"Vindictive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and perhaps by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South American and Mexican were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... dull air, and the country with its white villas and black cypresses breaking the grey stretches of the olive orchards on its hill-sides, had alike been growing more and more insufferable; and Colville was finding a sort of vindictive satisfaction in the power to ignore the surrounding frippery of landscape and architecture. He isolated himself so perfectly from it, as he brooded upon the river, that, for any sensible difference, he might have been ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... lending to his friends. Their losses may indeed render subscriptions more expensive to the public; but there is no well grounded room to suppose they will not fill up; and still less reason to believe, if the means for carrying on the war are attainable, that the vindictive spirit of the King and his ministry, and the overweening pride of the nation, will soon yield to make a peace, which involves their disgrace and humiliation. But as strength or weakness are mere comparative terms, we can ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... became a regular prank on Kerr's side of the ranch. Watch as he might, Lambert could not prevent the stealthy excursions, the vindictive destruction of the hated barrier. All these breaches were made within a mile on either side of the first cut, sometimes in a single place, again along a stretch, as if the person using the nippers knew when to deliberate and ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... uneasy feeling in connection with Mr. Graylock's vindictive animosity, Dick was put on his guard one day when the cashier sent him with a note to the ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... again looked at Guy, with a vindictive expression, but did not deign to speak. The face seemed to him to be utterly diabolical and detestable. She looked at him for a moment, and then her head sank down upon her ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... a very different France which the eyes of the dying Calvin saw from that which the young man had seen thirty years before. Religious hate was even more bitter and vindictive; war had come and made persecution more ferocious; but the Huguenots had grown numerous, potent, respected, feared, and disputed with Catholicism the supremacy of the kingdom. And Calvin had done it, not by arms nor by threats, nor by encouragement of sedition or insurrection—to such action he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... have been unkind to you," says Tommy, who is evidently not afraid to enter upon a discussion of the rights and wrongs of mankind with his paternal relative. "Look at Mabel! And I don't care what she says," with a vindictive glance at the angelic featured Mabel, who glares back at him with infinite promise of a future settlement of all their disputes in her ethereal eyes. "'Twas my ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... funny business," said the officer with a parting nod at Jimmy and a vindictive light in his eyes when he remembered the bruises that Jimmy had ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... another opinion prevalent among the less educated which gives to the Rattle-snake the vindictive spirit of the North American Indian, and asserts that it adds a new joint to its rattle whenever it has slain a human being, thus bearing in its tail the fearful trophies of its prowess, just as the Indians wear the scalps of slain ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... with his hat. If there was in truth any idea in his mind that the relations between his companion and Harry Wharton were more than those of friendship, it did not avail to make him spare her in the least. He was absorbed in vindictive feeling, which applied to her also. He might say for form's sake that she had meant well; but in fact he regarded her at this moment as a sort of odious Canidia whose one function had been to lure Louis to misfortune. Cut off ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... story of an ancient Irish family. Every one of the nine young Brandons was handsome, and every one was spirited and lovable. The shadows in the picture hang ominously over Castle Angry and its inmate, the vindictive Sir Rupert de Lacy. The story ends happily for "The Handsome Brandons" with the re-establishment ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... to stand by and listen to this vindictive sentence without a protest. But he restrained himself, and resolved that Freddy should find before long that all his masters were ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... to your Lordships' vindictive justice and condemnation this recriminatory defence, in which every principle of justice has been violated. And now I will ask your Lordships whether you would have suffered such a procedure in the case of the prisoner at your ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... they go out, Martha bustles in, gathers up the dish tray and is about to depart, with a vindictive look. At the door she turns, and jerks her head toward ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... with being despotic, tyrannical, unjust and deceitful. His conduct was declared to have been "derogatory to the honour" of his Majesty, and "demoralizing to the community." A memorial to the House of Commons was also adopted, in which his public acts were referred to as having been arbitrary and vindictive, and wherein he was charged with mis-statements, misrepresentations, and "deviations from candour and truth." This bitterly-worded memorial was formally signed by Mr. Bidwell as Speaker of the House—a circumstance which was long remembered ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the French Revolution seems to be that it has not been vindictive. If they are wise they will not touch the lives of the Ministers. The new King calls his eldest son Duke of Orleans. All the daughters are to be Princesses of Orleans, distinguished by their ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... this long drawn out quarrel aroused all that was mean and vindictive, all that was immoral in the man, and that the nervous excitement thereby induced had a most baneful effect upon his entire nature, physical as well as mental. In a number of poems he has given ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... back, his face upturned, with his white teeth grinning through his short, black beard. His two clenched hands were raised above his head, and a heavy, blackthorn stick lay across them. His dark, handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of vindictive hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish expression. He had evidently been in his bed when the alarm had broken out, for he wore a foppish, embroidered nightshirt, and his bare feet projected from his trousers. His head ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... to discuss the matter farther, but got into the buggy without favoring Joe with as much as another glance, gave his horse a vindictive lash with the whip and drove off, leaving the gate ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... should come when, having known such divine happiness as I should know were you mine, we should grow cold and weary; when our passions should turn to indifference, to disappointment and heart-burnings, and end, perhaps, in our cherishing feelings of vindictive spite and bitterness against each other, and in my thinking every woman pleasanter and fairer than you, end in your believing me to be ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... dridd that Dan roused me, and we left McAllan's Locker behind us with its gruesome keepers, and came down the hillside to the burn. I mind that there was a raven above us in the morning air, and his vindictive croak-croak was the only living sound that came to ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... Baughan. This sentinel had formerly been a convict, and, while working as such under Baughan in the line of his business, thought himself in some circumstance or other ill-treated by him, for which he 'owed him a grudge', and took this way to satisfy his resentment. Baughan, a man of a sullen and vindictive disposition, perceiving that the sentinel was without his arms, took them, unobserved by him, from the post where he had left them, and delivered them to the sergeant ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Kurd: thus his complexion would have been white had he not been for many years exposed to the African climate. He was a powerful dare-devil-looking fellow, but even among his own people he was reputed cruel and vindictive. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... our usual evening's occupation when the party returned, bringing back Antonio, with his hands securely bound together. As the light of the fire, opposite which he was led, fell on his countenance, it struck me that it had more of an angry and vindictive than of a downcast look. He threw his fierce glance on me especially, appearing even then to be meditating a bitter revenge, as he naturally considered that it was owing to my treachery that he had been captured. He was forthwith conducted ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... bordered with trees which afforded secure shelter to the natives, that not a Frenchman would come back alive. La Perouse remained for two days upon the scene of this terrible disaster, without being able to gratify the vindictive desires of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... laughed at the one and smiled upon the other. Dickson had never forgotten the chastisement he received from a boy younger and a head shorter than himself; and as the years passed he still nursed his enmity, giving vent to it in vindictive and malicious remarks about the absent Tony, for he remembered the boyish thrashing too well to speak his opinions in his rival's presence. So it was that when Ailleen heard Dickson denouncing Tony's appearance, she had been amused, until a chance remark struck her and ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... feeling among the slaves of America hitherto unknown. Aware of their blood connection with their owners, these mulattoes labour under the sense of their personal and social injuries; and tolerate, if they do not encourage in themselves, low and vindictive passions. On the other hand, the slave owners are aware of their critical position, and are ever watchful, always fearing an ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... worn away, and Sir Sampson had passed through the various modifications of human nature, from the "mewling infant" to "mere oblivion," without having become either wiser or better. His mind remained the same—irascible and vindictive to the last. Lady Maclaughlan had too much sense to attempt to reason or argue him out of his prejudices, but she contrived to prevent him from ever executing a new entail. She had known and esteemed both General and Mrs. Lennox before her marriage with Sir Sampson, and she was ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... not a vindictive woman, Mr. Caudle: nobody ever called me that but you. What do you say? Nobody ever knew so much of me? That's nothing at all to do with it. Ha! I would n't have your aggravating temper, Caudle, for mines of gold. It's a good thing I'm not as worrying as you ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... to some of us that the measures of the popular tribunal at that period savored a little of harshness and of the summum jus. The public mouth was early in the season fleshed upon the 'Vindictive Man,' and some pieces of that nature, and it retained through the remainder of it a relish of blood. As Dr. Johnson would have said: Sir, there was a habit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... scattered houses, and when he came at length upon the great river-road along which the boy had passed at the first dawn there was no one who could tell anything of him; and by noon the parson reentered the village, disconsolate and hungry. He was by no means a vindictive man, and could very likely have forgiven Reuben the blow he had struck. He had no conception of the hidden causes which had wrought in the lad such burst of anger. He conceived only that Satan had taken hold of him, and he had strong faith in the efficacy of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... dreamt that he was split in two; one part of him was sitting by his sick wife, the other was Maciek, standing outside the window, where sunflowers bloomed in the summer. This new Maciek was unlike the old one, he was gloomy and vindictive. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... add how mean and vindictive would be the spirit that would secularize Trinity College, in order to injure the Irish Protestants, without any corresponding benefit ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton
... maintainable. The jury would judge what damages they ought to give. He would refer this to their feelings. They could not avoid commiserating the distress of the family of this poor man. He should, however, observe to the jury, that they must not give vindictive damages; but still he did not think that damages merely to the amount of 'L6'. or 'L7'., which was stated to be the expense of the funeral, &c., would at all meet the justice of the case. He was inclined ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... nothing but the most severe and vindictive Punishments, such as placing the Bodies of the Offenders in Chains, and putting them to Death by the most exquisite Torments, would be sufficient to extirpate a Crime which had so long prevailed and was so firmly fixed in the Opinion ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... changed, growing hard and malevolent, and Blake now felt strangely repelled. It looked as if the man had been soured by his misfortunes, and had turned into an outlaw who took a vindictive pleasure in making such reprisals as he found possible upon society at large. This conclusion was borne out by what Blake had learned ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... relating to the development of the poetic vein of this interesting bard, unless it be found in the circumstance to which he refers in his "Diary,"[104] of having been bred a violent Jacobite, and having lived many years under the excitement of strong, even vindictive feelings, at the fate of his chief and landlord (Buchanan of Arnprior and Strathyre), who, with many of his dependents, and some of the poet's relations, suffered death for their share in the last rebellion. While he relates that the power of religion at length quenched this effervescence of his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... shade of yellow, but the scarf which was run through the turned over collar was a gaudy red. It took a full minute for the real import of things to penetrate my dazed intelligence. Then I gave a vindictive kick ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... state of nudity, their only covering consisting of a narrow slip of cotton fastened round the middle. They were copper-coloured, and extremely ugly: their hair jet black, very long, and falling down the back; eyes were also black, and deeply sunk in the head, giving a vindictive appearance to the countenance; nose flattened; mouth very large; the lips of a bright vermilion, from the chewing of the betel-nut; and, to add to their ugliness, their teeth black, and filed to sharp points. Such is the personal appearance ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... jarred uncannily upon the deathly stillness of the court. It was all so grotesque, such a mockery of justice administered by that wistful-eyed jack-pudding in scarlet, who was himself a mockery—the venal instrument of a brutally spiteful and vindictive king. His laughter shocked the austerity ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Court by Constable's, and found Cadell had fled to the sanctuary, being threatened with ultimate diligence by the Bank of Scotland. If this be a vindictive movement, it is harsh, useless, and bad of them, and flight, on the contrary, seems no good sign on his part. I hope he won't prove his ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Caucasus, while their countrymen at home, long before they had become familiar with the tragedy of the Indian Rebellion, burned with indignation and thrilled with horror at the possible fate of those victims of a treacherous, vindictive Afghan chief. In the meantime the awful march went on, amidst the rigours of winter, in wild snowy passes, by savage precipices, while the most unsparing guerilla warfare was kept up by the furious natives at every point of vantage. Alas! for ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... the Japanese troops in Port Arthur is to be condemned, there is not the slightest doubt in the world that the Chinese brought it on themselves by their own vindictive savagery towards their enemies. The attacking armies, advancing down the Peninsula in touch with the fleet, were now within a day or two's march of the inland forts. Bodies of Chinese troops harassed and resisted them, and brushes between the opposing forces frequently took place. ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... been speaking the truth. Yes, do not fail to give this mischief-maker my message. It is not the case that I have gone and sold a new uniform. Why should I do so, seeing that I have forty roubles of salary still to come to me? Do not be uneasy, my darling. Thedora is a vindictive woman—merely a vindictive woman. We shall yet see better days. Only do you get well, my angel—only do you get well, for the love of God, lest you grieve an old man. Also, who told you that I was looking thin? Slanders again—nothing but slanders! ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... rather surprised by the vindictive expression on the girl's face. "But later on I may call upon ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... adopt punitive legislation. We must not in order to punish a few labor leaders, pass vindictive laws which will restrict the proper rights of the rank and file of labor. We must not, under the stress of emotion, endanger our American freedoms by taking ill-considered action which will lead to results ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... and vindictive nature would have led him to accept gratuitously the odious office of executor—could scarcely conceal his delight at the thoughts of the enormous sum he was to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... straight before her; and, looking back to the last of many quarrels between them which had ended in separating the elder lady and herself, had seized on the conclusion that Miss Gwilt's engagement was due to her mother-in-law's vindictive enjoyment of making mischief in her household. The inference which the very servants themselves, witnesses of the family scandal, had correctly drawn—that the major's mother, in securing the services of a well-recommended governess for her son, had thought it no part of her duty to consider that ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... who might be so disposed from accepting offices under them through fear of public resentment and of injury to person and property, and to compel those who had accepted such offices by actual violence to surrender or forbear the execution of them; by circulating vindictive menaces against all those who should otherwise, directly or indirectly, aid in the execution of the said laws, or who, yielding to the dictates of conscience and to a sense of obligation, should themselves comply therewith; by actually injuring ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... And thus when William's acts divine No longer shall from Bourbon's line Draw one vindictive vow; When Sydney shall with Cato rest, And Russel move the patriot's breast ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... require a certain amount of nerve to go lion shooting. It is also supposed to require an additional amount to face an angry rhino or to attempt to get African buffalo. The last-named creature is a vindictive, crafty beast that is feared by old African hunters more than they fear any other animal. In consequence of these dangers we decided that it might be well to give our nerves a thorough test before going out with them. If they were not in good condition ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the country at large will be more generous. I call my fellow countrymen to witness that at no stage of the recent period of low barometric pressure have I judged the purposes of the climate intemperately. I should be ashamed to use the weak language of vindictive protest. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... passed over the grey head of this determined woman, since the time she recalled. More than forty years of strife and struggle with the whisper that, by whatever name she called her vindictive pride and rage, nothing through all eternity could change their nature. Yet, gone those more than forty years, and come this Nemesis now looking her in the face, she still abided by her old impiety—still reversed the order of Creation, and breathed her own breath ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... with horror; but, a few months later, on the Place de la Greve at Paris, he might have witnessed tortures equally revolting and equally vindictive, inflicted on the regicide Ravaillac[48] by the sentence ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... a stern, but a vindictive man. He was aware of the propriety of the suggestion made by his second in command, but, having refused it, he would not acquiesce; and he felt revengeful against the Commodore, whose counsel he must now either adopt, or by refusing it be prevented from taking the steps so necessary for the preservation ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... bestowed on him the powerful duchy of Lithuania,) was still unappeased, and he insisted upon including the son in the guilt and punishment of his parent. The representations of the minister were here unavailing; he would listen to nothing but the dictates of his own vindictive feelings. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... of the clerk, the money would be handed over and the shop released from levy. Unfortunately, after working the game for several years, Levine came a cropper by carelessly trying it on one of the same clerks that he had victimized some time before. The clerk, being of an unusually vindictive disposition, followed the matter up. Having first arrested the man who made the false affidavit of service, he induced him to turn State's evidence against my client and landed the latter in jail. Being a great reader, however, Levine did not find his incarceration particularly ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... place inside the hall, a black-faced, red-painted savage was flattening his ugly nose against a pane of glass outside one of the windows. It was Attick, whom our chief had convicted of stealing about the time of our arrival. That unpleasant savage had never forgiven Lumley, and, being exceedingly vindictive, had resolved to murder him! With this end in view, he had been prowling about the place for several days, having arrived with a band of his tribe who had assembled at Christmas-time to enjoy some of the good cheer which ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... beaten. Simpson, you and Thomas come with me. This night's despicable chicanery is only the beginning. This is bad business for you, Cy Whittaker," he snarled, his self-control vanishing, "and"—with a vindictive glance at the schoolmistress—"for those who are with you in it. That appointment was obtained under false pretenses and I can prove it. Your tricks don't scare me. I've had ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... whether any stern or any sensuous religion of heathendom has held up before men's astonished eyes features more appalling or more repulsive than those of the vindictive father, or of the arbitrary distributor of two eternities, or again of the easy compromiser of offences in return for houses and lands. Dreadful shadows under ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... me. I love her too dearly to be able to entertain any vindictive feeling against her; but I do feel vindictively disposed towards the man who has robbed me of her, for I know that only a very powerful influence would have induced her to break faith with me; and this man must needs have known the dishonourable thing he ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... happily with her husband for about two years. Her grandfather, knowing of Kauhi's transformation, and aware of his vindictive nature, strictly forbade her from ever going into the sea. She remembered and heeded the warning during those years, but one day, her husband and all their men having gone to Manoa to cultivate kalo (Colocasia antiquorum), she was left ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... incapable, and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of genius. A clever man would have been lost in public estimation had he stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers with a frightened air. Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive words wherever they were found; but the effect of them on ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... suffocating, my lungs almost bursting, I could see nothing of the oars. They must have been swept away by the chaotic currents. I saw Demetrios Contos looking back from his boat, and heard the vindictive and mocking tones of his voice as he shouted exultantly. He held steadily on his ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... In order to strengthen this admonition, he bade him recollect the signal for withdrawing, which was doubtless the effect of maternal concern, inspired by the knowledge of the Count's vigilance and vindictive disposition. ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... though open, frank, and unconstrained, seemed to indicate a sense of personal importance; and, upon any check or accidental excitation, a sudden, though transient lour of the eye showed a hasty, haughty, and vindictive temper, not less to be dreaded because it seemed much under its owner's command. In short, the countenance of the Chieftain resembled a smiling summer's day, in which, notwithstanding, we are made sensible by certain, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Examiner" was written by Addison. Five numbers only were issued (September 14th to October 12th, 1710). "The light and comic style of Addison's parody," notes Scott, may be compared "with the fierce, stern, and vindictive tone of Swift's philippic against the Earl of Wharton, under the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... without leaving any dangerous consequences behind it. The good sense and virtue of the people, and the fear of punishment in transgressors, will check the progress of these alarming doctrines; but if we invade the panoply which the law has provided for the protection of the accused against arbitrary or vindictive judgments, we establish precedents, the evil consequences of which cannot be calculated. The criminal intent, then, does not consist in the writing or possession of a written or printed libel, but in the publishing it. It ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... of Lord Buckingham was followed by a revival of the factious intemperance his energy had for a season suppressed. The Parliament opened in disorder, and carried on its debates in a tone of vindictive hostility to the British connection. The opponents of Government had strengthened their hands by the accession of new orators, and by the occasional lapses into their old violence of others who had given in their submissions to the late Viceroy, and who, now that he was ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... with such a vindictive look that they could see he would have knocked their heads ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... seized Gabriel at this answer, as if, at that hour when he had hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free of it with an effort of reason and continued to caress her hand. He did not question her again, for he felt that she would tell ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... I am myself concerned, although, no thanks to Dick Nolan, I am a living man, instead of a dead one in the body of a shark; but discipline must be maintained. I should be neglecting my duty if I did not report those who disobeyed orders. I shall speak of you in no vindictive spirit, and it will not be my fault if the man who threw me into the water receives the punishment which is justly his due: that punishment would be nothing short of death— remember that, my men! I have ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... with sobs he drew, The laboring stag strained full in view. Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed, 120 Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed, Fast on his flying traces came, And all but won that desperate game; For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch, Vindictive, toiled the bloodhounds stanch; 125 Nor nearer might the dogs attain, Nor farther might the quarry strain. Thus up the margin of the lake, Between the precipice and brake, O'er stock and rock their ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... under Dessalines, the successful defence of Le Zephyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage, executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated, and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... by that alone, and by none of his earlier ideas, is Wagner to be judged: he is to be judged by the effect and conviction of the finished play. Now, it seems to me that in the finished play Bruennhilde is neither "a glorious woman "—i.e. an Adelphi melodramatic heroine—nor "a deceitful, vindictive woman"—i.e. an Adelphi melodramatic villainess. Also, while considered by itself "The Dusk of the Gods" is interesting mainly on account of the music, considered in association, as Wagner wished, and as one must—for, after all, it is but the final act ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... de Portugal, had fled his native country, and sought an asylum in Castile from the vindictive enmity of John II, who had been put to death by the duke of Braganza, his elder brother. He was kindly received by Isabella, to whom he was nearly related, and subsequently preferred to several important offices of state. His son, the count of Gelves, married a granddaughter of Christopher Columbus. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... face. Armitage could read it there in the hard shrewd lines, the cold, heartless, vindictive lines, or the softer lines which the smiles could form when smiles were necessary, which was not so often now as in former years. And in place of the beauty now gone, she ruled by sheer power and wit, which time had turned ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... execution with Betis. He ordered him into his presence. A few years before, he would have rewarded him for his fidelity in his master's service; but now, grown selfish, hard hearted, and revengeful, he looked upon him with a countenance full of vindictive exultation, and said, ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Grecian side are Juno, Minerva, and Neptune. Juno, as you will shortly see, is a scolding wife, who in spite of all Jove's bluster wears the breeches, or tries exceedingly hard to do so. Minerva is an angry termagant—mean, mischief-making, and vindictive. She begins by pulling Achilles' hair, and later on she knocks the helmet from off the head of Mars. She hates Venus, and tells the Grecian hero Diomede that he had better not wound any of the other gods, but that he is to hit Venus if he can, which he presently does 'because he sees ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... had no reason sufficient to justify them in their cruel and vindictive course; but they did no more than was to be expected from an entirely barbarous nation, and I am sure they had no good example in the conduct of the white people, from whom much better behavior ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... last whisper reached his ear the old man raised his bent head. A hard, vindictive look was in his eyes. He seized the letter and tore it in two. "Alas! alas!" sighed the sweet angel, while the evil one rejoiced and waved ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... I meditated awhile, puzzling as to how I could have incurred the vindictive rancor of any ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... made, to make the Southern people believe—and, I deeply regret to say, many of them actually do believe—that the introduction of negro suffrage was a device of some particularly malignant and vindictive radicals, to subject the South to the extreme of distress and humiliation. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Admitting that there were people in the North who, before the passions of the War had subsided, wished to see the rebels and their sympathizers and abettors in some way punished ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... stone of his house the lowest. Ritchie left, his house was pulled down, and Davie triumphed in having the stones of his chimney-top made a step to his door, when this new house was built. He was not a little vindictive at times when irritated, especially when any allusion was made to his deformity. On one occasion, he and some other boys were stealing pease in Mr. Gibson's field, who then occupied Woodhouse; all the others took leg-bail, but Davie's locomotion being tardy, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... leaders and led, had known nothing whatever of the transaction, and were in truth greatly ashamed of it, instead of being angry with their chief Party Manager, were violently angry with me. They declared that I was showing a most vindictive spirit towards a great and good man like Mr. Gladstone. I had "entered into a conspiracy with Mr. Rhodes in regard to the publication of a private correspondence." When I pointed out that, as a matter ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... coronation of the prince, or been active in the late persecution of the exiled clergy. This violent measure, by which he in effect denounced war against the king himself, is commonly ascribed to the vindictive disposition and imperious character of Becket; but as this prelate was also a man of acknowledged abilities, we are not, in his passions alone, to look for the cause of his conduct, when he proceeded to these extremities against his enemies. His sagacity had led him ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... giant with a vindictive eye, but there was something in the sight of the mighty thews and sinews of the huge man that ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... plains. The aggressive tactics here were by no means confined to the Spaniards. On the first landing of the conquistadores, these found themselves, after having given provocation in the first instance, cooped up within the flimsy walls of their new settlements, surrounded by fierce and vindictive enemies, who charged on them from time to time with bewildering fury, choosing as often as not for the purpose the hour just before dawn, which they would make horrid with their warlike cries and shrill yells. These, too, remained entirely unsubdued to the last. They had the ill-fortune ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... might revive their drooping spirit, and encourage them to a more desperate resistance. This might be the case, even if Gustavus Adolphus was far from showing a disposition to encourage them, or to act unfaithfully toward his ally, the King of France. But the vindictive Bishop of Wuertzburg, who was anxious to avenge the loss of his dominions, the envenomed rhetoric of the Jesuits and the active zeal of the Bavarian minister, represented this dreaded alliance between the Huguenots and the Swedes as an undoubted fact, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... a few crisp sentences, and they do not shrink from declaring in their modest way that they understand women far better than women understand themselves. They love to talk of women in bulk, all women—and quite cheerfully tell us women are illogical, frivolous, jealous, vindictive, forgiving, affectionate, not any too honest, patient, frail, delightful, inconstant, faithful. Let us all take heart of grace for it seems ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... the discussion Bob Smithers joined the disputants, and having been an unseen listener to these objurgations; and, having a natural antipathy to the blacks, and a vindictive desire to annoy his lately discovered rival, had a corresponding inclination to support Mr. Rainsfield's determination ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... expostulations, and walked about the room crying, but her anger could not long resist the dead weight of sleep that was oppressing her, and eventually she came and sat down in her own place by him. The next step to reconciliation was more easy. Kate was not vindictive, although quicktempered, and at last, amid some hysterical sobbing, peace was restored. Ralph began to speak of his asthma again, telling how he had fancied he was going to die, and when she expressed her fear and regret ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... emperor, superannuated, infirm, and stupid as he is, can not protect himself against any well-planned and vigorous attempt which we may make to remove him; though, if we remain as we are, and any accidental cause should arouse him from his lethargy, we may expect to find him vindictive and furious against us ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... if the bands which are now organizing in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York should make the incursion which they threaten, with Dorr at their head, we have reason to apprehend a civil war of the most destructive and vindictive character. Our own forces might be sufficient to repel them, but having little discipline and no officer of military experience to lead them, they could not do it without the loss of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Pattison, undoubtedly, the most natural and proper object of my indignation, since I might be said to have him in my own power, and might punish him by dismissal, at my pleasure. Yet even vindictive proceedings against the said Paul, however easy to be enforced, might be productive of serious consequences to my own purse; and I began to reflect, with anxiety, that in this world it is not often that the gratification of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... she, "do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you look so disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is an expression in your face which does not belong ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the Highlander, starting from the ground, all his coldness and caution lost in frantic rage, sprung at his antagonist with the fury, the activity, and the vindictive purpose of an incensed tiger-cat. But when could rage encounter science and temper? Robin Oig again went down in the unequal contest; and as the blow was necessarily a severe one, he lay motionless on the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... bonnet. Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a direct consequence of this difference of opinion that when her mother was in the act of brushing out the reluctant black crop Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there should be no more chance ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... not the friends of man. They are not 'the good people,' 'the wee folk'; they have no endearing names, the gift of a grateful peasantry. Cold and hostile, they hold aloof from human converse, and, should they encounter man, vent their displeasure at the interruption in the most vindictive manner. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... and prosper in your righteous endeavours to protect the cause of innocence and truth. Let us hope for better times, when the advancing tide of knowledge and civilisation will sweep away the last remains of ignorance and fanaticism, and the vindictive spirit of persecution flee at the scowl ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... took off her wedding-ring and hid it in the clock, and the man made a point of snorting every time he passed a parson. They had a grand time, as I tell you, until a terrible thing happened. A jealous nut-eater ... and I can tell you there's nothing on earth so fearful and vindictive as a jealous vegetarian ... discovered that these two were really married all the time, and he exposed them to their admirers. He produced a copy of their marriage-certificate at a public meeting which the man was addressing on the ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... once, so soon as they were seated, and the preliminary sentences uttered. The gleaming knitting needles seemed to Marcia like so many swarming, vindictive bees, menacing her peace ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... attraction or repose, and by a skilful contrivance the natural atmosphere is secretly withdrawn and a very acrimonious sulphurous haze driven in to replace it. In sudden and unforeseen places eyes of fire open and close with disconcerting rapidity, and even change colour in vindictive significance; wooden hands are outstretched as in unrelenting rigidity against supplication, or, divining the unexpressed thoughts, inexorably point, as one gazes, still deeper into the recesses of the earth; ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... a vindictive creature," said Homer. "These men you criticise, and whose heads you wish to sculp with a baseball-bat, have done more for you than you ever did for them. Every statue of you these men have made is a standing advertisement of your books, and it hasn't cost you ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... seemed filled with Pierce. Pierce's friends, dependents, employees, associates wrote in, denouncing the "Clarion," canceling subscriptions, withdrawing advertisements. Pierce's club, the Huron, compelled the abandonment of Mr. Harrington Surtaine's candidacy. Pierce's clergyman bewailed the low and vindictive tone of modern journalism. The Pierce newspapers kept harassing the "Clarion"; the Pierce banks evinced their financial disapproval; the Pierce lawyers diligently sought new causes of offense against the foe; while Pierce's mayor persecuted the newspaper office with further petty enforcements ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Pope could have done so without losing credit, he would certainly have taken fierce revenge upon me; but being a man of great tact and talent, he made a show of turning it off with a laugh. Nevertheless he harboured in his heart a deep vindictive feeling against me, of which I was not slow to be aware, since I had no longer the same easy access to his apartments as formerly, but found the greatest difficulty in procuring audience. As I had now for many years been familiar with the manners of the Roman court, I conceived ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... he had married his wife, the mother of his three sons. Perhaps the cool affection he had borne them all his life was the measure of his indifference to that poor lady, and that indifference the measure of his vindictive constancy to his first idol. They had not seen each other for many years; their courses had run far apart, and they had grown old. But a woman never quite forgets to feel interested in a man who has once worshipped ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr |
