"Imprecation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... complains with great boldness of Antony's threatening attitude. This roused the anger of his opponent, who delivered a fierce invective upon Cicero, to which the latter replied by that tremendous outburst of mingled imprecation, abuse, self-justification, and exalted patriotism, which is known as the Second Philippic. This was not published until Antony had left Rome; but it is composed as if it had been delivered immediately after the speech which provoked it. Never in all ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... rumbling about with his bags in the next compartment, apparently settling himself, when of a sudden, my quick ear caught an imprecation which he uttered ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... With an imprecation Slinkton put his hand to his head, tore out some hair, and flung it to the ground. It was the end of the smooth walk; he destroyed it in the action, and it will soon be seen that his use ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... measures contemplated by Government for the protection of the health of the Army in India. This was reported in full in the local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to Duff Lindsay, who received it, I regret to say, with an unmistakable imprecation. But Laura rejoiced. Deprived of her tambourine she nevertheless ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... seizing an empty bottle with a dreadful imprecation, and levelling it at Wilkins' head, "release him this minute if you don't want ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... gentle or genial influences were scattered as if by something hellish, something diabolic. The face of the sweet little woman became fiendish in line. Her lips snarled, her hands clawed like those of a cat, and out of her mouth came a hoarse imprecation. "I'll tear your heart out!" she snarled. "I'll kill you soul and body—I'll rip you limb from limb!" We all recoiled in amazement and wonder. It was as if our friend had suddenly ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... them to grant him a burial; but as they had threatened him beforehand not to grant him any spot of earth for a grave, which he chiefly desired of them, so did they slay him [without permitting him to be buried]. Now when they were slaying him, he made this imprecation upon them, that they might undergo both famine and pestilence in this war, and besides all that, they might come to the mutual slaughter of one another; all which imprecations God confirmed against these impious men, and was what came most justly upon them, when not long afterward ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... he sprang past Shock, seized the stranger by the throat, cuffed him with his open hand, and dragging him to the door sent him forth with a parting kick and an imprecation. ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... revolver leaped—the finger pulled. With a shrill screech of hopeless, hideous imprecation, a shriek that died still-born, the bullet pierced flesh and bone and brain; and that which had been a man that should have been a boy, lurched drunkenly and lay a crumpled nothing upon the deck. There was blood upon the deck—beside the hem of the crimson ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... (vit' to whirl), an agent often introduced for the purpose of abduction. The sorcerers of the present day are supposed to be able to direct whirlwinds, and a not uncommon form of imprecation in some parts of Russia is "May the whirlwind carry thee off!" See Afanasief, P.V.S. i. 317, and "Songs of the Russian People," ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... roof, they would do it at their peril, many of them left, and I, at last, succeeded in reaching the sleigh at the back door and was driven off in safety. The mob unable to overtake me, still shouted a last imprecation. ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... a watchin' of my business this morning? P'r'aps you aint took notice of the money I'm takin' in? No, I guess not." The latter remark was followed by a rough laugh, in which I thought there was distinguishable a little more than mere merriment, especially when I heard a mumbled imprecation. He continued aloud: "I aint seen any yet myself." Soon the bell rang, and a ticket was passed up. "Well," said he, "he's goin' it strong, to be sure; this here's the fourteenth ticket I've had on this trip." An explanation being solicited, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Cativolcus, king of one-half of the Eburones, who had entered into the design together with Ambiorix, since, being now worn out by age, he was unable to endure the fatigue either of war or flight, having cursed Ambiorix with every imprecation, as the person who had been the contriver of that measure, destroyed himself with the juice of the yew tree, of which there is a great abundance in Gaul ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... companion, the approaching clatter was inseparable from the noise of the vehicle, and it was not until the horseman was nearly abreast, and the cadence of the galloping resolved itself into clangor, that the dreamer awoke with an imprecation. As he sprang to his feet, thus rudely disturbed, a figure on horseback dashed by and a stern voice called ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... No doubt many an imprecation was afterwards heaped on my devoted head; and the only apology I can make is to speak the simple truth—that with me it was a matter of life or death, and the bonnets had to go. It was not likely that this would be satisfactory ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... the orangery. Thus he was not exposed that evening to the necessity of dissembling his agitation before the calm ignorance of the other inmates. He was glad of it. It seemed to him that if he had to open his lips, he would break out into horrible imprecation, start breaking furniture, smashing china and glasses. From the moment he opened the private door, and while ascending the twenty-eight steps of winding staircase, giving access to the corridor on which his room opened, he went through a horrible and ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... I went to the river Paumaron with a Scotch gentleman, by name Tarbet. Next morning I heard him muttering in his hammock, and now and then letting fall an imprecation or two, just about the time he ought to have been saying his morning prayers. "What is the matter, sir," I said, softly; "is anything amiss?" "What's the matter?" answered he surlily; "why, the vampires have ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... long, luxurious drawing-room, now filled with the shadows of late afternoon. A sigh that ended in an unvoiced imprecation escaped him. There was not an object in the room that did not possess for him a peculiar claim of intimacy. Here he had dreamed of paradise with Anne, and here he had built upon his hopes,—a staunch future that demanded little ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... to be a Boss City hereaway on this end of the lake," said the captain of the little boat; and though he spoke with much labour of imprecation, both needless then and now, taking what might be termed a cursory view of the situation, he summed up the prospects of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... a common imprecation, possibly belonging to that family. Such was the terror of the Llanddona Witches that if any of them made a bid for a pig or anything else, in fair or market, no one else dared bid against them, for it was believed they would witch the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... transaction. It was at this moment when Morton arrived in the field and joined the army, in total confusion, and on the point of dissolving itself. His arrival occasioned loud exclamations of applause on the one side, and of imprecation on the other. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... evil city be the malison of Holy Church, her maledictions bitter, her imprecation and anathema. I do pronounce ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... answer made by General Abercrombie was a fiercely-uttered imprecation. Seizing at the same time the arm she had dropped from his, he drew her out of the vestibule and down the snow-covered step with a sudden violence that threw her to the ground. As he dragged her up he cursed her again in a cruel undertone, and then, grasping her arm, moved off in the ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... them an expurgated edition like that of Rolfe. So we should use at home such an expurgated edition of the Scriptures as "The Child's Bible," published by Cassel, Petter & Galpin, of London. No timid soul need fear that imprecation in the ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... I pour'd forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters, of kingdom and reason depriv'd; Till, fir'd by loud plaudits and self-adulation, I regarded myself as ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... "I shall not weary Heaven with ineffectual supplications. I well know I am past all forgiveness. No," he added, with a fearful imprecation, "since Nizza is ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... mounted to his forehead and with a half-suppressed imprecation, Colonel Le Noir went and unlocked the ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... breathed imprecation upon his useless right arm, and the man whose sure aim had made it so. "But for you," he muttered, grinding his teeth, "I'd sell ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... Miss Stanhope's parlor and strains of rich melody greeted his ear as he passed. He turned away with a muttered imprecation, crossed the street, and entered Mrs. Schilling's gate. She was sitting on her doorstep, resting after her day's work, and enjoying the cool ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... that the rioting laborers have not footballed out of the field of consideration. Indubitably, too, in doing so they have forfeited as they must have expected to forfeit, all the "moral support" for which they did not care a tinker's imprecation. If there were any question of their culpability this solemn insistence upon it would lack something of the humor with which it is now invested and which saves the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the spirit of imprecation sat visibly on his son's brow. "When I said I'd make it worth your while ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... thunderbolt strike you!" The imprecation suited the rough fellow who uttered it. He had pointed out of doors as he spoke, and scarcely lowered the strange tones of his voice, yet of all the rabble who surrounded him only two persons understood his meaning—a fading, sickly girl, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... exultation but not remarkable for delicacy, declared that "Actaeon had been devoured by his own dogs." The fable would be equally applicable in describing the manner in which the Southern men, who owed their forgiveness and their immunity to Mr. Seward, turned upon him with hatred and with imprecation. They were graciously willing to accept benefits and favors at his hands so long as he would dispense them, but they never forgave him for the work of that grand period of his life, between his election to the Senate and the outbreak ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... like most books of etiquette, would begin with superficial things; but there would be, I fancy, a wailing imprecation in the words that could not be called artificial; it might ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Bertie dashed forward, and barely succeeded in snatching the child from under the wheel. A scramble of horses' feet, an imprecation or two shouted by the irritated driver, a noisy declaration from the "fare" that he should lose his train, and ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... corporal in the Military Police—loomed into view, and with an imprecation the rough backed away from the girl, turned, and in a moment was lost in the gloom. I brought my eyes back to the girl who had confronted me in the red light of sunset, and I stood gazing at her dumbly, fascinated, but with never a word to say. She was burning with anger and shame, ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... I pour'd forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived; Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, I regarded myself as ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... fellow of the grenadier company was seen driving before him a no less powerful Frenchman, and to whom, as he turned from time to time reluctantly, and scowled upon his jailer, the other vociferated some Irish imprecation, whose harsh intentions were made most palpably evident by a flourish of a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... approached he lifted up his head and looked at us. His countenance bore an expression of rage and hatred. It was that, I felt sure, of Captain Hansleig. Before, however, we could reach him, shaking his fist at us, and uttering a fearful imprecation, he let go of the spar, and throwing himself back, sank beneath the waves. Horrified as I was, there was no time to lose in thinking of the circumstance, as I had to look round to see if there was anybody else to whom we could render assistance. I caught sight of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... which, she said, contained the plate. Here another difficulty arose. The box, which in reality contained the plate, was securely locked, and the key nowhere to be found. Anxious to get at the rich booty, the leader, with an angry imprecation, put the muzzle of his heavy horse-pistol to the lock; a sharp report followed, and the lid thus unceremoniously opened offered no further obstacle to the rapacity of the invaders. Donna Ignazia took advantage of the joyful excitement of the band, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... slowly to the alcalde's house. The fandango was still in progress. Mercedes flashed her bright eyes at Johnny as we mounted the steps; the Spaniard scowled and muttered an imprecation. Johnny bowed gravely and passed ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the door. It was opened by two men, the elder of whom gave vent to a quick German imprecation. The ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... still their joyous July look, and the Champ-de-Mars is multitudinous with men: but the jubilee-huzzahing has become Bedlam-shrieking, of terror and revenge; not blessing of Talleyrand, or any blessing, but cursing, imprecation and shrill wail; our cannon-salvoes are turned to sharp shot; for swinging of incense-pans and Eighty-three Departmental Banners, we have waving of the one sanguinous Drapeau-Rouge.—Thou foolish Klaus! The one lay in the other, the one ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... none; they never attend mass, nor confess themselves, and never employ the names of God, Christ and the Virgin, but in imprecation and blasphemy. From what I learnt from them it appeared that their ancestors had some belief in metempsychosis, but they themselves laughed at the idea, and were decidedly of opinion that the soul perished when the body ceased to breathe; and ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... A breathless imprecation dropped to him from the head of the staircase. And he chuckled—but cut the chuckle short when a heavy and metallic clang followed the disappearance of the gambler. The iron door upstairs had closed, shutting off the second floor from the lower part of the house, and at the same time consigning ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... tipped with the glow of evening and its base in purple shadow, descending abruptly into the darkening waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the surf-fringed beach, the great mountain seem to bar our further progress, but with a guttural imprecation and a loud cracking of the whip, our coachman deftly guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the Capo del' Orso, and in a trice Amalfi, whither we have been straining our eyes, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Gallagher uttered an imprecation and strode forward, only to have his way once more barred by Still Bill Stover. "He can talk if he ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... snarled out an imprecation when old Toby had replied as above. "Ef you know which side of your bread the butter's on, you'll side ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... another five minutes. Then Holderness limped towards the stairs with a little imprecation. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is the old, old story," he muttered. "A pretty, romantic school-girl, and some handsome, reckless lover," and something very much like an imprecation broke from his lips, thorough man of the world though he was, as he ruminated on the wickedness ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... and, chucking the nether garments into the fire, he rushed frantically up the area-steps, mounted his box, and quilted the old crocodile of a horse all the way home, accompanying each cut with an imprecation such as 'me make a guy of myself!' (whip) 'me put on sich things!' (whip, whip) 'me drive down Sin Jimses-street!' (whip, whip, whip), 'I'd see her —— fust!' (whip, whip, whip), cutting at the old horse just as if he was laying it into Miss Wrinkleton, so that by the time ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... drunk to see where his advantage lay, Lord Mergwain yielded; the thunder of imprecation from bellowing sank to growling, then to muttering, and the storm gradually subsided. The laird gave him one arm, Cosmo another, and Grizzie came behind, ready to support or push, and so in procession they moved from the kitchen along the causeway, his lordship grumbling and slipping, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... imprecation the Doctor flung back the rug to cover it, and sprang to his feet, steadying himself against ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Vico, is the vocero, or funeral chant, improvised by women at funerals over the bodies of the dead. Nothing illustrates the ferocious temper and savage passions of the race better than these voceri, many of which have been written down and preserved. Most of them are songs of vengeance and imprecation, mingled with hyperbolical laments and utterances of extravagant grief, poured forth by wives and sisters at the side of murdered husbands and brothers. The women who sing them seem to have lost all ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... cruelties which he inflicts; blood will have blood; and the ferocious oppressor is involved in the natural reaction of his own wickedness, by the frenzied retaliation of the oppressed. Now was indeed beheld the realization of the sublime imprecation in Shakspeare: "one spirit of the first-born Cain" did indeed reign in the hearts of men; and now, if ever upon this earth, it seemed likely, from the dreadful acharnement which marked the war on both sides,—the acharnement of long-hoarded ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... scarlet, and covered his confusion with an imprecation. Pen laughed; the scene suited his bitter humor more ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sympathised with the eviction, next an individual named Dubhsulach who winked insolently at him, and finally the people of St. Columba's holy city of Durrow who had stirred up hostile feeling against him. Even gentle female saints can hurl an imprecation too. St. Laisrech, for instance, condemned the lands of those who refused her tribute, to—nettles, elder shrub, and corncrakes! It is pretty plain that the compilers of the lives had some prerogatives, claims or rights to uphold—hence this frequent ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... their father, and Daksha repeatedly interposed, till, finding his remonstrances vain, he denounced a curse upon his son-in-law, in consequence of which he remained childless and became affected by consumption. The wives of Chandra having interceded in his behalf with their father, Daksha modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... A fresh imprecation of Schilsky's called forth more laughter. On its subsidence, Krafft awoke to his surroundings again. "What has the old woman given you?" he asked, with his strange precision of speech and ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... our loads. I disremember if I tole you the yarn when I pulled you at the Willandra. Anyhow it was raining like (incongruous comparison) when I drawed up at the store; an' Moriarty he fetches me inter the office, an' gives me a stiffener o' brandy. Or whisky? Now, (hair-raising imprecation) if I don't disremember which. But I think it was brandy. Yes, it ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... first the way was enlivened by humorous suggestions on the part of my companions as to what had become of Colonel Gaylord, but as I did not respond very freely to their bantering, they finally fell silent with only an occasional imprecation as someone stubbed his toe or caught his clothing on a brier. After a half hour or so of plodding we came to a clear path through the woods and in a few minutes reached the ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... reached their apartments, Fakredeen threw himself upon the divan and moaned, and, suddenly starting from the couch, paced the chamber with agitated step, wringing his hands. All that Tan-cred could extract from him was an exclamation of despair, an imprecation on his own head, and an expression of fear and horror at Eva having fallen into the hands ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... cry aloud for vengeance. Have you never felt it—that mighty cry—rising from your own bosom, at the sight of some odious crime, or on reading such and such a page of history? And it must be so; it must be that the cry for vengeance will rise, until the soul has learnt to transform imprecation into prayer, and the desire for justice into supplication for the guilty. But if, in the presence of crime, we were forced to believe that there will never be either vengeance or pardon, the mainspring of the moral life would be broken, and humanity would at length ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... cloths and the face bloated and purplish from bruises and fever. Neither Proctor nor his companion could endure the smile of withering contempt which curled her lips as she pointed to the victim of their temptations and influence, and, with a half-suppressed imprecation, Proctor turned on his heel and left the house. Apparently this brief visit quite satisfied them, for it was not repeated. Days and nights of unremitted watching ensued; Eugene was wildly delirious, now singing snatches of drinking songs, and waving his hand, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... sorrowful, heavy hearted, as the rest, dejected, discontented, solitary, silent, weary of their lives, dull and heavy, or merry, &c., and if far gone, that which Apuleius wished to his enemy, by way of imprecation, is true in them; [2649]"Dead men's bones, hobgoblins, ghosts are ever in their minds, and meet them still in every turn: all the bugbears of the night, and terrors, fairy-babes of tombs, and graves are before their eyes, and in their thoughts, as to women and children, if they be in the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... supposed secret was fully known, but that he himself was mocked, laughed at, for his doting folly. At least this was his interpretation of the words which swam before his eyes. At the instant Lucy returned, and a torrent of imprecation burst from the furious man, in which wounded self-love, rageful pride, and long pent-up passion, found utterance in wild and bitter words. Half an hour afterwards Lucy Stevens had left the merchant's house—for ever, as it proved. She, indeed, on arriving at her sister's, sent a letter, supplicating ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... a frightful imprecation, rushed down stairs; the street door was open. Half mad, Sanselme went ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... tasted anything), or the antipathy I felt to the society of my fiendish companion; but just as I was about to sign the fatal paper, I fell into a deep swoon, and remained for a long time as if dead. The first sounds which greeted my ears on recovering my consciousness were those of cursing and imprecation; I opened my eyes—it was dusk; my hateful companion was overwhelming me with reproaches. "Is not this behaving like an old woman? Come, rise up, and finish quickly what you were going to do; or perhaps you have changed ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... closer to her, and spoke again. Melissy, with tilted chin, seemed to be unaware that he existed. Another step brought him to her side. Once more he spoke. No stone wall could have given him less recognition. Then Jack let out a sudden fierce imprecation, and gave his pony the spur. For the man had bent forward swiftly, had kissed the girl on the lips once—twice—three times, had swept his hat off in a low, mocking bow, and had flung himself on his horse, ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... screamed for succor—cried "murder" "rape," "robbery," and heaven knows what besides. A moment before, though she scratched and scuffled to the utmost, she had not employed her lungs. A momentary imprecation alone had broken from her, as it were, perforce and unavoidably. Now, nothing could exceed the stentorian tumult which her tongue maintained. She called upon her husband to put me to death—to tear me in pieces—to do anything and everything for the punishing of so dreadful an ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... brief instant a bitter imprecation hovered on the officer's lips. Then, in a wave of inspiration, he shouted ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... his room a moment and fairly trembled with shame and rage at himself. Then, with a bitter imprecation, he made the brief toilet the dust of his walk required, and his face was so stern and white one might think he was about to face an executioner instead of Jennie Burton's blue eyes beaming with friendship at least. The thought of discovering ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... Girisha, looking full at Indra with expanded eyes, said in anger, 'O thou of a hundred sacrifices, enter this cave without loss of time, for thou hast from folly insulted me.' Thus addressed by the lord Isana, the chief of the celestials, in consequence of that terrible imprecation, was deeply pained, and with limbs weakened by fear trembled like the wind-shaken leaf of a Himalayan fig. And cursed unexpectedly by the god owning a bull for his vehicle, Indra, with joined hands and shaking from head to foot, addressed that fierce god ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... individual temptation found mind the weakest—almost infallible in its effect to seduce or to appall. And he closed these and similar boasts of demoniacal arts, which I remember too obscurely to repeat, with a tumultuous imprecation on their nothingness to avail against the gripe of death. All this lore he would communicate to Haroun, in return for what? A boon shared by the meanest peasant,—life, common life; to breathe yet a while the air, feel yet a while ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stated what had happened at my lodgings between me and him. He bade Hester be silent, who indeed was as dumb as a mouse, poor thing! he told Aunt Lambert (who was indulging in that madefaction of pocket-handkerchiefs which I have before described), and with something like an imprecation, that the women were all against him, and pimps (he called them) for one another; and frantically turning round to Jack, asked what was his view in ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on the steps did not wait to hear more; with something that sounded like an imprecation he sprang quickly down to the sidewalk ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... grasp a broom, take her drunken husband by the collar, shout a few lines of imprecation and complaint and then drag him out forcibly through the door. She did all this a trifle too violently, but with such realism that she gave the impression of ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... fellow, that seemed to utter an imprecation, has just pronounced a fervent blessing; what he has said was, "May every glance of your eye be a candle to light you ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... leaped into the eyes of the half-breed. He seemed on the point of speaking, but with an unintelligible muttered imprecation he relapsed into sullen silence. Chloe had purposely baited the man, hoping in his anger he would blurt out some bit of information concerning the mysterious Pierre Lapierre. Instead, the man crouched silent, scowling, with his gaze fixed upon the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... long time to say this; it only required an instant to see it. The loud explosion of my pistol had hardly ceased to ring before the baron, with a fearful imprecation, was upon me. First he lashed at me with his whip as we tore along side by side, and then I saw him wind the reins round his off arm and bend over, and I felt his angry fingers close tightly on my right foot. The next instant ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the person to be acted upon in wax or clay, roasting them before a fire; by mixing magical ointments or other compositions and ingredients revealed to us in the witch-songs of Shakspeare, Jonson, Middleton, Shadwell, and others; sometimes merely by muttering an imprecation. ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... carousing, as wildly as is possible on four gilded cruets, and a dozen goblets. Azucena is brought before the Count, and manacled. Operatic handcuffs—a most humane contrivance—with long links, to permit of the freest facilities for entreaty and imprecation. Soldiers, who have been called to arms, but stayed, from a natural curiosity to hear what the Conte di Luna had to say to the Gipsy, go off, as she is led away to prison, with a sense that they have seen all there is to be seen, and a vague recollection that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... knights moved to accept the offer, but each, as the eye of the emir ran along the line, answered with an imprecation of contempt and hatred. Saladin waved his hand, and one by one the captives were led aside, walking as proudly to their doom as if they had been going to a feast. Each wrung the hand of the one next to him as he turned, and then without a word followed his captors. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... dragged along, bound in a difficult bond, his head dashed against the rocks, and torn his flesh, and crying out in a voice dreadful to hear, "Stop, O ye that have been trained up in my stalls, do not destroy me. Oh unhappy imprecation of my father! Who will come near and save a most excellent man?" But many of us wishing so to do failed through want of swiftness: and he indeed freed, in what manner I know not, from the entanglements of the reins, falls, having the breath of life in him, but for a very short ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... door which the alferez shut in his customary manner, by a kick. The alferez usually found his hands superfluous. An imprecation and a groan from without ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... He tried to speak once or twice, then began to shriek an imprecation at Fournel; but the constables clapped hands on his mouth, and dragged him out of the room and out of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is another modification to be placed alongside of the substitute stimulus. Here a natural stimulus calls out a motor response different from its natural response. The muttered imprecation of the adult takes the place of the child's scream of pain. The loose holding of the pen between the thumb and the first two fingers takes the place ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... low countries, where, at the siege of Graves, as he was walking somewhat carelesly, being advised to take care of himself, he said, canons kill none but fey folk. At that very nick of time, a canon ball came, and severed his heart from his body to a considerable distance according to a wicked imprecation often used by him in his ordinary discourse, that if such a thing were not so, he wished his heart might be ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... dauntlessly abode the storm. The storm was not long in coming—his own fiend rises up not more furiously from the side of Eve than did the painter. He glared on his friend and on his wife—uttered a deep imprecation—rushed up stairs and strode about his room in great agitation. In a little while his steps grew more regular—he soon opened the door, and descended to his labors all smiles ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... prevalent because of the infirmities of temper. There are many men who, when at peace, are most fastidious of speech, but when aroused into the violence of passion, blaze with imprecation. The Oriental's wife spoken of would not have liked her husband to be profane under ordinary circumstances, but now that the camels are gone, and the sheep are gone, and the property is gone, and the boils have come, she says: "Why don't you swear? Curse God and die!" Others, all the year round, ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... yer tried ter dress it all up like a corpse, as if yer thought it was dead; but it came to life on yer, did it?" he mumbled, laughing incomprehensibly to himself. "When yer leavin'? To-morrer? Sooner the better fer yer, I guess. Good-day." With which imprecation the old man turned, feebly put on his hat, and dragged himself back down the avenue whence ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... mother sat down in a chair, but a moment later sprang erect and delivered a maddened whirl of oaths. Her son turned to look at her as she reeled and swayed in the middle of the room, her fierce face convulsed with passion, her blotched arms raised high in imprecation. ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... course where I was, and in spite of my latent hilarity felt I had rarely got such a snubbing. I had really been enjoying the good old city of Florence, but I now learned from Mr. Ruskin that this was a scandalous waste of charity. I should have gone about with an imprecation on my lips, I should have worn a face three yards long. I had taken great pleasure in certain frescoes by Ghirlandaio in the choir of that very church; but it appeared from one of the little books that these frescoes were as naught. I had much admired Santa ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... head in pursuit of his dinner. With a yell of fear, the sleeper struck the animal with his huge hand, sending the long tailed frolicsome creature heels over head directly upon the clergyman's manuscript, and the alarmed preacher, in turn, with a smothered imprecation and a sweeping blow, hurled the sprawling legs and elongated tail down upon some frightened children who screamed and tumbled over each other upon the floor in a ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... had sprung back and struck him a blow in the face that made him reel. The blood started from the drunken soldier's nose, and he stood for a second stunned by the surprise blow; the next, with an imprecation, he would have caught her, but that something caught him from behind, and held him as in a vise. A big dog had come over the fields in vast bounds, and two rows of formidable ivory held the warrior fast. The dog was not alone; his master, a tall and stalwart gentleman, was beside the frightened ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... collection, whose fate it shared." The other four tablets are in the Louvre. Their text is almost identical. M. Oppert gives a translation of it.[408] According to his rendering, the inscription—in which the king speaks throughout in the first person—ends with this imprecation: "May the great lord Assur destroy from the face of this country the name and race of him who shall injure the works of my hand, or who shall ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the darkness, uttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began stamping up ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the skylight overhead, apparently, and with a fierce imprecation the irate gamester rushed upon deck, and ran hither and thither in ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... With an imprecation of unutterable hate and rage, yet impotent to stay the ravishment of Hope Villa, Stern brought the machine round in a ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... This furious imprecation seemed to disconcert the unknown more than a thousand swords raised against him; he turned, and conqueror as he was, fled as rapidly as the conquered. But this retreat of a single man changed nothing in ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... sheen, and were then speared. As little noise as possible was made; but though the men bit their lips instead of crying out when they missed their fish, there was a continuous ring of their weapons on the stones, and every irrepressible imprecation was echoed up and down the black glen. Two or three of the gang were told off to land the salmon, and they had to work smartly and deftly. They kept by the side of the spearsman, and the moment he struck a fish they grabbed at it with their hands. When the spear had a barb there was less ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... a singer and a good fellow. The translation is not free, though the sentiments are. I merely rhymed Omar's literal word-for-word interpretation. The songs are all in a similar strain, except one funny one abusing the 'Sheykh el-Beled, may the fleas bite him.' Horrid imprecation! as I know to my cost, for after visiting the Coptic monks at Girgeh I came home to the boat with myriads. Sally said she felt like Rameses the Great, so tremendous was the slaughter of ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Lucr. Horrible thought! Cen. That if she ever have a child; and thou, Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God, That thou be fruitful in her, and encrease And multiply, fulfilling his command, And my deep imprecation! May it be A hideous likeness of herself, that as From a distorting mirror, she may see Her image mixed with what she most abhors, Smiling upon her from her nursing breast. And that the child may from its infancy Grow, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway, told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some suspense, common to all, held them speechless if not dumbly apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this, he could not have ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... This imprecation is pronounced in your name, men of Athens, by the herald, at every meeting of the Assembly, as the law appoints; and when the Council sits, it is pronounced again there. Nor can Aeschines say that he did not know it well. ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... moment, stood on the verge of the precipice, from which he wrenched a mass of rock, and, shouting defiance, hurled it back, with a fearful imprecation, at his enemies. The rock fell into the midst of them, and fractured the skull of a young man, who fell with a groan to the earth. Smith, who paused a moment to witness the result of his throw, uttered a yell of exultation, and darted into the mountains, whither, for hours after, ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... you pretty hot, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff said as they rode off. "You don't seem to be in her good books." Jackson muttered an imprecation. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... told me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five." She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... proclaim, While maids and matrons on his name Shall call down wretchedness and shame, And infamy and woe.' Then rose the cry of females, shrill As goshawk's whistle on the hill, Denouncing misery and ill, Mingled with childhood's babbling trill Of curses stammered slow; Answering with imprecation dread, 'Sunk be his home in embers red! And cursed be the meanest shed That o'er shall hide the houseless head We doom to want and woe!' A sharp and shrieking echo gave, Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave! And the gray pass where birches ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Dido is "resolute to die." And in both the resolve lifts the soul out of its lower passion-life into a nobler air. The queen rises into her old queenliness as she passes "majestic to the grave;" and her last curse as the Tyrian ships quit her shore is no longer the wild imprecation of a frenzied woman; it is the mighty curse of the founder of a people calling down on the Roman race ages of inextinguishable hate. "Fight shore with shore: fight sea with sea!" is the prophecy of that struggle with Carthage which all but wrecked for a moment the destinies of Rome. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... thing it's got to be, and I mean to make him know it, too," asserted the young Amazon. "I'll have him driven out of town, and if there ain't any one here that's man enough to do it, I'll do it myself." This declaration she framed with an imprecation sufficiently strong if an oath could make ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... imprecation, a scuffle, and the trampling of many feet. Then the crowd parted right and left, and two sharp quick reports followed each other in rapid succession. Then they closed again about his opponent, and the master was standing ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... protracted head-wind,—"Now, this is really scandalous usage of the clerk of the weather-office!" The scandal, however, lay not so much with the clerk's usage as with his own limited knowledge; for if, at the very time of his imprecation, instead of abusing the foul wind, and keeping his yards braced sharp up, and making his sails stand like a board, the grumbler had known how to take advantage of it, and had kept away two or three points, set his fore-topmast studding-sail, and flanked ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... at the old miner, as if suspecting he had not heard aright. But a moment's reflection convinced him there was no mistake. With a muttered imprecation he rose to his feet and left. But it was by no means the last ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... an imprecation that must have made his ancestors, asleep behind the old Quaker meeting-house down in Buck Creek, gasp in their grassy, ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... the horses and bags. Thou hadst best go, Twinkham, thou art as subtle as the wind. Prod the villain Christopher to haste and enjoin upon him secrecy in the name of His Most Catholic Majesty, the Pope,—and do not thou be hindered by some scullion wench.' These things I heard, well-seasoned with imprecation against the king. I hastened from the rendezvous to my chamber and thought upon it, and—and there is naught can be done, unless ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... and sides of the quarry, one hundred feet below; but out of the dust of centuries stared the rayless eyes of corpses, and the gaunt despairing faces seemed still uplifted, now in invocation, anon in imprecation to the overarching sky, where blistering suns mocked them by day, and glittering moons and silver stars paused in their westward march through dewy night, to tell them tantalizing tales of how musically Aegean wavelets broke against the marbles at Piraeus; how loud the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... purse with an expression of dismay. The waiter came. Susanna, instead of attempting to be beforehand in proffering the money, changed her mind, and waited. Marmaduke searched his pockets. Finding nothing, he muttered an imprecation, and, fingering his watch chain, glanced doubtfully at the waiter, who looked stolidly ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... his head, he growled out a deep imprecation and walked away. Matchin was hardly surprised. He mused to himself, "I thought it was funny that Mattie should sack Sam Sleeny for that fellow. I guess he didn't ask the sperrits how the land lay," chuckling over the discomfiture ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... an imprecation on a place where the papers didn't come till that hour in the evening, and lounged on toward the elevator. Gila slid along by his side, her eyes on Courtland, with the air of hiding behind her companion. Her face ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... might curse, and blaspheme, and drink, and, er, do all the other things that the Captain did (obviously here Mr. Penrose felt hampered by the presence of ladies), yet Death, Judgment, and Churchyard wait for him at last. Whereupon the Captain, emitting an inconceivably terrific imprecation, which no one ever dared to repeat and which consequently is lost to tradition, declared that the first he'd never feared, the second was parson's gabble, and as to the third, never should his dead toes be nearer any church than for the ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... presence, and he immediately turned and fled, howling like a beaten dog. The other turned on me with a cruel-looking knife, but I knocked it out of his hand with a blow that must have broken his wrist, and he too fled into the woods with a fearful imprecation. Meanwhile, Pharaoh had beaten off his men on the other side; one was limping along the highway howling with pain, and the other lay on the ground senseless. We had carried the fight ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... and the misshapen jester felt his little cup of happiness filled once more to the brim; his old prestige seemed coming back to him; holding his position in the road, he gazed disdainfully at the disgruntled knight, and the other returned the look with one of hearty ill-will, muttering an imprecation and warning ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... ponder on the wonderful faith of the tiny creature which suffers handling without resistance, the shred of bark, driven by the imperceptible zephyr, falls a few yards away, and in an agony of anxiety utters an imploring purr, or was it an imprecation? That half purr, half hiss has been the only sound of the episode. It is a warning to be gone and leave Nature to ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... rule, care much for puddings, cakes, and made dishes. (May I venture parenthetically to add, any appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, that I am not a vegetarian, and that I am far from desiring to bring down upon my devoted head the imprecation pronounced against the rash person who would rob a poor man of his beer. It is quite possible to believe that vegetarianism was the starting point of the race, without wishing to consider it also as the goal; just as it is quite possible to regard clothes ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the key to this most intelligible and authentic narrative. The traveller was acknowledged by all to have been the spectre of the suicide, called up by the Evil One to tempt the convivial sexton into a violation of his promise, sealed, as it was, by an imprecation. Had he succeeded, no doubt the dusky steed, which Bob had seen saddled in attendance, was destined to have carried back a double burden to the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the previous clause, by pointing to the time at which that warning shall be fulfilled. 'If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be devoted and destroyed. Our Lord comes.' The only other thing to be noticed by way of introduction is that this first clause is not an imprecation, nor any wish on the part of the Apostle, but is a solemn prophetic warning (acquiesced in by every righteous heart) of that which will certainly come. The significance of the whole may be gathered into one simple sentence—The coming of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... said, "rather than wear the three frogs upon my heart!" He liked to scoff aloud at Louis XVIII. "The gouty old creature in English gaiters!" he said; "let him take himself off to Prussia with that queue of his." He was happy to combine in the same imprecation the two things which he most detested, Prussia and England. He did it so often that he lost his place. There he was, turned out of the house, with his wife and children, and without bread. The Bishop sent ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... I tottered to my feet, with an imprecation on my weakness, and I took an amount of stimulant that Dr. Bates would never have prescribed; but it had little effect. In stony, sullen protest at my fate, I sat down again, and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... determination, with which, to do him justice, he was accustomed to meet pain. At last the aching became so intolerable that it was scarcely to be endured; and after ringing twenty times to inquire whether Randall was come home, and uttering a heavy imprecation each time he was answered in the negative; what between pain and impatience he became so fevered that he really seemed quite ill, and his sufferings were evidently more than he could well endure. Poor ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... connection with one of the mariner's solemn planks of faith. He left a large fortune behind, which has been a curse to his descendants, and it would have been a great disappointment to the contemporary seamen if it hadn't, as much of their time was used in the imprecation of ghastly forms of punishment and in imagining modes of disposing of what they ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Kuppi. So did the imprecation which his innocent request evoked. He was bidden to go and keep himself in his own quarters, and not show his face again that day at the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... imprecation, like a snarl of baffled chagrin, was his only answer. But a moment later the door to his booth swung ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... themselues to a mans loues. This made the auncient Poetes to inuent a meane to rid the gall of all such Vindicatiue men: so as they might be a wrecked of their wrong, & neuer bely their enemie with slaunderous vntruthes. And this was done by a maner of imprecation, or as we call it by cursing and banning of the parties, and wishing all euill to a light vpon them, and though it neuer the sooner happened, yet was it great easment to the boiling stomacke: They were called Dirae, such as Virgill ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... an oath and imprecation, the sailors rose and hastily gathered their arms. One of them strung up at the foremast another flag, on which appeared a crescent ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... again. It appeared, in answer to my inquiries, that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb passive to be gormed; but that they all regarded it as constituting a most solemn imprecation. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... turned her back upon him, but Bias, with a low imprecation, pushed the boat from the shore and rowed toward ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not told you,' said Guy, 'that for the present I have very little command of money? Hush! no more of that,' he added, sternly, cutting off an imprecation which his uncle was commencing on those who kept him ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... barely taken place before there was a stir, and what was no doubt a yelling imprecation on the 'dog Giaours' for the noise ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not less gruffly than of yore, but without the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... A muttered imprecation escaped the lips of the watcher on the Drive. He stood there, straining his eyes toward the ship as if expecting a following signal, then he turned and gazed aloft at the windows of the apartment houses lining the driveway to see if ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... Lang's door was reached, when McFudd's foot slipped, and, but for the bassoonist's head, both the Irishman and the drum would have rolled down- stairs. Lang heard the sound, and recognizing the character of the attendant imprecation, did not get up. "It's only McFndd," he said quietly to his ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... addressed muttered some inaudible reply, which sounded, however, very much like an imprecation, to which his tormentor responded with a gay laugh. Then I heard the door creak upon its solitary hinge and scrape along the ground, as it was dragged open, and the voice of the Frenchman said, addressing ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... be possessed of the most extraordinary powers for evil; they could bewitch a man, woman or child—even the cows and flocks—by casting an "evil eye" upon them, by uttering an imprecation, or in other ways casting a spell upon them. This power was derived directly from the devil himself, with whom witches were supposed to be in direct compact; consequently their influence was all for evil. These deeds were practised daily throughout the year; but every year there was a grand ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... manifest absurdity of such a conjecture he was blind in his anger. But that he was helpless, befooled, he recognized; and with a final muttered imprecation he turned and slowly descended the stair. A lingering hope was dispelled when, looking right and left along Bond Street, he failed ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... towards Puddock, he saw his scalp dangling between that gentleman's finger and thumb, and became suddenly mute. He clapped his hand upon his bare skull, and made an agitated pluck at that article, but missed, and disappeared, with an imprecation in ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... upon the old man's well known foible by adding, "an' Cawmill o' Glenlyon;" whereupon Duncan, who had by this time taken more whisky than was good for him, rose, and made a rambling speech, in which he returned thanks for the imprecation, adding thereto the hope that never might one of the brood accursed go down with honour to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald |
