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verb
Rabble  v. t.  To stir or skim with a rabble, as molten iron.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rabble" Quotes from Famous Books



... "but I shall fight with a lighter heart if you could fix upon some plan for us to adopt when the rabble break in. That they will do so I regard as certain, seeing that the house is not built for purposes of defence, but has numerous broad windows on the ground-floor by which assuredly they will burst their ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... where the shell Should fall to slay most rabble, And save foul regicides; or strike the knell Of weaklings 'mid the tribunes' babble. A Consul then, o'er young but proud, With midnight poring thinned, and sallow, But dreams of Empire pierce the transient cloud, And round pale ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... Your noble father lieth in no grave, I saw his dust strewn on the air, his ashes Whirled through the windy streets like common straws To plague a beggar's eyesight, and his head, That gentle head, set on the prison spike, For the vile rabble in their insolence To shoot ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... though ye be my son, never mair shall I call ye so, if ye join the rabble that young scamp has got together, and never mair shall ye darken the doors of Dunmorton if ye gae wi' him. Noo choose between that young ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... found their way back to the Manhattoes, each having some dreadful tale of peril to relate. As to poor Wolfert, instead of returning in triumph, laden with bags of gold, he was borne home on a shutter, followed by a rabble-rout[1] of curious urchins. His wife and daughter saw the dismal pageant from a distance, and alarmed the neighborhood with their cries; they thought the poor man had suddenly settled the great debt of nature in one of his wayward moods. Finding him, however, still living, they had him speedily ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... a rabble of reasons to convince me, I will answer thee in thine own kind. Thou art like those that proffer a man physic before he be sick, and, because his pleasure is not theirs, call him foolish that is but early advised. ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... privacy. I forced the strong-box at his ear while he sprawled beside his wife. He was my butt, my ape, my jumping-jack. And now ... O fool, fool! (Duped by such knaves as are a shame to knavery, crime's rabble, hell's tatterdemalions!) Shorn to the quick! Rooked to my vitals! And I must thieve for my daily bread like any crawling blackguard in the gutter. And my sister ... my kind, innocent sister! She will come smiling to me with her poor little love-story, and I must break her heart. Broken ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... possibly get away from them. They yelled in the most ghastly manner, jumped upon his fire, scattered it all, and tried to put it out. He looked on quietly for a time, but when it got beyond a joke he seized his carving-knife and called out: "Be off, you rabble rout!" and let fly at them. Some of them fled away, and the others he struck dead and threw them out into the pond below. When he returned he blew up the sparks of the fire once more, and warmed himself. And as he sat thus his eyes refused to keep open any longer, and a desire to sleep stole over ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... there's nothing so comical as to hear me cant, and even cheat those Knaves, the Preachers themselves, that delude the ignorant Rabble. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... and elegance of manners which favored nothing of monastic stupidity, conceived the most violent hatred to him, because he was not as despicable as themselves; the chiefs, therefore, combined against this worthy man, and set on the envious rabble of monks, who otherwise would not have dared to hazard the attack. He received a thousand indignities; they degraded him from his office, took away the apartment which he had furnished with elegant simplicity, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... the crowded place with an air that was both determined and desperate. People here, there, everywhere; the rabble swarmed in the library, the morning-room, the den, chattering, staring, gaping, wondering. It was disgusting, it was barbarous, it made matters impossible. Every corner bespoken, every angle occupied. Nothing left save a nook under the great stairway—a nook ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... reflections of all the Indians. Besides the Portuguese do their best to persuade them that we have no forces, that we are but a rabble, who scarcely have fixed habitations in our own country, and quite far from being able to make lasting settlements in the Indias. As for them, they are established there with men who wish to live there. Therefore it is necessary for us to seek means ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... account, however, in no way agrees with the all too brief narration of events furnished by the inscription in the tomb. The army to which Egypt really owed its deliverance was not the undisciplined rabble of later tradition, but, on the contrary, consisted of troops similar to those which subsequently invaded Syria, some 15,000 to 20,000 in number, fully equipped and ably officered, supported, moreover, by a fleet ready to transfer them across the canals and arms ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... Ellerey had passed through the Altstrasse before to-night, but the surroundings had had no particular interest for him then. Now they arrested his attention. What plots might not have birth and grow to dangerous maturity in such surroundings, among such people as these? The rabble had overrun these deserted mansions; might it not one day hammer at the doors of the palaces by the citadel yonder with demands not to be gainsaid? What manner of man was this De Froilette, what ends had he in view, that he should ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... disseminated pernicious doctrines to the scandal and grief of simple souls." The event threw all Florence into confusion. The Arrabbiati were triumphant. But the city was filled with lamentation and disorder. The rabble rejoiced. The churches were quickly deserted; the taverns were filled; immorality returned as if magically; and again women attired in dazzling finery paraded the streets. In less than a month, so rapid was the transformation, Florence seemed to have relapsed into the days of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... Wellesley moved against Soult at Oporto, and, by a dextrous crossing of that river in his rear, compelled him to beat a calamitous retreat on Spain, with the loss of all his cannon and stores. The French reached Lugo an armed rabble, and were greeted there with jeers and execrations by the men of Ney's corps. The two Marshals themselves took up the quarrel, and so fierce were the taunts of Ney that Soult drew his sword and a duel was barely averted.[212] ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... who left that cage half- fastened, or the man who bribed the man who forced him to do it, or the whole chain of scoundrels, from the noble millionaire conspirators who hatched the idea, through their rabble of go-betweens down to the fool who hocussed ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... that the object of his journey to Ireland was "to new model the Forces there, and particularly to break no less than seventy of the honest officers of the army, and to fill up their places with the tools and creatures of Con. Phipps, and such a rabble of cut-throats as were fit for the work that they had for them to do." That there was some truth in the allegation is likely enough; Sir Constantine Phipps was, at least, shortly afterwards dismissed from his offices. But Lord Anglesey at once took action against it ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... no difficulty in beating back that rabble!" exclaimed Tony. "We must first pick off the fellows with firearms, and the others will ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... nosegay which Time clutched from out Those fair Elysian fields, With weeds and broken stems, in haste, Doth make the rabble rout That waste The day ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... when Freedom's ills I state, I mean to flatter kings, or court the great: Ye powers of truth that bid my soul aspire, Far from my bosom drive the low desire. And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel 365 The rabble's rage and tyrant's angry steel; Thou transitory flower, alike undone By proud contempt or favor's fostering sun, Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure! I only would repress them to secure: 370 For just experience tells, in every soil, That those who ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... Graham now, no longer upborne by music, but coarse and noisy, and the beating of the marching feet, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, interwove with a thunderous irregularity of footsteps from the undisciplined rabble that ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... as the contest was, it did not go fast enough to suit the guards, who, seizing the clubs thrown away by the rabble, charged them in a line and drove them up the street. Railroad men who came running from the station to help were too late. The flurry was over and they found nothing to do but to cheer their ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... Portuguese colours flying on the bulwark, Coutinno believed he had been called back by a contrivance of the viceroy to prevent him from acquiring honour, and addressed him in the following terms. "Were you ambitious, Sir, that the rabble of Lisbon should report you were the first in storming Cochin, that you thus recal me? I shall tell the king that I could have entered it with only this cane in my hand; and since I find no one ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... four to six thousand of Greek and other creeds. The two villages near Lida, two in the government of Grodno, the hundreds of villages and thousands of huts near Dwina, Rzezyca, Mohilew, Witebsk, burned, razed to the ground by an excited and hired rabble of Muscovite Muziks, who had sought and found hospitality in Poland for hundreds of years—certainly all these villages and huts were not inhabited even by the 'lesser nobility.' And it is also certain that the dwellers were not so cruelly punished for denouncing the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... It is interesting to note that Swift, who insisted that the word "mob" should never be used for "rabble," wrote "mob" in the 15th number of "The Examiner," and in Faulkner's reprint of 1741 the word was changed to "rabble." Scott notes: "The Dean carried on the war against the word 'mob' to the very last. A lady who died in 1788, and was well known to Swift, used to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... his love: apparently a characteristic of amorous dukes. We read them in the signs extended to us. The minds of these august and solitary men have not yet been sounded; they are too distant. Standing upon their lofty pinnacles, they are as legible to the rabble below as a line of cuneiform writing in a page of old copybook roundhand. By their deeds we know them, as heathendom knows of its gods; and it is repeatedly on record that the moment they have taken fire they must wed, though the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... devote himself to the maintenance of a system which exposed him to such treatment, and enabled his adversaries to dispose of all forces in a way that left him at the mercy of the most insolent and the most infamous of the rabble. He had not the instincts of a despot, and would easily have been made content with reasonable amendments. But the limit of the changes he sought was unknown, unsettled, unexplained, and he was identified simply with the reversal of the Constitution ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... disposition was to be made of us. In the meantime we were a menagerie. From dawn till dark our barred windows were besieged by the natives, for no member of our race had they ever seen before. Nor was our audience mere rabble. Ladies, borne in palanquins on the shoulders of coolies, came to see the strange devils cast up by the sea, and while their attendants drove back the common folk with whips, they would gaze long and timidly at ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... jeering the misshapen thing A rabble of clouds flares out of the east. Like dogs unleashed After a beast, They stream on the ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... man who was always in opposition. He had just completed his fiftieth year, and he boasted that he had already passed judgment on four Governments. He still contemptuously shrugged his shoulders at the thought of Charles X, the priests and nobles and other attendant rabble, whom he had helped to sweep away. Louis Philippe, with his bourgeois following, had been an imbecile, and he could tell how the citizen-king had hoarded his coppers in a woollen stocking. As for the Republic of '48, that had been a mere ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... to be made, that all the women of the land should come on the appointed day. And on that day, at the hour when the star of Venus appears, who awakes the Dawn, to strew the road along which the Sun has to pass, the ladies were all assembled at the palace. But Taddeo, not wishing to detain such a rabble for the mere amusement of his wife, chose ten only of the best of the city who appeared to him most capable and eloquent. These were Bushy-haired Zeza, Bandy-legged Cecca, Wen-necked Meneca, Long-nosed Tolla, Humph-backed ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... prominent positions along the established route of the ovation beginning to fill with that great concourse of varied nationalities and conditions which only the imperial city could display. In the open streets a disorderly rabble of slaves and bondmen—pouring in steady streams from their kennels behind the palaces and from the unhealthy purlieus of such quarters as had been spared from the architectural encroachments of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... little town we found that the first impression, gained from a distance, was illusory. Many shacks and camps, at first mistaken for the white men's houses, were found to be occupied by natives. They were a drunken, rascally rabble, spending their gains from the sale of fish and oil in a debauch that would last as long ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... maid." Our landladies adored her; the tradesfolk executed her little orders as eagerly as if a duchess gave them, or they were to make a fortune by waiting on her. I have thought often of the lady in Comus, and how, through all the rout and rabble, she moves, entirely serene ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... He had always loved deep-voiced women. Had he not read in the Talmud that Lilith, Adam's first wife, was low of voice? And this beggar-maid? Maybe a masquerading singer with a crazy father! What else could mean such art wasted on the roads, thrown in the faces of a rabble! Ferval kindled with emotion. Here was romance. Brahms and his dark song under the bowl of the troubled blue sky strongly affected him. He took the lean, brown hand of the singer and kissed it fervently. She drew back nervously, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... This roused the keen animosity of the officers, and decided them to press on Monk an alteration of his course. Once more he visited the City; but this time not as an enemy, but as a friend. In good round terms he rated the Parliament for countenancing the wild ravings of a dangerous rabble. He demanded that by a certain date they should issue writs for a free Parliament and bring their own sittings to an end. Their hopes were at once scattered to the winds; and in the wild tumult of bonfires and rejoicings with which Monk's declaration ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... battle. Nevertheless, the difference was great. The Parliamentary ranks were filled with hirelings whom want and idleness had induced to enlist. Hampden's regiment was regarded as one of the best; and even Hampden's regiment was described by Cromwell as a mere rabble of tapsters and serving-men out ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... the rabble and the railway folks have insisted on it. Well, now, how grateful you ought to be to the President for ordering us here to help you suppress them! Really, Mr. Elmendorf, I am glad to find we are on the same side of this question, after all." But here a shout of laughter drowned Kenyon's ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... one other bother, a kind of bother botherum, to tell of, though I hesitate at the telling. It brings this rabble herd of worries into line and makes them formidable; it is, so to speak, the Bother Commander-in-Chief. Well! Euphemia. I simply worship the ground she treads upon, mind, but at the same time the truth is the truth. Euphemia is a bother. She is a brave ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... brave, and I begged his body, that I might burn it upon the funeral-pile, and mourn over him. Ay, upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that boon, while all the Roman maids and matrons, and those holy virgins they call vestal, and the rabble, shouted in mockery, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale, and tremble like a very child, before that piece of bleeding clay; but the Prtor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, 'Let the carrion ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... father of Lydon, despite his Christian horror of the spectacle, in his agonized anxiety for his son, had not been able to resist being the spectator of his fate. One amidst a fierce crowd of strangers—the lowest rabble of the populace—the old man saw, felt nothing, but the form—the presence of his brave son! Not a sound had escaped his lips when twice he had seen him fall to the earth—only he had turned paler, and his ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... Here he had again been struck by the indefatigable Plumer, temporarily renovated and with sufficient steam up to take him a short spurt. That spurt was sufficient to rob De Wet of his last impedimenta, to cause him to bifurcate in his flight. Part of the pursued rabble went north, half hurled itself across the Cape Government Railway in the vicinity of Paauwpan. Plumer's spurt was just too short to bring about the definite result required, and he crawled into Hopetown to further revive his energy. In the meantime ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... persistent crimes against grandchildren that the human race as a whole is still such a miserable rabble, and that recruiting offices and insurances companies tell such startling tales of degeneracy. Love would cure this, if there were more of the right kind. Until there is, much good may be done by accepting it as a guide, and building up a sentiment ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... they be the Church who so rashly contradict Peter and the Scriptures, who even trample under foot, in his Word, Christ himself, the Head. Rather, they must be wicked devils, a miserable rabble, the worst enemies of the Christian Church; more wicked and pernicious than heathen ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... her, but now the room was full of the rabble pouring in at the noise—he was caught—"they heaped themselves upon me." . . . Then, when she saw "my angel helplessly held ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... from home; all Brussels seemed living in the streets. The danger to the city, which had imprisoned all its inhabitants except the rabble or the military, once completely passed, the pride of feeling and showing their freedom seemed to stimulate their curiosity in seeking details on what had passed and was passing. But neither the pride nor the joy of victory was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... magnificent! Even as the crushing truth of what it all meant came to him, the fighting blood in his veins leaped at the sight of it—the pretended effect of the shots from sea, the sham confusion, the disorderly flight, the wonderful quickness and precision with which the rabble of armed men had thrown ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... no power to behead the King; 'Turn to your bibles,' he answered, 'and you shall find it there, Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; and I see neither King Charles, Prince Charles, nor prince Rupert, nor prince Maurice, nor any of that rabble ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... timorous fly, the women shriek; With flint, with shaft, with staff, with bar, The hardier urge tumultuous war. At once round Douglas darkly sweep The royal spears in circle deep, And slowly scale the pathway steep, While on the rear in thunder pour The rabble with disordered roar With grief the noble Douglas saw The Commons rise against the law, And to the leading soldier said: 'Sir John of Hyndford, 'twas my blade That knighthood on thy shoulder laid; For that good deed permit me then A word ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... to him, boatswain Jenkins. His place will be in the foretop. A steady hand will be wanted among all that rabble there." ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... with Indians, representing four tribes, and from out the throng Pontiac again approached the gate. It was barred against him, and when he demanded admittance, Gladwyn himself replied, ordering him to begone, as neither he nor his rabble would again ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... Piazza of the People—the centre of the Carnival—where the stake had been set up, a great crowd fought for coigns of vantage—a joyous, good-humored tussle. The great fountain sent its flashing silver spirts towards a blue heaven. As the death-cart lumbered into the Piazza ribald songs from the rabble saluted the criminal's ears, and his wild, despairing eyes lighted on many a merry face that but a few hours before had followed him to testify to righteousness; and, mixed with theirs, the faces of his fellow-Jews, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... child, which the nurse held in her armes, and dandle it. One thing more; there happened a scaffold below to fall, and we feared some hurt, but there was none, but she of all the great ladies only run down among the common rabble to see what hurt was done, and did take care of a child that received some little hurt, which methought was so noble. Anon there came one there booted and spurred that she talked long with. And by and by, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... descendeth at last. Now lock up and bolt! Ha, jailor, look there! Who flies like a wild bird escaped from the snare? A woman, a slave-up, out in pursuit. While linger some gleams of day! Let thy call ring out!—now a rabble rout Is ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... pronounced didactically, "that a young lady of Miss Abbeway's birth and gifts should espouse the cause of this Labour rabble, a party already cursed with ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... visiting the hippopotamus in Regent's Park on those days in which he remains steadfastly buried in his tank, and will show only the tip of a nostril for your entrance-fee. Still, it was a pleasure to know that learning was so handsomely housed; and as for the little rabble who could not be trusted in the presence of the sex, we forgave them heartily, knowing that soberer manners would one day come upon them, as inevitably as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... light horse, and some artillery, composing a total of about 1500 men, was directed to co-operate with Aremberg. Upon this point the orders of the Governor-general were explicit. It seemed impossible that the rabble rout under Louis Nassau could stand a moment before nearly 4000 picked and veteran troops, but the Duke was earnest in warning his generals ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... certain about that, Topenebe," retorted Wells, shortly. "But we cannot stop longer here; make way, that we may pass along, Jordan, push on with your advance through that rabble there." ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... bring him to mind. Short, thick-set fellow, who whined something about hunger, children, and the cold. Ugh! What concern have I with the rabble? But how do ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... that is to say, public wenches, but both girls and women of the very noblest families. Every man was given authority to have whichever one he wished, for the women were not allowed to refuse any one. Consequently, the multitude being a regular rabble, they drank greedily and reveled in wanton conduct. So a slave debauched his mistress in the presence of his master and a gladiator ravished a girl of noble family while her father looked on. The shoving and striking and uproar that ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... rabble crowds into the room. At the same moment, LADY INGER appears in the doorway of the hall. A ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen

... meaning further is To take away th' authorities Of lies and fables, which did pigeon The rabble into ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams

... from the bourgeoisie, and barricades were erected around the city to defend it from Noske's army, sent to attack it by the Ebert-Scheidemann moderate Socialist Government of Berlin. In the early part of May, 1919, the Communist rabble of the Bavarian capital was finally overcome by the artillery fire of Noske's troops, and Hoffman was ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... crown of Agrippa glittered upon his forehead with an unnatural brightness—it was of the purest gold, radiating from the brow in spikes, and flecked with pearls of an uncommon size. Silent—erect—inflated with pride at his own grandeur, and the adulation of the rabble, sate the King of Palestine. Silent—awe-stricken—uncovered before the majesty of the representative of Claudius, stood the people of Samaria and Phenicia. Extreme beauty of an elevated and heroic character shone upon the features ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... what came next. For, unarmed, with long, slow strides, walked a noble figure of commanding stature, whose eyes flashed now and again on the shouting rabble, and whose white hair, escaped from his cap, waved tempestuously in the winter wind. There walked Sorley Boy, upright, sullen, disdainful; and behind him came Ludar, with tight- pressed lips and thunderous brow, his fingers twitching ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... A rabble of nondescript curs came snapping and yapping about her horse's legs until dispersed by a harsh command from the dark interior of ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... representation of a baptism. A weaker man like Paolo Uccello almost entirely sacrificed what sense of artistic significance he may have started with, in his eagerness to display his skill and knowledge. As for the rabble, their work has now the interest of prize exhibitions at local art schools, and their number merely helped to accelerate the momentum with which Florentine art rushed to its end. But out of even mere dexterity a certain benefit to art may come. Men without ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... had those brilliant qualities, and luxurious habits, and ostentatious prodigality, which so often dazzle superficial people, especially young men of fashion and wealth, but more even than they, the idolatrous rabble. So great was his popularity and social prestige, that no injured person ever dared to bring him to trial, and he even rescued his own wife from the hands of the law when she sought to procure a divorce—a proof that even ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... had loved at once the fine old chateau with its lichen-covered walls, its fine portcullis and crenelated towers, she had wept over the torn tapestries, the broken furniture, the family portraits which a rough and impious rabble had wilfully damaged, she had loved the wide sweep of the terrace walls, the views over the Isere and across the mountain range to the peaks of the Grande Chartreuse, but above all she had loved this sombre row of ilex trees, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... do nothing; I was only a lieutenant of artillery. But I longed to go in like the others, and whisper: 'Sire, give me four cannon, and I'll sweep the whole rabble out.'" ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... gazing skyward at the unwonted apparition of the aerial ship; and, with the aid of their telescopes, the travellers could see in the central square a small group of persons (who they conjectured to be the king and his suite) similarly engaged, surrounded and protected from the rabble by a phalanx ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... A rabble of prisoners—Jaegers, Grenadiers, Uhlans, what-nots—came trudging down the road, an unshorn, dishevelled herd of cut-throats, propelled by a brace of diminutive kilties, who paused occasionally to treat them to snatches of flings and to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various

... excitement in the "Quaker City" than had been witnessed there since the preceding Presidential election. The party-leaders began to lay their plans early, and the wire-pullers on both sides were unusually busy in their vocation. At the head of the rabble upon which one of the parties depended for many votes, was a drunken and profane fellow, whom we will call Tom Simmons. Tom was great at electioneering and stump-spouting in bar-rooms and rum-caucuses, and his party always looked to him, at each election, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... relics as devotion holds Still sacred, and preserves with pious care. So 'twas a hallowed time: decorum reigned, And mirth without offence. No few returned Doubtless much edified, and all refreshed. —Man praises man. The rabble all alive, From tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes, Swarm in the streets. The statesman of the day, A pompous and slow-moving pageant, comes; Some shout him, and some hang upon his car To gaze in his eyes and bless him. Maidens wave Their ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... the Union! And in Kentucky the rebels had been outmanoeuvred; while in Missouri the glorious Lyon and the crafty Blair had, one in the Cabinet, the other in the camp, routed the secret, black, and Janus-like rabble ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... not rove; let us sit at home with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.[217] Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... mighty bustle;" "confundor" is "to be jumbled;" and "squalidus" is "in a sorry pickle." "Importuna" is "a plaguy baggage;" "adulterium" is rendered "her pranks;" "ambages" becomes either "a long rabble of words," "a long-winded detail," or "a tale of a tub;" "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... his head. The people called him Grimaldi, an appellation that appears to have belonged to him by usage, and it is a singular coincidence that the surname of the noblest family of Genoa the Proud, thus assigned by the rude rabble of a sea-port to their buffoon, should belong of right to the sire and son, whose mops and mowes afford pastime to the upper gallery ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... then, however, a man climbed the ugly fence and dropped down on the other side. Then he ran for the shelter of the long lines of cars standing on the siding. A crew of men recruited from the office force of the railroad was trying to make up a train. The rabble that had gained entrance to the yards were blocking their movements by throwing switches at the critical moment. As Sommers came up to the fence, the switching engine had been thrown into the wrong siding, and had bunted up at full speed against a milk car, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... in the Roman city they became the chief pleasure of life. The days of their celebration were public holidays, which in the fourth century numbered no less than one hundred and seventy-five. The once-sovereign people of Rome became a lazy, worthless rabble, fed by the state and amused with the games. It was well said by an ancient satirist that the Romans wanted only two things to make them happy—"bread and the games of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... Osiander, Bale, Mornay, Fox, Usher, and many others relate. In the mean time, he that shall but see their profane rites and foolish customs, how superstitiously kept, how strictly observed, their multitude of saints, images, that rabble of Romish deities, for trades, professions, diseases, persons, offices, countries, places; St. George for England; St. Denis for France, Patrick, Ireland; Andrew, Scotland; Jago, Spain; &c. Gregory for students; Luke for painters; Cosmus and Damian for philosophers; Crispin, shoemakers; Katherine, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... were only too soon seen to be justified. In all the brown faces which he saw directed towards him Heideck clearly read detestation and menace. They naturally regarded him as an Englishman, and it was only his decided manner and the naked sword in his hand that prevented the rabble from venting in a personal attack their rage against one of the ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... is seventeen cantreds, besides our rabble and our women-folk—for with each king was his queen in Medb's company—and our striplings; the eighteenth division is namely the cantred of the Galian.[4] This division of Leinstermen I will distribute among [5]all the host of[5] the men of Erin in such wise that no five men of them shall ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... force among the petty chiefs was always large in proportion to their means, but consisted of a rabble totally undisciplined and ill armed, although of good bodily endowments. Much order has been introduced by the chiefs of Gorkha, although both in arms and discipline the soldiers are still very far behind Europeans. In Puraniya I was told, that, in that vicinity, that is, in the ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... Fire engines poured streams of fetid water upon the congregation. Stones fell so thickly that the faces of many grew crimson with blood. At Hoxton the mob drove an ox into the midst of the congregation. At Pensford the rabble, who had been baiting a bull, concluded their sport by driving the torn and tired animal full against the table on which Wesley was preaching. Sometimes we find innkeepers refusing to receive the Methodist ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... and sanest of workaday worlds. It was to rediscover England, and find solid ground for the faith of those who still believed in her. But a necessary condition of this efficiency was that those who were efficient should give all their time to their business and leave the rabble raving to its heart's content. Indeed the raving was useful to the efficient, because, as it was always wide of the mark, it often distracted attention very conveniently from operations that would have been defeated or hindered by publicity. A precept which I endeavored vainly to ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... and abilities of Paracelsus have been vastly praised by some, and inordinately abused by others. One author says of him: "He lived like a pig, looked like a drover, found his greatest enjoyment in the company of the most dissolute and lowest rabble, and throughout his glorious life he was generally drunk." Another author says: "Probably no physician has grasped his life's task with a purer enthusiasm, or devoted himself more faithfully to it, or more ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... deeply rooted in the devotion of the common people, it was the service of the mass. And in attacking the doctrine of the Real Presence, the authors of this libel, distributed under cover of the darkness, had, in the estimation of the rabble, proved themselves more impious and deserving a more signal punishment than that sacrilegious Jew whose knife had drawn drops of miraculous blood from the transubstantiated wafer. Not the parish priests, nor the doctors of the Sorbonne, could surpass the infuriated populace in loud execrations ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... the cause to the general suffrage of the people. But when the people met together, the tribunes, contrary to all former practice, extorted first, that votes should be taken, not by centuries, but tribes; a change, by which the rabble, that had no respect for honesty and justice, would be sure to carry it against those who were rich and well known, and accustomed to serve the state in war. In the next place, whereas they had engaged to prosecute Marcius upon no other head ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... we were at Sooloo, we had evidence sufficient of the vindictive feeling held by the rabble against Europeans, and at the same time the various ways they resorted to, to give us an idea of their superiority. They drew our attention to some old cannon mounted on rotten gun-carriages; they pointed out the strength of their fort, the sharpness of their krisses and spears; and ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... sufficient talent to clothe the thoughts of a pander in the style of a bellman, were now the favorite writers of the Sovereign and of the public. It was a loathsome herd, which could be compared to nothing so fitly as to the rabble of Comus, grotesque monsters, half bestial, half human, dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, and reeling in obscene dances. Amidst these that fair Muse was placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, lofty, spotless, and serene, to be chattered at, and pointed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... are among the rank and fashion, you see, and we are country cousins doing the sights. You visit the real people, and we stare at the images at Madame Tussaud's. You attend private views, and we go in with the rabble. You go to luncheon parties at The Star and Garter, and we have buns and tea in an ABC shop, and pay an extra penny for cream. We move in different circles, Major Darcy," cried Peggy, with a toss of the head which ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... was made gentleman usher of the privy chamber to King Charles II. then Prince of Wales; we find him afterwards adhering to the interest of his Royal Master, for when his Majesty was driven out of London, by the threatnings and tumults of the discontented rabble, he followed him, and on the 13th of September, 1642, he received the honour of knighthood. After the battle of Edgehill, when his Majesty was obliged to retire to Oxford, our author then attended him, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... and doubly rich in pious epitaphs and Latin mottoes—rich in them to such an extent that their proper space has run over, and they have crawled end- long up the shafts of columns and ensconced themselves in all sorts of odd corners among the sculpture. These tombs raise their backs against the rabble of squalid dwelling-houses, and every here and there a clothes-pole projects between two monuments its fluttering trophy of white and yellow and red. With a grim irony they recall the banners in the Invalides, banners as appropriate perhaps over ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... underwent before and during the battle. All this made the good father say that he was very content to die, and especially because he had not seen the abominations, blasphemies, and shameless acts of that rabble. There was one sick, Tagal, who was the leader of the enemy's fleet, and on this occasion he ended his evil life, to commence payment for his atrocities, blasphemies, and daring. On the other hand, a younger brother of his who was mortally wounded asked anxiously for holy baptism, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... petitioning the proper authorities, that he might be conveyed to the Castle under a sufficient guard, to remain there in security until his ultimate fate should be determined. Habituated, however, by his office to overawe the rabble of the city, Porteous could not suspect them of an attempt so audacious as to storm a strong and defensible prison; and, despising the advice by which he might have been saved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in giving an entertainment ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... 10th, from the window of a shop near the Tuileries, he looked down on the strange events which dealt the coup de grace to the dying monarchy. Again the chieftain within him sided against the vulture rabble and with the well-meaning monarch who kept his troops to a tame defensive. "If Louis XVI." (so wrote Buonaparte to his brother Joseph) "had mounted his horse, the victory would have been his—so I judge from the spirit which prevailed in the morning." When all was over, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... each arm made only two armed men, whereas a bit of ingenuity might have made each serve three or four; by dividing the stocks and barrels, for instance. The tatterdemalion of the treble fiercely demanded my passport, while the "army" quickly degenerated into a ragged rabble ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... group against group, faith against faith, race against race, class against class, fanning the fires of hatred in men too despondent, too desperate to think for themselves, were used as rabble-rousing slogans on which dictators could ride to power. And once in power they could saddle their tyrannies on whole nations and on their ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... them to engage in a deadly conflict with their own neighbours, relatives, and personal friends, in the defence of mere strangers like ourselves. They could not even restrain the younger and more violent portion of the rabble from carrying on the species of desultory warfare, from which Barton had already suffered; on the contrary, the stones and other missiles, thrown by persons on the outskirts of the crowd, fell continually thicker and ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... hand struck from his body, to be ignominiously deprived of the honour of nobility, of which he was unworthy, and to be expelled from the city. When he had been stripped of his arms, and sustained the mutilation imposed by this severe sentence, the unhappy victim of ambition was abandoned to the rabble, who followed him with threats and outcries levelled alternately against the necromancer and oppressor, which at length ended in violence. His brothers (for his retinue were fled and dispersed) at length succeeded in rescuing him from the hands of the populace, when, satiated ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... having been buried there. As we passed down the street my friend went into a shop to buy some chocolates. While I was waiting, I heard the stirring notes of the Marseillaise, and looking round saw a band coming up the street followed by three Italian flags, a number of soldiers, and a rabble of men, women and children. I called to my companion to come out quickly and salute the Italian colours. As they passed, we stood on the curb and saluted with strict military precision. In fact we saluted so well that the delighted members of the procession grabbed us by the hand and finally ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... the walls scrambled up by a rabble rout of camp-followers, in shirts and breeches, but without shoes, who burst over the parapets whilst the envoys of the town were being amused by mock conferences with Montfort and the other leaders of the crusading host. A general massacre ensued; neither age nor sex were spared, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... Jewish sanhedrim, condemned, buffeted, and spit upon. How at that moment in His inmost Divine soul, He must have glanced over the vast creation, that He had called into being; and felt that an Infinite power dwelt in Him. One blazing look of wrathful indignation would have annihilated that rude rabble. But He had clothed himself in flesh, to subdue all of its evil and vile passions; to show to an ignorant and sensual race, the grace and beauty of a self-abnegation—a Divine pity and forgiveness. And thus did the outer material ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... up the principles of the Presbyterians in a frightful shape; but let me tell you, Sir, in my turn, that the principles of your party have been burnt, not by a rude and lawless rabble, but by the common hangman, in broad day-light, before the Royal Exchange in London, and by authority of Parliament. Perhaps," he continues, "you never heard of this contemptuous treatment of the Oxford principles, and therefore I will give it you from the Parliamentary Records:—'Anno ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... looked at each of them, you saw a man used to hard work from boyhood, more or less accustomed to the woods, and almost without exception a fair shot. Handsome is as handsome does. As the war went on, the regulars found that the rabble were as brave as themselves, more expert in wood-fighting, and far ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... the regiments now rushed forward with fixed bayonets, and drove the Americans back to a ravine, which separated them from the rear; and in this attack General Mercer who was attempting to rally the rabble rout, was mortally wounded. Washington came up with the rear, and succeeded in getting his main body into order and passing the ravine, but in so doing he lost five more of his best officers, and was himself beset with danger. After several efforts, he succeeded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... material condition than savages, and their spiritual opportunities are infinitely greater; for their eye and fancy are fed with visions of human greatness, and even if they cannot improve their outward estate they can possess a poetry and a religion. It suffices to watch an Oriental rabble at prayer, or listening in profound immobility to some wandering story-teller or musician, to feel how much such a people may have to ruminate upon, and how truly Arabian days and Arabian Nights go together. The ideas evolved may be wild and futile and the emotions savagely ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... the original fomenters of the strife had recruited their forces with herds of the lowest rabble gathered from the purlieus of their patron saints, St. Clement and St. Thomas, and the shores of the Charwell,—the bargees, and butchers, and labourers, and scum of the suburbians: a huge conglomerated mass of thick sculls, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... directed their enthusiasm, or had there been any correspondent feelings in the higher ranks, Naples might have set a glorious example to Europe, and have proved the grave of every Frenchman who entered it. But the vices of the government had extinguished all other patriotism than that of the rabble, who had no other than that sort of loyalty which was like the fidelity of a dog to its master. This fidelity the French and their adherents counteracted by another kind of devotion: the priests affirmed that St. Januarius had declared in favour of the revolution. ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... struggling for success in the thick of things. The city attracts the country boy who is ambitious, exactly as old Rome attracted the immature German. The blare of its noisy traffic, the glare of its myriad lights, the rush and the roar and the rabble all urge him to get into the scramble for fun and gain. The crowd attracts. The instinct of sociability draws people together. Those who are unfamiliar with rural spaces and are accustomed to live in crowded tenements find it lonesome in the country, and prefer the discomfort of their congested ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... duty. It was a stern, unbending acceptance of his responsibility; and as in the lonely fort upon the frontier where he had dominated, unaided, month after month, over wild, antagonistic races, so now, unarmed and unprotected, he dominated over the fanatic rabble by the pure force of a complete personality. He was to all intents and purposes their prisoner, but he rode there as their conqueror; and that most splendid triumph of all triumphs—the unseen victory of will over will—filled him with ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... is that of a lifetime. Little boys and girls come on the stage in the arms of the mothers—matrons of Jerusalem. Older boys shout in the rabble and become at last Roman soldiers or servants of the High Priest. Still later, the best of them are ranged among the Apostles, and the rare genius becomes Pilate, John, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... card-playing was not thrust on her as a round-about form of plunder, and the stories told were more those derived from the spicy columns of the sporting papers, in words of double meaning, than the outspoken, stable obscenity characteristic of the race-course rabble. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... at least," shouted Ulrich, beside himself with rage; "shoot me, I say; death is preferable to the disgrace of being a prisoner of such miserable rabble." ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... church on the Sabbath, and the bishop, after reading his confession, immediately pronounced him excommunicated and accursed. Two priests then violently tore his clerical robes from his shoulders, and with boisterous shouts, cried, "Drive the accursed one from the church." The excited rabble now fell upon him, and with kicks and blows thrust him into the street. All this he received with the greatest meekness, and returned to his house exceeding glad that he was counted worthy "to suffer ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... I find, though the rabble rout A few doors lower burnt the quorum out. Sad times, when Bow-street is the scene of riot, And justice cannot keep the parish quiet. But peace returning, like the dove appears, And this association stills my fears; Humour and wit the frolic wing may spread, And we give harmless Lectures ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... be looked for, and devoted their time to intrigues rather than to prayers. No small part of the revenues of the clergy was wasted in the dissipations of these ecclesiastic courtiers. They were imitated in their vices by a rabble of priests out of place, to whom the title of abbot was given in politeness, the little abbes of French biography and fiction. These men lived in garrets, haunted cheap eating-houses, and appeared on certain days of the week at rich men's tables, picking up a living as best they could. They ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... buffoons, gamblers, beings of every species that could mislead the head and corrupt the heart, come and go without ceremony; but to a poet all entrance was denied; for such chosen society he was unfit. The very rabble, with which these pillared lounging places swarm, looked on him with a suspicious and half contemptuous eye; that insolently inquired what business had he there? Were the slaves and menials of Maecenas such? Was it thus at ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... below this shouting, curious crowd, stands, waist-deep in the Nile, a slender-limbed boy, about ten years old. He belongs to a superior caste, and holds himself above the common rabble. Being perfectly naked, a careless eye might, however, rank him with the rest, were it not for the talisman which he wears suspended to a fine gold chain round his neck; a curiously designed diamond ring, the inheritance of a long line of priestly ancestors. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... conclave. At that instant (inauspicious omen!) a terrible flash of lightning, followed by a stunning peal of thunder, struck through the hall, burning and splitting some of the furniture. The hall of conclave was crowded by a fierce rabble, who refused to retire. After about an hour's strife, the Bishop of Marseilles, by threats, by persuasion, or by entreaty, had expelled all but about forty wild men, armed to the teeth. These ruffians rudely and insolently searched the whole building; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... much as was left of it—kept pace with our brigade upon the right. There was no battle after that. The advance went on without a check, until our army stood lined upon the very ground which the French had held in the morning. Their guns were ours, their foot were a rabble spread over the face of the country, and their gallant cavalry alone was able to preserve some sort of order and to draw off unbroken from the field. Then at last, just as the night began to gather, our weary and starving men were able to let the Prussians take ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... many guilty escape, it is not likely the innocent will be punished. Let me go with this man quietly, Aunt Helena; I," a flush of proud pain passed over her face, "I don't want the servants—I don't want the rabble to see me." ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... course, all this unnecessary rabble is helping to make everything horriblement cher. The price of things makes one's hair stand on end like the quills of the fretful porcupine. I can assure you that le moindre petit diner coute les yeux de la tete. Poor Bobbie Lacklands had a tragic experience ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various

... in this manner, a great ill-looking rabble, upwards of a thousand strong, made their appearance, carrying a banner, and bringing forth two prisoners to die. The wretches were armed after their disorderly fashion; and the prisoners each tied upon a horse. One of these hapless ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... to do. But we did them none, although we knew their evil intentions. Having arrived where our men were working, Sieur de Poutrincourt inquired if every thing was in readiness to resist the designs of this rabble. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain

... head; "These old Italian tales," he said, "From the much-praised Decameron down Through all the rabble of the rest, Are either trifling, dull, or lewd; The gossip of a neighborhood In some remote provincial town, A scandalous chronicle at best! They seem to me a stagnant fen, Grown rank with rushes and with reeds, Where a white lily, now and then, Blooms ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... her greeting. "Abroad like the rabble, and carrying a burden." She filliped the wallet ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... "one time during the proceedings there appeared some faltering on the part of the judges, or rather a hesitancy to take the lead in assuming responsibility and braving what might be subsequent odium. It was one thing for a half-drunken rabble to take the life of a fellow man, but quite another thing for staid church-going men of business to do it. Then it was that William A. Howard, after watching the proceedings for a few moments, rose, and laying his revolver on the table looked over the assembly. Then with a slow enunciation he said, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... of Lincoln's Inn Fields was an open space where the rabble congregated every evening, within a few yards of Cardigan House and Winchester House, to hear mountebanks harangue, to see bears dance, and to set dogs at oxen. Rubbish was shot in every part of the area. Horses were exercised there. The beggars ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... which so much of noble blood has been shed through so many ages, were occupied by persons of both sexes, all of the middle, and some even of the upper classes, as eager to behold the frightful and disgusting scene, which was about to ensue, as the mere rabble ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... this popish rabble, priests, monks, and nuns, resist God's order and commandment, inasmuch as they despise and forbid matrimony, and presume and vow to maintain perpetual chastity, and, besides, deceive the simple-minded with lying words and ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... wrong to despise glory and deprive earth of his great deeds, citing as examples of more active spirits accomplishing much when younger than he, the young Alexander, Scipio, Pompey, and Caesar. But the Savior replied that the glory which consisted of the approval of the rabble was only to be despised. The true glory was that of the man who dared to be truly good, who though little known on earth, was famous in Heaven. Such men did not lay waste fields, sack, pillage, and slay, but by deeds ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... upset, chairs strewn in disorder about the floor, when the rabble was cleared out of the place. Only Morgan remained there with the dead men, like a lone tragedian whose ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... Haccombe, was it?—or a Courtenay of Boconnock? Silence, Will, I shall have it in a minute—yes, a Courtenay of Haccombe it was, lying at anchor near by, in a ship of war of his, cuts out the three ships, and cuts off the Dons from the sea. John and James Desmond, with some small rabble, go over to the Spaniards. Earl Desmond will not join them, but will not fight them, and stands by to take the winning side; and then in comes poor Davils, sent down by the Lord Deputy to charge Desmond and his brothers, in the queen's name, to assault ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... scene are portrayed, though not in a material sense wrong, must be open to much aesthetic dispute; must mar the success and the action of reflex thought, the spiritual contest waging and recoiling between the Divine, meek victim and the surging rabble. At all events, it is sad to trace no direct or secret hint at new or transcendental methods conspicuous or even dimly apparent in the painter's art. Little there is in the effort to draw our finer instincts to spiritual ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater

... even Lucille that the flight from Paris had not been an unnecessary precaution. Upon the heels of the horror of the long siege had followed the greater disorder of the Commune, when brave men were shot down by the insurgent National Guard, and all Paris was at the mercy of the rabble. Indeed, this Reign of Terror must ever remain a blot on the civilisation of the century and the ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... knew that the king followed closely after, and that fight he must, he strove to put heart and hardihood into the breasts of his fellows. "Comrades," said he, "be not dismayed by reason of this rabble. We know well enough what these Britons are, since they never stand before us. If but a handful go against them, not one will stay to fight. Many a time, with but a mean company, have I vanquished and destroyed them. If they be in number as the sand, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... quadrupeds, though passing, like an impostor as he was, for a devil incarnate; the band thundering melodiously that dashing plaintive march, and exhilarating and firing the souls of all Chapelizod. Up went the windows all along the street, the rabble-rout of boys yelled and huzzaed like mad. The maids popped their mob-caps out of the attics, and giggled, and hung out at the risk of their necks. The serving men ran out on the hall-door steps. The village roues emerged in haste from their public houses. The whole scene round ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... be!" he shouted to those who carried Drift, in a voice so loud that for a moment the rabble ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... set out on their return. On their way they had some skirmishing with the rabble of the town, who had heard the firing, but they were beaten off without much difficulty, and the victors re-entered the fort in triumph. The Doctor was at the gate as they came in. Bathurst sprang from his horse and held out his hand. His radiant ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... to a stately Palace, set out with all manner of deliciousness; Soft Musick, Tables spred with all dainties. Comus appears with his rabble, and the Lady set in an inchanted Chair, to whom he offers his Glass, which she puts by, and goes ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... injured the last two or three years, by edicts differing greatly from the Edict of Nantes. That one, for instance, which rendered us liable to the intrusion of Catholics into our temples, to spy at our observances, pick up scraps of our sermons, and report them incorrectly. What advantage the rabble have taken ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning

... man and mark the difference between his ambition and that of Julius. "Let us enjoy the Papacy, since God has given it us." To enjoy life, to squander the treasures of the Church on amusements, to feed a rabble of flatterers, to contract enormous debts, and to disturb the peace of Italy, not for some vast scheme of ecclesiastical aggrandisement, but in order to place the princes of his family on thrones, that was Leo's conception of the Papal privileges and duties. The portraits of the two ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... it'd be a grand thing if we could see ourselves for one hour, or a minute itself, the way we'd know surely we were the finest man and the finest woman of the seven counties of the east (bitterly) and then the seeing rabble below might be destroying their souls telling bad lies, and we'd never heed a thing ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge

... as much by accident as he dined, and passed the night sometimes in mean houses, which are set open at night to any casual wanderers, sometimes in cellars, among the riot and filth of the meanest and most profligate of the rabble; and sometimes, when he had not money to support even the expenses of these receptacles, walked about the streets till he was weary, and lay down in the summer upon a bulk, or in the winter, with his associates in poverty, among the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... expressed by these statesmen uncommon in that day. It was entertained by a very considerable number of men throughout the East and South, who looked upon the pioneers in general as renegades and vagabonds forming a "lawless rabble" on the outskirts of civilization. To them the first settlers were "lawless intruders" on the public domain, "land robbers," "fugitives from justice," and "idle and profligate characters." Squatters, they held, were those "who had gone beyond ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh

... boarhounds, St. Bernard's, mastiffs, nearly or quite as big as you are, but not so slender, silky-haired, and sharp-nosed, and without your refined expression of keenness without cunning. And after these canine noblemen of the old regime, whither has vanished the countless rabble of mongrels, curs, and pariah dogs; and last of all—being more degenerate—the corpulent, blear-eyed, wheezy pet dogs of a hundred breeds? They are all dead, no doubt: they have been dead so long that ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... said, "and you needn't worry about him. He's got one quality left that sets him far enough apart from the rabble of to- day." He looked keenly at the young man as he added, suddenly: "Of all the fellows you've ever helped, Maxwell—and I know you've helped a lot in one way or another—has any one of them before to-day ever ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... was eastward across the Jordan, and this loophole, too, was soon to be closed. Panic reigned; the roads leading east were black with long columns of guns and transport and men mingled in hopeless confusion, fleeing with no thought of anything but their own safety; a routed, utterly demoralised rabble. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... and who had no other object than to flatter the people. Accordingly Marius formed a design to eject Metellus from the city; and for this purpose he allied himself with Glaucia and Saturninus,[105] who were daring men, and had at their command a rabble of needy and noisy fellows, and he made them his tools in introducing his measures. He also stirred up the soldiers, and by mixing them with the people in the assemblies he overpowered Metellus with ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... overdo their office, and invite disease. But these temporary stays and shifts for the protection of the young animal are shed as fast as they can be replaced by nobler resources. We live in youth amidst this rabble of passions, quite too tender, quite too hungry and irritable. Later, the interiors of mind and heart open, and supply grander motives. We learn the fatal compensations that wait on every act. Then,—one mischief at a time,—this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... point directly at his face. The monster tried to strike him with a lance, but Rogero was too quick for him, and thrust his sword through his body, so that it appeared a hand's breadth behind his back. The paladin, now giving full vent to his rage, laid about him vigorously among the rabble, cleaving one to the teeth, another to the girdle; but the troop were so numerous, and in spite of his blows pressed around him so close, that, to clear his way, he must have had ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... bicycle as fast as he can through the different streets. This invariably attracts attention. Boys and men follow him to the church, where it is easy to persuade them to enter." But this is an admission of our position in regard to the classes affected. The rabble may be Christianized by this means, but the ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... and glamour. As he straddled the limb of his high perch that brought him so near her, he heard her cry out, her head thrown backward on her proud young throat: "Ah, the little beast, bringing the breath of the rabble up ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin

... in a nightmare. From time to time would come a rush, a stampede, of deer or tapirs, along the strip of beach between the water and the cliff. The toiling men would draw aside till the rabble went by, then fall to ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... toward sunset when Renouf, having apparently appropriated all the most valuable portions of the Spaniard's cargo that he could readily lay hands on, began to clear his disorderly rabble of a crew out of the ship, sending them aboard the schooner, a boatload at a time, and, to my surprise, using the Spanish boats, as well as his own, for this purpose. Meanwhile, the stories told by the men who had from time ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... leads to Nirvana's rest; No royal captain guides his army there. Why leave the heights with so much labor gained? Why plunge in darkness we have just escaped? Men will not heed the message we may bring. The great will scorn, the rabble will deride,[6] And cry 'He hath a devil ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... cylinders of dowager peppermint-drops in his window, and half-a-dozen ancient specimens of currant-jelly. A few oranges formed the greengrocer's whole concession to the vulgar mind. A single basket made of moss, once containing plovers' eggs, held all that the poulterer had to say to the rabble. Everybody in those streets seemed (which is always the case at that hour and season) to be gone out to dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they had gone to. On the doorsteps there were lounging footmen with bright parti-coloured ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... draymen from Santerre's brewery, or of devils from Hebert's printing-house, should be permitted to drown the voices of men commissioned to speak the sense of such cities as Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Lyons; and that a rabble of half-naked porters from the Faubourg St Antoine should have power to annul decrees for which the representatives of fifty or sixty departments had voted. It was necessary to find some pretext for so odious and absurd a tyranny. Such a ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... across the line to the world of ghosts carved their names on wooden beams, and on the whitewashed walls scribbled legends proclaiming that Private John Johnson was a bastard; or that a certain battalion was a rabble of ruffians; or that Kaiser Bill would die on the gallows, illustrating those remarks with portraits and allegorical devices, sketchily ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... In London the rabble smashed the windows of Apsley House, the residence of the Duke of Wellington. At Nottingham the mob fired and destroyed the castle of the Duke of Newcastle because he was opposed to reform. In Derby a serious riot broke out. In Bristol matters ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... like seed, in genial plenty sown. Wherever it took root, the soul (restored To freedom) freedom too for others sought. Not monkish craft, the tyrant's claim divine, Not regal zeal, the bigot's cruel shrine, Could longer guard from reason's warfare sage; Nor the wild rabble to sedition wrought, Nor synods by the papal Genius taught, Nor St. John's ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... wherefore should I have taken the life of him whose whole pleasure lay in ministering to my happiness? What could I gain by the death of the dearest friend I ever had? Ah, never would he have mistrusted his Olympia! Had the envious rabble of Paris defamed me while he lived to defend my honor, it is not your father, Prince Eugene, that would have joined my traducers and outraged my woman-hood, as you ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... ridiculous smirk, a grotesque attitude, without remembering one of his figures. All the degrees of stupidity and of drunkenness, all the grossness and mawkishness of orgies, the frenzy of the lowest pleasures, the cynicism of the vulgarest vice, the buffoonery of the wildest rabble, all the most brutal emotions, the basest aspects of tavern and alehouse life, have been painted by him with the brutality and insolence of an unscrupulous man, and with such a sense of the comic, such an impetuosity, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... dine and drink and speechify. Every age, every trade, and every pastime has its Verein and its anniversary rites. I was much amused and puzzled in Berlin one afternoon by a procession that filed slowly past the tram in which I sat, and was preceded and attended by such a rabble of sightseers that the ordinary traffic was stopped for a time. I thought at first it was a demonstration in connection with temperance or teetotalism, because there were so many broad blue ribbons about, and I was surprised, because I know that Germans club together to drink beer ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick



Words linked to "Rabble" :   crowd, ragtag, rabble-rouser, folk, rabble-rousing, trash, scum



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