to the institution, and yet not so repugnant to her. Now you can see for yourself that that will not do. If she intends to be a sister of the House of Martha, she must do as the other sisters do. She cannot always expect to be an exception. At present ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... vast quantities of goods directly from Europe into the South Seas, which till then had hardly ever been attempted by any European nation. This was always viewed with an evil eye by the court of Spain, as repugnant to the interests of Spain, and diametrically opposite to the maxims of her government; but there were many circumstances at that time which rendered this a kind of necessary evil, and obliged therefore the people of Old Spain to submit to it. As for the Creoles, they had European goods ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... whatsoever." His support of the bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act, as well as his plea for reconciliation, ten years later, were not prompted by a firm belief in the injustice of England's course. He expressly states, in both cases that to enforce measures so repugnant to the Americans, would be detrimental to the home government. It would result in confusion and disorder, and would bring, perhaps, in the end, open rebellion. All of his speeches on American affairs show his willingness to "barter and compromise" ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... judge proper with regard to the elections of officers and their respective functions, and generally for the management of the affairs of the Corporation, provided such By-Laws and regulations are not repugnant to this act, or to the Constitution or laws ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Lithgow"—he frankly confessed to her as soon as they were well out of the Dovecot. He represented that, for the fulfilment of her father's last wish, the ruse of the telegram and the assumed name had been necessary, though highly repugnant to the feelings of an officer and a gentleman. Poor Margaret had seen nothing of gentlemen, except as philanthropists, and (as we know) philanthropists permit themselves a license and discretion not customary ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... fellow the Captain, and the horrible ill-breeding of the English in general, declaring, she should make her escape with all expedition from so beastly a nation. But nothing can be more strangely absurd, than to hear politeness recommended in language so repugnant to it as ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... outbreak of violent disgust which Mr. —— indulges in on the subject of amalgamation; as that formed no part of our discussion, and seems to me a curious subject for abstract argument. I should think the intermarrying between blacks and whites a matter to be as little insisted upon if repugnant, as prevented if agreeable to the majority of the two races. At the same time, I cannot help being astonished at the furious and ungoverned execration which all reference to the possibility of a fusion ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... extremely rare in this world, it may be that I shall obtain favor in your eyes from the fact of my possessing those unusual qualities. Originally I was a teacher, and for a year or two I had a very good country school; but my employment at last became so repugnant to me that I could no longer endure it, and this repugnance was due entirely to my intense ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... fanatical intermeddling with our own colonies, where the slave—trade has notoriously, and to their own conviction, entirely ceased; while, I say it again, they will not put out their little finger to prevent, nay, they calmly look on, and permit a traffic utterly repugnant to all the best feelings of our nature, and baneful to an incalculable degree to our own West Indian possessions; provided, forsooth, the slaves be stolen within certain limits, which, as no one can prove, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... chance to be married. The families concerned, when the age thought to be marriageable had been reached, sought to give the young persons a place in the family order. The idea of bachelors and maids of mature years was not only repugnant, it was an indictment of the vigilance and good offices of the elders. When a certain Doctor Brickell practised medicine in North Carolina in about 1731, he declared that "She that continues unmarried until twenty is reckoned a stale maid, which is a very indifferent ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... Jean's undoing. One was to leap on him while he was eating; another to spring on him and choke him into partial insensibility as he knelt beside his pack or fed the fire; a third to strike a blow from behind that would render him powerless. But there was something in this last that was repugnant to him. He remembered that Jean had saved his life, that in no instance had he given him physical pain. He would watch for an opportunity, take advantage of the Frenchman, as Croisset had taken advantage of him, but he would not hurt ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... visit," she interrupted coldly, "is as repugnant to me, Mr. Greatson, as it may possibly be disappointing to you. I am here, however, to carry out my husband's last wish. This child herself has asserted that he was her guardian. By his death that most unwelcome post devolves ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... d'Albret, "During the hours which the queen allowed herself for relaxation, she worked tapestry and discoursed with some one of the learned men whom she protected." This queen was of an active mental calibre and one to whom physical repose was most repugnant. She was a regular and pious attendant at church, but sitting still was torture to her, and listening to the droning sermons put her to sleep. So, with a courage to be admired, Jeanne "demanded permission from the Synod to work tapestry ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... declare, that I believe, and always have believed, and always will believe every article which the Holy Catholic Roman Church holds and teaches. And as I have written a book in which I have maintained that the sun is the centre, which doctrine is repugnant to the Holy Scriptures, I, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, do abjure and detest, and curse the said error and heresy, and all other errors contrary to said Holy Church, whose penance I solemnly swear to observe faithfully, and all other penances which have been or shall ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... the strong yet tremulous clasp of those sinewy brown hands, but for the moment neither speaks again. There are some joys so deep, some heart longings so overpowering, that many a man is forced to silence, or to a levity of manner which is utterly repugnant to him, in the effort to conceal from the world the tumult of emotion that so nearly makes him weep. Who that has read that inimitable page will ever forget the meeting of that genial sire and gallant son in the grimy old railway car filled with the wounded from Antietam, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... heaven should always be somehow repugnant, and unfit as it were for human habitation. Isn't there something we can ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... might, struggle as he might to force his thoughts in other directions. He looked round the broad ashen path on which the race was to be run, conscious that he had a secret interest in it which it was unutterably repugnant to him to feel. He tried to resume the conversation with his friend, and to lead it to other topics. The effort was useless. In despite of himself, he returned to the one fatal subject of the struggle that was ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... Chesterfield despised the Gospels, and made little of St. Paul; yet the New Testament could have taught him something concerning the nature of a father's love. His language is repulsive, repugnant, and yet how few fathers have taken the trouble to write 400 educational letters of great length to their sons! All one can say is that Chesterfield's letters are ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... the inn, with a woman. He was a powerful, fleshy fellow with a face mutilated and scarred in a most horribly repugnant fashion. The woman was old and her green eye, hooked nose, and countenance, at once reminded Rudolph of the horrible woman of whom Goualeuse had been the victim. Suddenly seizing his arm, Goualeuse whispered "Oh! The Owl! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... what I read in the holy Scriptures, and the Creed, called the Apostles, and I don't trouble my Head any farther: I leave the rest to be disputed and defined by the Clergy, if they please; and if any Thing is in common Use with Christians that is not repugnant to the holy Scriptures, I observe it for this Reason, that I ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... condition of the ratification of the treaty, that the United States shall abandon the right to recognize the revolutionary colonies in South America, or to form other relations with them when in their judgment it may be just and expedient so to do, it is manifestly so repugnant to the honor and even to the independence of the United States that it has been impossible to discuss it. In making this proposal it is perceived that His Catholic Majesty has entirely misconceived the principles on which this Government has acted in being a party to a negotiation so ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... be always happy nor always in torment; must there not be some tremendous change to bring about Paradise and Hell, two images without which God cannot exist to the mind of the vulgar? I know that a compromise was made by the invention of the Soul; but it is repugnant to me to make God answerable for human baseness, for our disenchantments, ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... that Washington alone can win. The idea of a national police force is repugnant to the American people. Crime must be rooted out in local communities by local authorities. Our policemen must be better trained, must be better paid, and must be better supported by the local citizens that they try to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... angels are unable to utter a single word of human language. This was tried but they could not do it, because they can utter nothing except what is in entire agreement with their affections; whatever is not in agreement is repugnant to their very life, for life belongs to affection, and their speech is from their life. I have been told that the first language of men on our earth coincided with angelic language because they had it from heaven; and that the Hebrew language ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... at the acceptance of the invitation, sent to us among the rest, at first simply because his looks were repugnant to me. Minna considered this very unjust. Anyhow, I set my face decidedly against continuing our acquaintance with this man, and although Minna did not insist on receiving him, my conduct towards the intruder was the cause of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... me to go quietly, and fear not I shall go too happily! Suppress your own feelings, rather than seek to awaken mine. Alas! there is little occasion!—Oh Mr Delvile! were our connection opposed by no duty, and repugnant to no friends, were it attended by no impropriety, and carried on with no necessity of disguise,—you would not thus charge me with indifference, you would not suspect me of insensibility,—Oh no! the choice of my heart would ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... after all, he was the only poacher of the three, the only one in real danger. As he leaned on his machine, watching his vanishing sister, he ground his teeth. For all his natural serenity, inaction was in the highest degree repugnant to him. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... he finds him, Striking too short at Greeks: his antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command: unequal match'd, Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide; But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base; and with a hideous ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... schismatics, we, the vice-chancellor, doctors, proctors, and masters regent, met in convocation, in the accustomed manner, the one and twentieth day of July, in the year 1683, concerning certain propositions contained in divers books and writings, published in the English and also in the Latin tongue, repugnant to the Holy Scriptures, decrees of councils, writings of the fathers, the faith and profession of the primitive Church, and also destruction of the kingly government, the safety of his Majesty's person, the public peace, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... nagara, when added to the root of a verb, forms a gerund in Do if it is followed by a verb indicating a repugnant or contrary action; e.g., toganin Deus iori bacutai no go von, o uqetatematuri nagara; caietta somuqi tatematuru [... go von vo uqe ...][140] 'sinners receiving, or even if sinners receive, benefits from God, they will offend him rather than be grateful,' Jesu Cristo Deus ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... delivered simultaneously by both hands, to expel the air from the ruddy globe of his face. At other times these redoubtable personages tested the strength of their arms upon Magdalena's pate, which was bare with the baldness of repugnant diseases, and they would howl with laughter at the damage done to their fists by the protuberances of the hard skull. The bugler lent himself to these tortures with the humility of a whipped dog, and found a certain ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... subordinate even his pride to the service of his country, and to consent to be a faineant minister, a gilded Treasury log, because by remaining in that position he would enable the Government to be carried on. But how base the position, how mean, how repugnant to that grand idea of public work which had hitherto been the motive power of all his life! How would he continue to live if this thing were to go on from year to year,—he pretending to govern while ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... lengthened quotations in his text from the old chronicles, or their mere paraphrases into his own language; their frequency is the great defect of his valuable history. But the variety and interest of the subjects render this mosaic species of composition more excusable, and less repugnant to good taste, in the account of the Crusades, than it would be, perhaps, in the annals of any ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... because he had been for days screwing up his courage to the point of seeking Quarrier face to face. He had not wished to do it; the scene, and his own attitude in it, could only be repugnant to him, although he continually explained to himself that ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... in China a favourable reception and a permanent status is indeed remarkable, for in two ways it was repugnant to the sentiments of the governing classes to say nothing of the differences in temper and outlook which divide Hindus and Chinese. Firstly, its ideal was asceticism and celibacy; it gave family life the lower place ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... wilfully show disrespect to your wishes, father," said Quincy, calmly, "I must say frankly that I do not care to go back to the office. The study of law is repugnant to me, and its practice ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... have been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to contain the first rudiments of the fiefs, distributed after the conquest of the Roman provinces, by the barbarian lords among their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and military service. [54] These conditions are, however, very repugnant to the maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents; but without either imposing, or accepting, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... would render it proper and therefore possible for America to treat in any other character than as an independent nation; and, as to the second, I could not believe, that Congress intended we should follow any advice, which might be repugnant ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... led him to his own apartments. All the while he was thinking and thinking what he could do to get rid of him. The idea of having him, a mere peasant and one of his own subjects, for a son-in-law was most repugnant to him, and hurt his kingly pride. At last he said, "The chamberlain will most certainly be punished for his crime. As for you, who have twice been my saviour, you shall be my son-in-law. Now the customs observed at court demand that you should send ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... is this of human life and manners! and yet we see an imitation of it in every man's particular experience, for we begin not the cares of life till it be half spent, and still increase them as that decreases. What is there among the actions of beasts so illogical and repugnant to reason? When they do anything which seems to proceed from that which we call reason, we disdain to allow them that perfection, and attribute it only to a natural instinct. If we could but learn to number our days (as ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... the ordinary machinery of society. When chaos comes, as it did in San Francisco, and all the channels of familiar life are closed, and human anguish grows to be intolerable, compilation of statistics is impossible, even if it were not repugnant to the feelings. And when order is once more restored, after the lapse of many weeks, months and perhaps years, the details of the calamity have merged into one undecipherable mass of misery which defies the analyst and the historian. ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... interested than I ever imagined I should be. And I've changed very largely in my attitude towards the War. I 'joined up' chiefly because I felt an uncontrollable love for England that made me want to do things that were repugnant to me, and also because I thought that the Germans had behaved very scurvily to the Belgians; but I don't feel those emotions now particularly. I do, of course, feel proud of England, and the sight ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... confine the persons on which they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested: that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the Constitution ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... money, he had courted her so assiduously. Indeed, for the doctor's orphan girl he had from the first conceived a strong antipathy. His evil spirit had shrunk from her pure soul with the loathing a fiend might feel for an angel. He had found it repugnant and difficult, almost to the extent of impossibility, for him to pursue the courtship to which he was only reconciled by a sense of ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... more ancient illustrations, Noldeke recalls the fact that in a period of only ten years, from 1030 to 1040 a.d., the princes reigning over the Iranian lands rid themselves by similar methods of the Turcoman bands which harassed them. Such a proceeding has never been repugnant to Oriental morality, and it is of a kind to fix itself in the popular mind: far from wishing to suppress it, I should be inclined to see in it the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school. I attempted mathematics, and even went, during the summer of 1828, with a private tutor (a very dull man) to Barmouth, but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the very early steps in algebra. This impatience was very foolish, and in after years I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... now left to his own resources for continuing his work. His personal means were small, and far too slender to enable him to support a colony in its infancy. The thought of abandoning the settlement was repugnant to him, not only on account of the years of labour he had bestowed upon it, but also because he felt that there was every chance of success with the aid of rich ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... the deep shame I felt, when the bishop introduced you and made the experiment, was sufficiently visible to convince you how repugnant my feelings ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... make all things bend to his will, and to make all obstructions give place to what he pleases. God is high above all things and can do whatever it pleaseth him. But since he can do so, why doth he suffer this, and that thing to appear, to act, and do so horribly repugnant to his word? I answer, he admits of many things, to the end he may shew his wrath, and make his power known; and that all the world may see how he checks and overrules the most vile and unruly things, and can make them subservient to his holy will. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to his younger daughter about that vile anonymous charge, he was not always quite comfortable in his inner mind concerning it. More than once he thought of asking Faith's opinion, for he knew her good sense and discretion; but even this was repugnant to him, and might give her the idea that he cherished low suspicions. And then he was called from home again, being occupied among other things with a vain enquiry about the recent false alarm. For Carne and Charron had managed too well, and judged too correctly the character ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... and all. He was grinding away at his old hand-organ as the last means left him for support. Every day he may be seen along the principal streets of the city, patiently and sadly earning his pittance in this way—a mode so very repugnant ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... win them over to his side, but also in prospect of the English succession, which was constantly before his eyes, to give the English Catholics a proof of the moderation of his intentions. Even in Scotland he wished not to appear the sovereign of the Presbyterian party alone. It was absolutely repugnant to him to adopt the ideas of the Church entirely as his own. But the leaders of the Church were bent on shutting him within a narrow circle in accordance with their own ideas, from which there should be no escape. In his clemency to Catholic rebels they saw a leaning to that Catholicism ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke |
