"Stab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tentative, the second brisker, netting no response, I deliberately tried the knob and felt the door promptly yield to me; then, with equal deliberation, I dropped my hand into my pocket where my revolver lay. If some one sprang at me and tried to crack my head or stab me,—stabbing was popular hereabouts,—I was in a state of armed preparedness. But when I stepped inside I found an empty room, a bed in which no one ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... fingers into his ears and breathing heavily from his exertions. "Ah, you would, would you!" was his cry as he lunged forward and kicked a knife from the hand of a man who, bellying through the snow, was trying to stab the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... of yourself can you send her? Think of it well. Will you put your wayward foot on her tender and feeble heart? Is her breathing so easy that you would impede it with a brutal stab? Oh, if you know no pity for yourself, have some for her. You will not murder her, will you? Yes, you reply, and the laughter of mocking devils floats up from the caves of hell—"Yes! give me more rum!" Now, hear the ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... her respect or regard for Mrs. Le Moyne. She did not even see that any word which had been written was intended to stab her, as a woman. She only saw that the prejudice-blinded eyes had led a good, kind heart to endorse and excuse cruelty and outrage. The letter saddened but did not enrage her. She saw and pitied the pride of the sick lady whom she had learned to love in fancy too well ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... now to the body of the young man. It was found near the bureau, and just to the left of it, as marked upon that chart. The stab was on the right side of the neck and from behind forwards, so that it is almost impossible that it could ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her face blanch and all her blood rush back to her heart in sickening force. The shock of his words was like a stab from a cold blade. If their meaning and the stem, just light of the old man's glance did not kill her pride and vanity they surely killed her girlishness. She stood mute, staring at him, with her brown, trembling hands stealing ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... leaves girls in a fit state to be the subjects of mesmerism. I would not on any condition hurt Elliotson's feelings (as I should deeply) by leaving that depreciatory kind of reference in any page of H. W. He has suffered quite enough without a stab from a friend. So pray, whatever the inconvenience may be in what Bradbury calls "the Friars," take that passage out. By some extraordinary accident, after observing it, I forgot ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... "for though you say that their fate does not concern you, the lives of all those penned-up thousands are hostages for my own. Should you by chance find a means to stab me unawares, then to-night fire and sword would rage through the city of Zimboe. Nor do I fear the future, since I know well that you who think you hate me now, very soon will ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... straight to her room. Standing before a mirror to remove her hat, she caught sight of something that seemed to stab her heart. The cream cloth coat she wore was all ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... figures, "clouterly carved," and powdered with ochre or red wood; two of them, representing warriors in studded coatings of spike nails, with a looking-glass fixed in the stomach, raised their hands as if to stab each other. These figures are sometimes found large as life: according to the agents, the spikes are driven in before the wars begin, and every one promises the hoped-for death of an enemy. Behind them the house ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the poison of the predatory Wasps is comparatively painless in its effects. If it possessed the strength of that of the Bee, a single stab would impair the vitality of the prey, while leaving it for some days capable of violent movements that would be very dangerous to the huntress and especially to the egg. More moderate in its action, it is instilled ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... seat by such athletics as one uses in a Bermuda steamer (or did use in the old fifteen-hundred-ton kind) crossing the Gulf Stream. When once comparatively secure in one's chair, the combat with the lunch began. Mrs. Siddons would have been at home there, for there was nothing for it but to stab the potatoes, and all one's cunning of fence was needed to hold one's own with the chops. But how delicious they were! How the first mealed and the last melted in the mouth; and the tea, when once poured from the dizzy height at which the pot had to be held, and the wild whirl in which the cup had ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... of distress in Belle's voice stilled Georgina's lively tongue a few seconds, but there was one more thing in her mind to be said, and with the persistence of a mosquito she returned to the subject to give that final stab, quite unconscious of how deeply it would sting. She was only wondering aloud, something which she had ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account. He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed. Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less touchy; and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... from its many wounds, still fierce as a raging tiger, came at Frank. The boy dodged, managed to avoid the rush, and gave the beast a wicked stab with the knife. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... and not stripy; indeed you can hardly hope to do so, but you can get rid of what "stripes" there are by taking your badger and "stabbing" the surface of the painting with it very rapidly, moving it from side to side so as never to stab twice in the same spot; this by degrees makes the colour even, by taking a little off the dark part and putting it on the light; but the result will look mottled, not flat and smooth. Sometimes this may be agreeable, it depends on what you are ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... out his wares, to lay them open to the kindly sky, to tempt the studious and idle alike to pause and dally and lose themselves in that most fascinating of all pursuits—- the search for the treasure that is never found. Max paused beside this row of tattered bookstalls, and quivered to the stab of a new pain. Scores of happy mornings he had wandered with Blake in this vicarious garden of delight, flitting from the books to the curio shops across the roadway, from the curios back again to the books, while Blake talked with his easy friendliness ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... heavy as lead and yet they seemed to move of their own accord without any effort of the will. Our minds became blurred and numb—a numbness that was broken from time to time by a sharp stab of pain whenever a sleeper was placed across ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... upon sudden provocation, is supposd to be of short duration—the shooting a man dead upon the spot, must have stoppd the current in the breast of him who shot him, if he had not been bent upon killing—an attempt to stab a second person immediately after, infers a total want of remorse at the shedding of human blood; and such a temper of mind afterwards discovers the rancorous malice before, especially if it be proved that the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... are as revengeful as ever. At Santa Otella, I heard a young peasant threaten to stab a woman (an old one, to be sure, which mitigates the offence), and was told, on expressing some small surprise, that this ethic was by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... development of the gregarious and social instincts; and so travellers have observed that the moral is the last step in mental progress. His Moors are the savage Dankali and other negroid tribes, who offer a cup of milk with one hand and stab with the other. He translates literally the Indian word Hth (an elephant), the animal with the Hth (hand, or trunk). Finally he alludes to the age of active volcanoes, the present, which is merely temporary, the shifting of the Pole, and the spectacle to be seen ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... did entreat my Company This Night; when as I enter'd, Without a word, but here, perfidious Woman, He stab'd me in the Breast, and left ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... felt equal to talking about Davenant again. This time it was to the tinkling silver, as she and Drusilla Fane sorted spoons and forks at the sideboard in the dismantled dining-room. Olivia was moved to speak in the desperate hope that one stab from Drusilla—who might be in a position to deliver it—would free her from ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the breadth of my thumb-nail lower, so near was he to death. I was so curious as to ask him what were his thoughts while they were carrying him home in the chair. He said he concluded himself a dead man. He will not allow that Guiscard gave him the second stab; though my Lord Keeper, who is blind, and I that was not there, are positive in it. He wears a plaster still as broad as half a crown. Smoke how wide the lines are, but, faith, I don't do it on purpose: but I have changed my side in this new Chelsea bed, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... up. She had sinned, and sinned grievously, against her daughter, but now she would make amends so far as possible. Lester was very dear to her, but she would no longer attempt to deceive him in anything, even if he left her—she felt an agonized stab, a pain at the thought—she must still do the one right thing. Vesta must not be an outcast any longer. Her mother must give her a home. Where Jennie was, ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... be the better, save in the way of a little more licence and a little more drink? But for you I had something better! Is the little farm in Piedmont not worth a month's abstinence? Is drink-money for your old age, when else you must starve or stab in the purlieus of Genoa, not worth one month's sobriety? But you must needs for the sake of a single night's debauch ruin me and get yourself ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... stab one gives in childhood to one's parents' tenderest feelings! I did not mean to be ungrateful, and I had no measure of the pain my father felt at this hint of the insufficiency of all he did for my comfort and pleasure at home. Mr. Andrewes ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... them. No quarter will be given. We fire standing, at will; very few fire kneeling; nobody dreams of shelter. We finally reach a slight depression in the ground, and there the red trousers are lying in masses, here and there—dead or wounded. We club or stab the wounded, for we know that these rascals, as soon as we are gone by, will fire from behind. We find one Frenchman lying at full length upon his face, but he is counterfeiting death. A kick from a robust fusilier gives him notice that we are there. Turning over he asks for quarter, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Vencata mines, the carabinieri kept him under the closest guard and accompanied him wherever he went. But in spite of this there were a few mild outbreaks. One day a stone was hurled at him. Another time some half-crazed wretch tried to stab him; and once a pit was dug across the road, in which his horse broke a leg, so that it had to be shot. This last nearly brought Derby to the point of meting out punishment to the offenders. Yet when he realized again the sufferings of these ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... to give him his answer without delay; it were kinder. But she found it impossible; the negative stuck stubbornly in her throat. She knew it would stab him deep. He wasn't the man to take love lightly; his emotions were anything but on the surface; their wounds would ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... days of great national rejoicing. Davoust, Jourdan, Macdonald, and Massena had passed behind the veil. It was the defection of Berthier and Marmont, whom he regarded as his most trusted and loyal comrades-in-arms, that crushed the Emperor at the time of the first abdication. It was a cruel stab, which sunk deep into his soul, and never really healed, but the most heartless incident in connection with this betrayal was the appointment of Marmont, the betrayer, by the Emperor Francis to be the military instructor ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... the right to disarrange anything in the condition of the corpse before the magisterial investigation? He pictured justice to himself as a kind of general whom nothing escapes, and who attaches as much importance to a lost button as to a stab of a knife in the stomach. Perhaps under this handkerchief evidence to support a capital charge could be found; in fact if there were sufficient proof there to secure a conviction, it might lost its value, if touched by an ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... fixing his keen eyes on Chief Justice Marshall, said in that deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience: 'Sir, I know not how others may feel... but for myself, when I see my Alma Mater surrounded, like Caesar in the Senate house, by those who are reiterating stab after stab, I would not, for my right hand, have her turn to me and say, Et tu quoque mi fili! ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... it safer to stab in the dark. Will you kindly excuse me? I am very busy this morning, writing my letters for the mail. But many thanks for letting me know about ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a moment," continued Goldberg, "that he did actually stab himself in his daughter's presence; what would you naturally expect ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... and crimes of man, his perfidious friendship, his dissembled spite, his infernal thirst for vengeance! ha, and if all this indeed be so— why not this instant seize a blessing within my grasp? why not at once defeat the malice of my jailors? it shall be so, and thus— (going to stab himself, when Lodovico arrests ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... were not encouraged by such fallacies; who, though they feared not death, were afraid to be their own executioners; and therefore thought it more wisdom to crucify their lusts than their bodies, to circumcise than stab their hearts, and ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... dared to reproach me for what she called my want of modesty—my want of womanly feeling, and—oh, I cannot tell you what she said! But this I know, that if I could reach her through her daughter or her husband, and stab her to the heart as she once stabbed me, the dearest wish of my ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... picture of the pleasures, and joys, and sympathies, of home. He enthroned love and preached the gospel of humanity like an angel. Then I saw him dip his brush in ink, and blot out the beautiful picture he had painted. I saw him stab love dead at his feet. I saw him blot out the stars and the sun, and leave humanity and the universe in eternal darkness, and eternal death. I saw him like the Serpent of old, worm himself into the paradise of human hearts, and by his seductive eloquence ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... part bravely, and we'll play it o'er and o'er: Approve, condemn, and criticize, like statesmen gone before; We'll rant about "the people, sir!" and shout "economy!" And stab appropriation bills each opportunity; And long preserve our "honesty"—unstained and white as snow: Since you have swiped the offices, that's ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... the first consideration, were dimly lit; and with the caution which had grown to be his second nature, Kettle instinctively kept all his senses on the alert for inconvenient surprises. He had no desire that Rad el Moussa should forget his submissiveness and stab him suddenly from behind, neither did he especially wish to be noosed or knifed from round any of the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... of the soldiers told off to escort the king through the city. The procession was marching on quite smoothly, when a man, armed with a dagger, rushed out of an alley straight towards the king. Nur Mahomed, who was the nearest of the guards, threw himself in the way, and received the stab that had been apparently intended for the king. Luckily the blow was a hurried one, and the dagger glanced on his breastbone, so that, although he received a severe wound, his youth and strength quickly got the better of it. The king was, of course, obliged ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... for the men to work in the factory, when it looks so pretty and green," she told her husband one of the hottest days of the preceding summer. As she spoke she compressed her lips in a way which was becoming habitual to her. It meant the endurance of a sharp stab of vital pain. There was a terrible pathos in the poor woman's appearance at that time. She still kept about. Her malady did not seem to be on the increase, but it endured. Her form had changed indescribably. She had not lost flesh, but she had a curious, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... strength failed her. Where could she escape from this? From this new perfidy of life taking upon itself the form of magnanimity. His very voice was changed. The sustaining whirlwind had let her down, to stumble on again, weakened by the fresh stab, bereft of moral support which is wanted in life more than all the charities of material help. She had never had it. Never. Not from the Fynes. But where to go? Oh yes, this dock—a placid sheet of water close at hand. But there was that old man with ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... already said, I am not a man who easily falls a prey to excitement. It may have beset me in the heat of battle, when the fearsome lust of blood and death makes of every man a raving maniac, thrilled with mad joy at every stab he deals, and laughing with fierce passion at every blow he takes, though in the taking of it his course be run. But, saving at such wild times, never until then could I recall having been so little master of myself. There was a fever in me; all hell was in my blood, ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... blissful moments! But I purchased hell with them, for she began to lead me a dog's life. She had no taste for home, no appetite for healthful food; she ran me into debt, hated my friends, loved my enemies, and changed her soft looks into daggers to stab me with. Her bloom became blight; her lips oozed out poison, and she dabbled in corrupt things. I tracked her footsteps from my sacred couch as they led to the very brink ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... like your moral and machinery; Your plot, too, has such scope for Scenery! 10 Your dialogue is apt and smart; The play's concoction full of art; Your hero raves, your heroine cries, All stab, and every body dies. In short, your tragedy would be The very thing to hear and see: And for a piece of publication, If I decline on this occasion, It is not that I am not sensible To merits in themselves ostensible, 20 But—and I grieve to speak it—plays Are drugs—mere drugs, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... put me in mind of your departure? And how can I, when I am taken up with your dear image, express to that prince the joy which he always observed in my eyes whenever he came to see me? I shall have my mind perplexed when I speak to him, and the least complaisance which I shew to his love will stab me to the heart. Can I relish his kind words and caresses? Think, prince, to what torments I shall be exposed when I can see you no more." Her tears and sighs hindered her from going on, and the prince of Persia would have replied, but his own grief, and that of his mistress, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Warwick, if we should recount Our baleful news, and at each word's deliverance Stab poniards in our flesh till all were told, The words would add more anguish than the wounds. O valiant lord, the Duke of York ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... equal amazement in the younger man's tone. "Would you be anxious to leave a place where you're surrounded by friends you've tried—friends that won't stab you in the back the next minute and call it a 'business deal'—where you're respected and in control of things, and plunge out to become a freshman in the world-life, to do the sorting and ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Magnetstab, so bilden die Bruchstcke wiederum vollstndige Magnete, mit je zwei entgegengesetzten Polen. Denken wir uns diese Teilung so lange fortgesetzt, bis wir den Stab in seine Molekle zerteilt haben, so werden wir annehmen drfen, dass auch letztere vollstndige Magnete ...
— German Science Reader - An Introduction to Scientific German, for Students of - Physics, Chemistry and Engineering • Charles F. Kroeh
... would, believe it: so should I (Like one of these penurious quack-salvers) But try experiments upon myself, Open the gates unto mine own disgrace, Lend bare-ribb'd envy opportunity To stab my ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... splendid effort, he was actually hurling himself through the air, when among the confused figures on the coach a man leaned forward suddenly, and something flashed in his hand. There was a feather of smoke, a sharp report, and then, with a stab of pain, Coquenil saw Caesar fall back to ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... and her marked hesitation in coming forward, were both significant, and Buck felt a sudden little stab of anger. Was she afraid of him? he wondered; and tried to imagine what beastly lies Lynch must have told her to bring about such an extraordinary ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... unable to gain any satisfaction from the friar, he sought the secretary of the Inquisition in his bureau at a monastery of the Dominicans. The secretary rubbed his hands at the sight of the speechful face. "Aha! What new foxes hast thou scented?" The greeting stung like a stab. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... verse by Alexander Smith certainly claims a share of public attention. We should not be at all surprised, if this, his latest venture, turn out his most approved one. The volcanic lines in his earlier pieces drew upon him the wrath of Captain Stab and many younger officers of justice, till then innocent of ink-shed. The old weapons will, no doubt, be drawn upon him profusely enough now. Suffice it for us, this month, if we send to the printer a taste of Alexander's last feast and ask him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the lady, who was standing at Newman's elbow, to turn around; or perhaps it was the feel of Swope's burning eyes that spun her about so quickly. He was raising his arm, the arm that held the gun, not quickly but slowly and carefully. With a stab of horror I saw him aim, not at the man, but at ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... then rearing upon his hind-legs, and pouncing against the trunk with his hoofs. At times his snout was so close to Basil, that the latter could almost touch it; and he had even drawn his hunting-knife, and reached down with the intent of giving the creature a stab. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... he would not study for the priesthood and succeed to his honors, the soothsayer dinned a tirade into his ears in the temple ground, hoping to receive a blow, that he might stab, in return, for he wished the killing to appear as if done in self-defence. Stung by his insolence, Kamehameha did knock him down: a good, stout blow, well won. So soon as he had recovered his wits and got ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... worldlings puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury.' Of how much else, 'for a pure moral nature, is not the loss of Religious Belief the loss?' 'All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution, the stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in the so genial heart would have healed again had not the life-warmth of Faith been withdrawn.' But this once lost, how recoverable? how, rather, ever acquirable? ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... I sat frozen with alarm, waiting to be denounced. But my Mother remarked on the visit of the plumbers two or three days before, and my Father instantly took up the suggestion. No doubt that was it; the mischievous fellows had thought it amusing to stab the pipe and spoil the fountain. No suspicion fell on me; no question was asked of me. I sat there, turned to stone within, but outwardly sympathetic and with ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... burned my hands. I lunged against him—I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat evidently missed him. The shock of my encounter, short-circuited his robe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He struck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and tried to grip me. But I ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... menace me, but mine own must stab me in my straits! Not even is the identity of mine assassin revealed, and there is none on whom I may call ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... theatres or at the actors' restaurant, with red eyes and pale cheeks. He loved to invite the question, "Well, my poor old fellow, how are things going at home?" Thereupon he would shake his head with a nervous gesture; his grimace held tears in check, his mouth imprecations, and he would stab heaven with a silent glance, overflowing with wrath, as when he played the 'Medecin des Enfants;' all of which did not prevent him, however, from bestowing the most delicate and thoughtful ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... your last words, Jack," Lord Kew says bluntly, "and you never spoke more truth in your life. Why did you come here? What right had you to stab that poor little heart over again, and frighten Lady Clara with your confounded hairy face? You promised me you would never see her. You gave your word of honour you wouldn't, when I gave you the money to go abroad. Hang the money, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Stab the laggard seconds as she might with her busy needle, the day was drearily long; and few genuine cuckoo-carols have been listened to with such grateful rejoicing as greeted those metallic gutturals that once in every sixty minutes issued from the throat ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... all very glad of this, and Swinburne said, "Well, hang me if I didn't think that I had seen that port-hole before; there it was that I wrenched a pike out of one of the rascal's hands, who tried to stab me, and into that port-hole I fired at least a dozen muskets. Well, I'm d——d glad we've got hold of the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... sitting upon me," he said, with that laugh which is proverbially described as from the wrong side of the mouth, whatever that may be. Ursula said nothing in reply, but in her heart she felt yet another stab. Tozer! This was another complication. She had taken so great a romantic interest in the heroine of that ball, which was the most entrancing moment of Ursula's life, that it seemed a kind of disloyalty to her dreams to give up thus completely, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing trifle at the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very essence; who not only forbids us to be any longer, but to have been at all. Let ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... bailiffs cramp speech, That makes man a thrall, I charm thee from each, And I charm thee from all. Thy freedom's complete As a Blade of the Huff, To be cheated and cheat, To be cuff'd and to cuff; To stride, swear, and swagger, To drink till you stagger, To stare and to stab, And to brandish your dagger In the cause of your drab; To walk wool-ward in winter, Drink brandy, and smoke, And go fresco in summer For want of a cloak; To eke out your living By the wag of your elbow, By fulham and gourd, And by baring ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... with which she raised her comforted eyes to mine made a stab of pain hit me full in the breast. Words that Gregory Goodloe had spoken to me out under the old graybeards were the weapon used. "With your hand in mine I can make this whole community see and know; separated ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... that Leandro awaited him calmly without retreating, he rapidly recoiled. Then he resumed his false attacks, trying to surprise his adversary with these feints, threatening his stomach yet all the while aiming to stab him in the face; but before the rigid arm of Leandro, who seemed to be sparing every motion until he should strike a sure blow, the bully grew disconcerted and once again drew back. Then Leandro advanced. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... an hour the news of the engagement of Macdonald was all over Kusiak. It was through a telephone receiver that the gossip was buzzed to Mrs. Mallory by a friend who owed her a little stab. The voice of Genevieve Mallory registered faint amusement, but as soon as she had hung up, her face fell into haggard lines. She had staked a year of her waning youth on winning the big mining man of Kusiak, together with all the money that she had been able to scrape up for ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... thither, weeping. Moreover, there being not a breath of wind, the flies and gads flocked thither in swarms and settling upon her cracked flesh, stung her so cruelly that each prick seemed to her a pike-stab; wherefore she stinted not to fling her hands about, still cursing herself, her life, her lover ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... "Try it! I'll stab your black heart with a corkscrew! I've studied it all out, and I've carried a corkscrew on purpose ever since I've known you. Thirty-three and one-third per cent. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... right had produced a hymn-book from his pocket and opened it and found his place with the same air of smug efficiency. Robert had no book. He longed for one. He knew that the clergyman was watching him again. His companion nudged him, and by a stab of a stumpy, inky forefinger indicated the verse which he himself was singing in an aggressive treble. But Robert only stared helplessly. At another time he might have recognized "God—love—dove—" and other ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... at leisure in the apartment of Diego Martinez the major-domo of Antonio Perez, Diego asked me whether I knew any of my countrymen who would be willing to stab a person with a knife. He added, that it would be profitable and well paid, and that, even if death resulted from the blow, it was of no consequence. I answered, that I would speak of it to a mule-driver of my acquaintance, as ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... She grew white even to her lips, and her knees shook unaccountably beneath her as she watched Dr. Harpe glide the length of the room in Van Lennop's arms. The momentary pain she felt in her heart had the poignancy of an actual stab. It was so—so unexpected; he had so unequivocally ranged himself upon her side, he had seen so plainly Dr. Harpe's illy-concealed venom and resented it in his quiet way, as she had thought, that this seemed like disloyalty, ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... His own interest prompts him to do right here; but when an opportunity to stab me in the dark offers, he embraces it. He did not, probably, imagine that I would see the hand that held ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... than wild beasts or Indians to be met on the Wilderness Road," he said. "And the strongest and the bravest are helpless against a stab in the back, or ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... companionship of boys of his own age, with whom he might share in the advantages of school and contend for its prizes. His sister Fanny was at about this time elected as a pupil to the Royal Academy of Music; and he has told me what a stab to his heart it was, thinking of his own disregarded condition, to see her go away to begin her education, amid the tearful good wishes of everybody in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... town. As with a knife (so precise is the division) the well-wooded policies are separated from the barren and disheartening moor. When one gets to the highest point of the grounds and gazes over the long, tiresome slopes of the island, one's belief in design in nature gets a sudden stab. A man will think long and sore before he arrives at any raison d'etre for including such a wilderness of bogs in ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the slayer's knife did stab himself; The unjust judge hath lost his own defender; The false tongue dooms its lie; the creeping thief And ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... "To stab a man or imprison him for life is what you call neutralizing his influence," said Croustillac. "Ah, well, this is probably a political view of it. After all, I understand the distrust that I inspire ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... and Umhlangan, by the hands of one Umbopa. He was murdered in his hut, and as his life passed out of him he is reported to have addressed these words to his brothers, who were watching his end: "What! do you stab me, my brothers, dogs of mine own house, whom I have fed? You hope to be kings; but though you do kill me, think not that your line shall reign for long. I tell you that I hear the sound of the feet of the great white ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Mary turned to Richard Bassett, and said "Why do you want him sent to prison?—to spite Sir Charles here, to stab his heart ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... very narrow stern, having a small square part above. The shape is of old date, but continued, especially by the Danes, for the advantage of the quarter-guns, by the ship's being contracted abaft. Also, one of the many names for the minnow.—To pink, to stab, as, between casks, to detect ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... being hotly engaged in pulling him to pieces. Just because he failed to get an intercalary month, without the slightest ado he has stepped over to the popular side, and begun to harangue in favor of Csar." In replying to this, Cicero wrote: "The paragraph you added was indeed a stab from the point of your pen. What! Curio now become a supporter of Csar. Who could ever have expected this but myself? for, upon my life, I really did expect it. Good heavens! how I miss our laughing together over it." ] Not long after this Curio went to Ravenna ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... necessarily a vice: it is often merely a necessity, a legitimate weapon, a right. And indeed, Shakespeare always held that there are no unconditional prohibitions, nor unconditional duties. For instance, he did not doubt Hamlet's right to kill the King, nor even his right to stab Polonius to death, and yet he could not restrain himself from an overwhelming feeling of indignation and repulsion when, looking around, he saw everywhere how incessantly the most elementary moral laws ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... an eruption of human gore, worse than Etna lava, then I'm mistaken. There'll be the very devil to pay, that's a fact. I expect the blacks will butcher the Southern whites, and the Northerners will have to turn out and butcher them again; and all this shoot, hang, cut, stab, and burn business will sweeten our folks' temper, as raw meat does that of a dog—it fairly makes me sick to think on it. The explosion may clear the air again, and all be tranquil once more, but it's an even chance if it don't leave us the three steamboat options: to be blown ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... brought a stab of pain that was almost unendurable, she did not guess it. From the moment her first child was laid in her arms, Kate, like many another woman, regarded herself as a mother to all mankind. For her, this was the boy Jacques had left in her care, the husband she had chosen for her own little girl; ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... noble-hearted woman. I do not understand the necessity for people to lead false lives. Is it this way in all society—Eastern society, I mean? Do men and women there continually scheme and flirt, smile and stab, forever assuming parts like ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... maid or wife, that let him do, whether plebeian or noble—that's my morality; but when an ugly old patrician finds fair words will not win fair looks, and carries me off a dame on the back of a German boar, with a stab in the side for comfort to the spouse,—then, I say, he is a wicked man, and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... manner:—when he returned to Athens he reported the calamity which had happened; and the wives of the men who had gone on the expedition to Egina, hearing it and being very indignant that he alone of all had survived, came round this man and proceeded to stab him with the brooches of their mantles, each one of them asking of him where her husband was. Thus he was slain; and to the Athenians it seemed that the deed of the women was a much more terrible thing even than the calamity which had happened; and not knowing, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... days of chattel-slavery in our country, the slave-laws, framed by men only, degraded woman by making her the defenseless victim of her slave-master's passions, and then inflicting a cruel stab, reaching the heart of motherhood, by laws which made her children follow the condition of the mother, as slaves; never that of the father, as free women or men. The clergy became slaveholders and defenders of slavery ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... I'll swear," said the constable, "and he wasn't drowned either, for he died of a great stab ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... up again she was crying very softly to herself. I could understand her sorrow, and for once her regard for the man caused me no stab of pain; one cannot ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... "then" gave me a quick stab of pain, for it recalled the odium with which every one who had known my childhood seemed to regard the ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... witch, and one day I followed her up the mountain. Well-a-day, she sat on the pile which still stood there, but with her face turned towards the sea, reciting the versus where Dido mounts the funeral pile in order to stab herself for ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... She was one of his two dearest—that must support her. But the other: the first! She had never heard him speak so openly before, and though it told her no more than what she had long perceived, it was a stab, for it told of his own convictions and views. They were decided. He would marry Miss Crawford. It was a stab, in spite of every long-standing expectation; and she was obliged to repeat again and again, that she was one of his two dearest, before the words gave her any sensation. Could she believe ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... ha, Now who saw e'er such another as Esau? By my truth, I will not lie to thee, Ragan, Since I was born, I never see any man So greedily eat rice out of a pot or pan. He would not have a dish, but take the pot and sup. Ye never saw hungry dog so stab[263] potage up. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart—well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that—the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips—it was impossible ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... hour when I was born! [Letting go her hand, and starting up. You love, you love him; and that love reveal, By your too quick consent to his repeal. My jealousy had but too just a ground; And now you stab into my ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... followed was theatrical rather than impressive.—The prince was found in his sleeping-chamber, pale and with his ruffles blood-stained. He played the part of a youthful and love-stricken wooer, vowing that he would marry the woman of his heart or stab himself again. In the presence of his messengers, who, with the duchess, were witnesses, he formally took the lady as his wife, while Lady Devonshire's wedding-ring sealed the troth. The prince also ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... that I should allow you to go where you please? No, Monsieur, I am too deeply impressed with the respect I owe to Madame la Marquise, to give her an opportunity of saying to me: 'Grandchamp, my son has been killed with a shot or with a sword; why were you not before him?' Or, 'He has received a stab from the stiletto of an Italian, because he went at night beneath the window of a great princess; why did you not seize the assassin?' This would be very disagreeable to me, Monsieur, for I never have been reproached with anything ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... good sweet Timothy; search the barnes, the stab[les], while I looke in the Chambers. Should she be lost or come to any harme my lady will hang us ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... with a little trailing sound along the floor, seemed to her terrifying, as if it were the movement of an animal in the room. She shut her eyes, and the pulse in her head beat so strongly that each thump seemed to tread upon a nerve, piercing her forehead with a little stab of pain. It might not be the same headache, but she certainly had a headache. She turned from side to side, in the hope that the coolness of the sheets would cure her, and that when she next opened her eyes to look ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... felt pity for the young creatures who were seen struggling in the burning mass. With the help of my brave companions I rescued three of the boys. I was bearing off one to a place of safety when I felt a blow from behind. This stab in my shoulder, and the pain, made me relax ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... pursue a wise, just, and liberal policy toward one another, and keep good faith with the rest of the world. That our resources are ample and increasing, none can deny; but while they are grudgingly applied, or not applied at all, we give a vital stab to public faith, and shall sink, in the eyes ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the dirty work himself—no more prisons for him. He just goes around like a Sunday-school director at Christmas time, while his enemies turn to an' poison an' stab an' mutilate each other in a way to turn a butcher pale; but his favorite plan is to make 'em go insane an' have their hair turn white in a single night. That got to be his ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... accidents, and more than two deaths in this neighbourhood. The despoblado out yonder has a particularly evil name; be on your guard, Caballero. I am sorry that Gypsy was permitted to pass; should you meet him and not like his looks, shoot him at once, stab him, or ride him down. He is a well known thief, contrabandista, and murderer, and has committed more assassinations than he has fingers on his hands. Caballero, if you please, we will allow you ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... "They did say they would kill a rebel for every hair of Sir Beville's beard. But I bade them remember their good master's word when he wiped his sword after Stamford fight; how he said, when their cry was 'stab and slay,' 'Halt, men; God will avenge.' I am coming down with the mournfullest burden that ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, how shall I ever brook your ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... first place, what other defence can we wish Hamlet to have made? I can think of none. He cannot tell the truth. He cannot say to Laertes, 'I meant to stab the King, not your father.' He cannot explain why he was unkind to Ophelia. Even on the false supposition that he is referring simply to his behaviour at the grave, he can hardly say, I suppose, 'You ranted so abominably that you put me into a towering ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... in my arms? She'd stab me, there's that much of the devil in her. Don't grin at me and keep chuckling like an utter ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... to-morrow he must face death, perhaps die and be torn from his darling—his wife and his child; and that ere he went forth, ere he could dare to see his child and lean his head reproachfully on his young wife's breast—for the last time, it might be—he must stab her to the heart, shatter the image she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
