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Rabble   Listen
verb
Rabble  v. t.  (past & past part. rabbled; pres. part. rabbling)  
1.
To insult, or assault, by a mob; to mob; as, to rabble a curate. "The bishops' carriages were stopped and the prelates themselves rabbled on their way to the house."
2.
To utter glibly and incoherently; to mouth without intelligence. (Obs. or Scot.)
3.
To rumple; to crumple. (Scot.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rabble" Quotes from Famous Books



... admiration of the women; but at heart the mildest of 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 House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... even from Perth, The rabble-multitude poured thick and fast, Until it seemed as if the conscious earth Believed this spectacle might be the last Of fire and faggot she would e'er behold, Lighted by legal cruelty and crime. For never did such hosts of young and ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... in state from China to Peru, and the Union Jack flutters on all the winds of heaven. Under these safeguards, portly clergymen, school-mistresses, gentlemen in grey tweed suits, and all the ruck and rabble of British touristry pour unhindered, Murray in hand, over the railways of the Continent, and yet the slim person of the Arethusa is taken in the meshes, while these great fish go on their way rejoicing. ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 his faction. Rutilius,[106] who is a lover of ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... the best cats; there were ten that were named. The other seven, Jim called "the rabble;" but of the ten he had named, Jim grew to be very proud. He thought they were ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson

... day of the Carnival the Porto Pia road was full as usual, and the Corso filled as usual with soldiers, and spies, and rabble. An order was published, that any person appearing out of the Corso with lighted tapers would be arrested, and therefore the idea of an evening demonstration outside the gates was dropped. Not all the efforts, however, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... changes 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

... owing 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

... the number of capital cases that occurred at certain places during a certain period of time. It is a sad fact that the perpetration of those acts is not confined to that class of people which might be called the rabble. Several "gentlemen of standing" have been tried before military commissions ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz

... theology beyond their vague denomination; nor can any but a nominal resemblance be traced between their chiefs or "grandfathers" and the thunder-smitten but still majestic "Lucifer, Son of the Morning." The demon rabble of "Popular Tales" are merely the lubber fiends of heathen mythology, beings endowed with supernatural might, but scantily provided with mental power; all of terrific manual clutch, but of weak intellectual grasp. And so the hardy mortal who ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... went away to the foothills, going now slower, and evidently fatigued, if not frightened half to death. Nothing is so appalling to a recluse as half a mile of summer boarders. As the deer entered the thin woods, she saw a rabble of people start across the meadow in pursuit. By this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their tongues, came swinging along, keeping the trail, like stupids, and consequently losing ground when ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... reached and entered the city. Here all was the wildest tumult and contention. A small party of men, clad in garments half-Indian, half-European, and officered by gentlemen in a uniform partly British, were engaged, at great odds, with the swarming rabble of the alleys. I joined the weaker party, arming myself with the weapons of a fallen officer, and fighting I knew not whom with the nervous ferocity of despair. We were soon overpowered by numbers, and driven to seek refuge in a species ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the lowest of the poor whites, in whom hatred of the dominant whites and vengeful malice against the negro burned like slow fires. When almost everywhere the countryside was stripped of its fighting men, these wretches emerged from their swamps and forests, like the Paris rabble emerging from its dens at the opening of the Revolution. But unlike the Frenchmen, they were too sodden to be capable of ideas. Like predatory wild beasts they revenged themselves upon the society that had cast them off, and ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... inauguration of English rule, in 1759, but a total eclipse came over this imposing and majestic luminary when Guy Carleton's guns from the ramparts of Quebec began, in 1775, to thunder on its cupola and roof, which offered a shelter to Arnold's soldiery: the rabble of "shoemakers, hatters, blacksmiths and innkeepers," (says that savage old Tory, Colonel Henry Caldwell), bent on providing Canada with the blessings of Republicanism. A century and more has passed over the gorgeous ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... their coats to defend me, among them a veteran minister of the gospel. I smiled and bowed my thanks, and as nobody could hear a word amid the uproar I complacently took my seat while the officer skulked away, crestfallen. All that day and evening, and until one o'clock the next afternoon, a noisy rabble of self-styled temperance men sought to prevent bringing the question to a square and honorable vote. Major George Williams, a brave man who had lost a limb in fighting for his country, at last succeeded in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... Varennes. As we shall presently see, it was with shouts of "Long live the King," "Church and State," "Down with the Dissenters," "No Olivers," "Down with the Rump," "No false Rights of Man," that the rabble of Birmingham wrecked and burnt the houses of Dr. Priestley and other prominent Nonconformists of that town. Only by slow degrees did this loyal enthusiasm give place to opinions which in course of time ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... talking, but when the crisis comes,—and the issue is out in the open for every one to see,—they have to reckon with the instinctive majority, whose emotional nature has not been dwarfed. That majority is not necessarily the "rabble," the irresponsible and ignorant mob of the piazza as the German Chancellor sees them: it is the great human army of "little people," normal, simple, for the most part honest, whose selfish stake in the community is not large enough to stifle their deepest instincts. In them, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... enough, but there was a quiet dignity of bearing about this victim which moved me, so that I went to the rabble commanding them to desist. One of them, a rough bumpkin, not knowing who I was, pushed me aside, bidding me mind my own business, whereupon, being very strong, I dealt him such a blow between the eyes that he went down like a felled ox and lay there half stunned. His companions beginning to threaten ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... parents eyes, Or comfort wife or children. Ye shall lie Dead, ravined on by vultures and by wolves, And none shall heap the earth-mound o'er your clay. Where skulketh now the strength of Tydeus' son, And where the might of Aeacus' scion? Where is Aias' bulk? Ye vaunt them mightiest men Of all your rabble. Ha! they will not dare With me to close in battle, lest I drag Forth from their fainting ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... the new road, armed with knives and a few rifles, and encouraged by certain wild, dancing figures which had the look of priests, was surging around the gate. The fighting stuff was Afridi or Chitrali, but there was abundance of yelling from this rabble of fakirs and beggars who accompanied them. Order there was none, and it was clear to Thwaite that this rising had been arranged for but not organized. His men had small difficulty in forcing a way to the ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... divisions for the injustice done their services by this sentence, I beg to assure them that the sentiment is Cigarette's—not mine. I should be very sorry for an instant to seem to depreciate that "genius of command" without whose guidance an army is but a rabble, or to underrate that noblest courage which accepts the burden of arduous responsibilities and of duties as bitter in anxiety as they are ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... in 1527 by the rabble of Germany and Spain, called the Imperial army, naturally stopped all artistic work, for war is the worst enemy of art. Clement was besieged in the Castle Saint Angelo for nine months, and the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... head, And bring a little key to ope his teeth. [Exit DRAWER. Pursuivant, your warrant and your box— These must with me; the shape of Fauconbridge Will hold no longer water hereabout. Gloster will be a Proteus every hour, That Elinor and Leicester, Henry, John, And all that rabble of hate-loving curs, May minister me more mirth ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... evening of the year 1813 (July 27, to be precise) that on my way back from the mail-coach office, Falmouth, to Mr. Stimcoe's Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen, No. 7, Delamere Terrace, I first met Captain Coffin as he came, drunk and cursing, up the Market Strand, with a rabble of children at his heels. I have reason to remember the date and hour of this encounter, not only for its remarkable consequences, but because it befell on the very day and within an hour or two of my matriculation ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... believing anybody in that crowd cares about the work you have done in their service. Scores of them are under deep personal obligations to me. But I'm leaving this building by my neighbour's roof this morning. You don't want to forget, Jim, that the rabble for whom even Christ lived and died, shouted in his face at last 'Crucify him! ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... Crioceris, motionless in its sphinx-like attitude, does not appear to be on its guard against them, even when they come buzzing above its rump. Can they be as harmless as their peaceful frolics seem to proclaim? It is extremely doubtful: the Fly rabble are not there merely to imbibe the scanty exudations of the plant. Experts in mischief, they have no doubt hastened hither with ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... 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 live ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... barriers of earth, comprehending them all He followed the soul of his loss with the night in his eyes; And the portals lay bare to him there; and he heard the faint call Of his love o'er the rabble that wails by ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... dwellers on Olympus! By the whole rabble of gods and beasts that live in the temples by the Nile!" cried the new-comer, again laughing so heartily that not only his fat cheeks but his whole immensely stout young frame swayed and shook. "By your pretty little ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... speak with aversion of a Parliamentary career, and told Hogg that though this had been suggested to him, as befitting his position, by the Duke of Norfolk, he could never bring himself to mix with the rabble of the House. It is none the less true, however, that he entertained some vague notion of eventually succeeding to his ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... allegiance. First, bewilderment at his enforcement had seized him, and the four men, who were continually running round him and speaking all at once, and each pulling him in a different direction, gave him the impression that he was surrounded by a great rabble of people, but he could not discover what they wanted. After a time he found that there were only four men, and gathered from their remarks that he was being arrested for murder—this precipitated him into another and a deeper gulf of bewilderment. ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... and disturbing manner. Now and again these threatening spirits would beckon to their circle certain of those that passed; and these joined them in their minative demonstrations until, knock me funny! if the whole rabble did not surround me, covering me with vituperation. I gleaned from the evidence before me that they were innocent persons who had suffered in consequence of the inadequate punishments I had dealt out to various criminals during my judicial career. There was a woman who had ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... her fine curtains, and says, "I wonder that pretty and intelligent woman hasn't more taste. She might live like a lady if she pleased, and dress as I do; but she pokes on just as she began, and dresses no better than the minister's wife, and has a rabble of poor, forlorn creatures whom I wouldn't let into my house, nor into my wood-shed, running after her for food and clothing, and ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... Paris, that even the marquis of the mob might have his chance; but a bon-mot actually saved, within these few days, one even so obnoxious as a bishop from being sus. per coll. In the general system of purifying the church by hanging the priests, the rabble of the Palais Royal seized the Bishop of Autun, and were proceeding to treat him 'a la lanterne' as an aristocrat. It must be owned that the lamps in Paris, swinging by ropes across the streets, offer really a very striking suggestion for giving a final lesson in politics. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... of the game was inconclusive. A king remained surrounded by small cards, like a real monarch overwhelmed by the rabble on May Day. Mrs. Thalassa's eyes strayed mournfully over the rows, then she gathered up the cards and ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... the great rabble and throng That frequents the moneyed world's mart; But the greed, and the grasping and wrong, Left me only one wish—to depart. And sickened, and saddened at heart, I hurried away from the gateway, For my soul and my spirit ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... plague prisoners!" and the mob set off along the Poultry. They halted, however, before the Great Conduit, near the end of Bucklersbury, and opposite Mercer's Hall, because they perceived a company of the Train-bands advancing to meet them. A council of war was held, and many of the rabble were disposed to fly; but Barcroft again urged them to proceed, and they were unexpectedly added by Solomon Eagle, who, bursting through their ranks, with his brazier on his head, crying, "Awake! sleepers, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... in all the details of his surroundings—the warm close room; the raw-toned desks and tables at which a rabble of unsympathetic boys were noisily whispering and chattering, with occasional glances in his direction, from which, taught by experience, he augured no good; the high uncurtained windows, blurred with little stars of half-frozen rain, and the bare, bleak branches of the trees ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... God. But my son Saunders was readin' to me the ither nicht in a fule history buik, an' there it said that amang the Papists they used to hae fowk that didna do as they did an' believe as they believed. Sae wi' a lang white serk on, an' a can'le i' their hands, they set them up for the rabble fowk to clod at them, an' whiles they tied them to a bit stick an' set lunt [fire] to them—an that's the origin o' yer stool o' repentance. What say ye ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... picked up, and they returned to town. The fame of wicked Dodge never interfered with the transaction of business, its iniquity catering largely to the rabble. ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... illusions. The People are ensnared in this affair. They will not stir. Bonaparte will carry them with him. This rubbish, the restitution of universal suffrage, entraps the simpletons. Bonaparte passes for a Socialist. He has said, 'I will be the Emperor of the Rabble.' It is a piece of insolence. But insolence has a chance of success when it ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... LEUTH. Only the vilest rabble show themselves, And wave their tattered caps in mockery at us. All honest citizens would sooner make A weary circuit over half the town, Than bend their backs before our ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... (generally retrospective) was so melancholy that I was rather impressed by it,—"The beginning of the end,—the culpable weakness of the Government and Moderate men, giving way entirely to the Radicals, an invitation to the Paris rabble to interfere with the sittings of the Chambers," and ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... [Tom]maso Aniello, a Neapolitan fisherman, who headed an insurrection in 1647 against the duke of Arcos; and he resolved to kill the duke's son for having seduced Fenella, his sister, who was deaf and dumb. The insurrection succeeded, and Masaniello was elected by his rabble "chief magistrate of Portici;" but he became intoxicated with his greatness, so the mob shot him, and flung his dead body into a ditch. Next day, however, it was taken out and interred with much ceremony and pomp. When Fenella heard of her brother's death, she threw herself into ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... deeply grieved to have his projected enterprise to Terra Firma impeded by such contemptible obstacles, and the ships which should have borne his brother to explore that newly-found continent devoted to the use of this turbulent and worthless rabble. He consoled himself, however, with the reflection, that all the mischief which had so long been lurking in the island, would thus be at once shipped off, and thenceforth every thing restored to order ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... miserable offering on the face of the earth, with an admirable "absolute religion," no doubt, and an "admirable spiritual faculty," but the "idea" so inevitably subject to thwarting "conceptions," and the "spiritual faculty" so perpetually debauched by "awe and reverence," and the whole rabble of emotions and affections with which it was to keep company,—in fact, with the elements of his nature originally so ill poised and compounded, —that everywhere and for unnumbered ages man has been doomed and necessitated, and for unnumbered ages will be doomed and necessitated, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... impatience seized them; so when the cry sped down the irregular column—"It is here! It is here!" they answered with a universal labbayaki, signifying, "Thou hast called us— here we are, here we are!" Then breaking into a rabble, they rushed multitudinously forward. To give the reader an idea of the pageant advancing to possess itself of the Valley, it will be well to refresh his memory with a few details. He should remember, in the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... As the Bolshevik rabble again sweeps over Siberia in a septic flood we hear again the question: "How can they do so unless they have a majority of the people behind them?" I answer that by asking: "How did a one-man government exist in Russia from 'Ivan the Terrible' to Nicholas II?" ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... lying peacefully at anchor in the harbour, became the centre of excited interest. She was surrounded by a flotilla of launches and rowboats, and many tugs and steamboats ran excursions to her. While the rabble was firmly kept off, the proper authorities and even reporters were permitted to board her. The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of police reported that nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the port authorities announced that ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... there, some silver, but it was but little; the bulk of that people was but the dross of the church, though they were the members of it. But what doth he mean by the dross? why, he looked upon them as no better, notwithstanding their church-membership, than the rabble of the world, that is, with respect to their latter end; for to be called dross, it is to be put amongst the rest of the sinners of the world, in the judgment of God, though at present they abide in his house: "Thou puttest away all the wicked of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... 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 ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... flame when they put their damp hearts to the fire; the spirit itself bubbleth and smoketh when the rabble approach ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... Terror function of upholding a minority government—were great public shows for the howling rabble and leering sansculottes, the hoodlums of Paris whom even the masters dared not offend. The riff-raff acted exactly as at any of ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... scarcely audible from King Street. The reiterated glitter in the sun of memorial cards in hats gave the fanciful illusion of an impossible whitish snake that was straggling across the town. Three-quarters of an hour elapsed before the tail of the snake came into view, and a rabble of unkempt boys closed in upon it, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... the residence of the Foreign Minister, which was guarded with troops, and further on encountered a band of rioters marching along the street with torches, and singing the Marseillaise. After them came a rabble of men and women of all sorts, rich and poor, some of them armed with sticks and sabres. They turned back with these, the boy delighted with the spectacle, 'I remarked to papa' (he writes),'I would not have missed the scene for anything. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... restaurant where they 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, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... Serene Highness—unless in private, by some very much indulged servitor or judicious retainer. But though the badge of nobility may not be worn in the streets by the happy purchaser, for fear of attracting a rabble of the curious, he can fondly gaze upon it in the privacy of home, or try it on for the admiration of the domestic circle, or haply submit it to the inspection of ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... my cashier, Horkiewicz, and tell him to give that rabble a thousand florins. (He raps with the stick.) They must know that I will not permit ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... for their Majesties, the King and Queen, and all the Royal Court." And the pageant began to unwind its sinuous length along the campus lawn, and all the rustic players who formed the rabble fell in behind the royal personages and their ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... went on Kendric stubbornly, "your 'Queen Lady' as you call her, has instructed her rabble to ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... officers; and if the crew in the forecastle suffered less it was because they had less to lose. Officers and men were then tumbled into boats and taken ashore, half-naked and humiliated beyond words. Escorted by the exultant rabble, these three hundred luckless Americans were marched to the castle, where the Pasha sat in state. His Highness was in excellent humor. Three hundred Americans! He counted them, each worth hundreds ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... while the body of the dead was "borne on Friends' shoulders through the street, in order to be carried to the burying- ground, which was at the town's end," says Ellwood, "he rushed out upon us with the constables and a rabble of rude fellows whom he had gathered together, and, having his drawn sword in his hand, struck one of the foremost of the bearers with it, commanding them to set down the coffin. But the Friend who was so stricken, being more concerned ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Moors; the islanders of the Mediterranean, and the mixed populations of Asia, had all been faced by Caesar. And if it is alleged that the forces of Pompey, however superior in numbers, were at Pharsalia largely composed of an Asiatic rabble, the answer is—that precisely of such a rabble were the hostile armies composed from which he had won his laurels. False and windy reputations are sown thickly in history; but never was there ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... as they appeared and disappeared among the trees, cantering along with the bounding animation of youth. The squire and Master Simon rode together, accompanied by old Christy mounted on Pepper. The latter bore the hawk on his fist, as he insisted the bird was most accustomed to him. There was a rabble rout on foot, composed of retainers from the Hall, and some idlers from the village, with two or three spaniels for the ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... never rivalled successfully those of Ranelagh, at the eastern extremity of Chelsea. They were only open for thirty-two years, but during that time acquired the reputation for being the resort of all the rowdies in the neighbourhood. The noise made by the rabble passing along the river side after the closing at nights caused great annoyance to the respectable inhabitants, and finally led to the suppression of the gardens. L'Estrange says that the site extended over the grounds of Ashburnham as ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... and what part of the Convent was built (in the words of the Franciscan priest who laid the first stone) "was first defaced, and most of it burrent within to near ye vallue of 400lb., by ye Lord Dellamer's order upon ye 26 of November, 1688, and ye day sevennight following ye rabble of Birmingham begon to pul ye Church and Convent down, and saesed not until they had pulled up ye fundations. They sold ye materials, of which many houses and parts of houses are built in ye town ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... marched out to Versailles to ask bread of the king, in whom they had great confidence personally, however suspicious they might be of his friends and advisers. Lafayette marched after the mob with the national guard, but did not prevent some of the rabble from invading the king's palace the next morning and nearly murdering the queen, who had become very unpopular. She was believed to be still an Austrian at heart and to be in league ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... proceed, notwithstanding all the art and curiosity of workmanship these windows did afford, yet nothing of all this could oblige the reforming rabble, but they deface and break them all in pieces, in the church and in the cloyster, and left nothing undemolisht, where either any picture or painted glass did appear; excepting only part of the great west window in the body of the church, which still remains entire, ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... dear neighbour Loewe!' cried Juechziger, 'advise me, stand by me, help me to send this rabble about their business! I only married the old blind woman because she owned this house, and now that there's no getting out of the bargain they are tearing my nest to pieces before my very eyes. Come, my dear neighbour, let us hasten ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... Don Quixote, calling them knaves and traitors, and the lord of the castle, who allowed knights-errant to be treated in this fashion, a villain and a low-born knight whom, had he received the order of knighthood, he would call to account for his treachery. "But of you," he cried, "base and vile rabble, I make no account; fling, strike, come on, do all ye can against me, ye shall see what the reward of your folly and insolence will be." This he uttered with so much spirit and boldness that he filled his assailants with a terrible fear, and as much ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... more 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, to stir up the subterraneans "with a long ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... calling my attention to it. In fact, my only objection to the book is its surface application to all the people who were born in January. There should have been more distinction made between me and the rabble. ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... Think you, Senor mio, I would have agreed to such an extortion had it been in my power to avoid it? But your precipitate flight gave me to understand that you had killed your adversary. Any delay in the town might have been attended with danger, backed as his reverence was by all the rabble of the inn." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... full of the rumblings of a general uprising. The Elisabethgrad riot, however, was not of a revolutionary nature. Yet the police, so far from suppressing it, encouraged it. The example of the Elisabethgrad rabble was followed by the riffraff of other places. The epidemic quickly spread from city to city. Whereupon the scenes of lawlessness in the various cities were marked by the same method in the mob's madness, by the same connivance on the part of the police, and by many other traits that clearly ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... and Mexico, with one branch in the Rocky Mountains. My bird was M. obscurus, and came from Mexico. I found him in a New York bird-store, where he looked about as much at home among the shrieking and singing mob of parrots and canaries as a poet among a howling rabble of ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... accepted. It is remarkable that these cruel insults cooled neither her determination nor her fervor; on the contrary, she interiorly rejoiced at the high honor God conferred upon her, by permitting her to share in the contempt and humiliation of His divine Son, whom the Jewish rabble maligned and cursed, and almost as extraordinary is the fact that she completely regained her influence over her inconstant fellow-travellers, when they again met on the boat to continue their route. They arrived at Nantes three or four days afterwards. One of the party was a young ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... a rabble? Motley's the only wear in Maximilian's court. He might succeed in running this country if so many people hadn't come along to help him do it. You ask a French question and you get a Dutch answer. You give an order in Prussian ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... over England. Enormous crowds paraded the streets of London demanding the exile of all persons who had formerly borne titles. The King was hung in effigy and his lay figure cremated in the public kiln at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Socialism became rampant. A rabble of the lowest orders of the people invaded Hyde Park and the other public gardens, making day and night hideous with their orgies. The famous Albert memorial statue was blown to shivers by dynamite at high noon, and unbridled license became the watchword of the masses. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... of this "whirl of gayety," as they called it, and planned more quiet excursions with some hours each day for rest and the writing and reading which all wise tourists make a part of their duty and pleasure. Ethel rebelled, and much preferred the "rabble," as Joe irreverently called his troop of ladies, never losing her delight in Regent Street shops, the parks at the fashionable hour, and the evening shows in full blast everywhere during the season. She left the sober party whenever she could escape, and with Mrs. Sibley ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... 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; they looked under the beds, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... checked in the bosoms of the resolute people who had suffered so much; and the Netherbow and the High Street of Edinburgh still resounded at times with the firing of musquetry, directed against a harmless rabble of boys who betrayed the popular feeling by the white roses in their hats.[153] Nor was the lingering enthusiasm for the Jacobite cause confined to the lower classes in either country. It is almost incredible that men of Whig principles, who held high offices in the Government, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... their mothers' breasts, and they fret at whatsoever does not smack of nature, or custom. The cause of a repetition so senseless in its violence, and so unnecessary, set them querying and kicking until the inevitable quarters recommenced. Then arose an insurgent rabble in their bosoms, it might be the loosened imps of darkness, urging them to speculate whether the proximate monster about to dole out the eleventh hour in uproar would again forget himself and repeat his dreary arithmetic a second time; for they were unaware of his religious obligation, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... 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, Judas, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... strewn with massive boulders, the high rumour of the sea-breakers in that breezy weather seemed more explicable. And still, for him, it was above all a country of appalling silence in spite of the tide thundering. Fresh from the pleasant rabble of Paris, the tumult of the streets, the unending gossip of the faubourgs that were at once his vexation and his joy, and from the eager ride that had brought him through Normandy when its orchards were busy from morning till night ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... Carmen, heavily veiled from the curious, vulgar gaze of the rabble, and entered the waiting limousine, with the Beaubien and Hitt. Miss Wall and the gasping Jude followed in another. The judge had bidden the girl go on her own recognizance. The arrest at Avon; the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... exclamations, followed by idle threats against his admonisher, this condign victim to justice hobbled away, as disdaining to hold further argument with such a rabble. But his scorn was more than repaid by the hisses that chased him, in which the brave Methodist, satisfied with the rebuke already administered, was, to omit still better reasons, too magnanimous to join. All he said was, pointing towards the departing recusant, "There ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... way and allowed them a passage through their ranks, and to march slowly to Carrhae. A false report reached Surena, that Crassus and all the men of rank had made their escape, and that those who had fled to Carrhae were a mingled rabble not worth notice. Thinking, then, that he had lost the end of his victory, but being still doubtful and wishing to know the truth, in order that he might either stay there and besiege the town, or leave the people of Carrhae behind and pursue Crassus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... said. Yester eve comes a cloud of dust over the hill by the marshes, and in the cloud as strange a sight as man may see. Chariots, with horses smoking in the traces, lords on horseback, slaves and rabble, all flying from the gods know what. A tall man, very pale, with a mouth set like the jaws of a trap; a younger one, to whom all turned for command and advice; a woman lovely as—er, that is to say, fair enough to ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... any kind, should not be endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the rabble—cloths of huge, sprawling, and radiating devises, stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among which no ground is intelligible—these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers—children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon—Benthams, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... course equally fundamental and equally unchangeable. This would be to confound all the branches of legislation and of jurisprudence. The crown and the personal safety of the monarch are fundamentals in our Constitution: yet I hope that no man regrets that the rabble of statutes got together during the reign of Henry the Eighth, by which treasons are multiplied with so prolific an energy, have been all repealed in a body; although they were all, or most of them, made in support ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... 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 nervously on his belt, and his feet ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... summarily confined. Troops were poured into Paris, and the old Duke of Broglie, one of the heroes of the Seven Years' War, now war-minister, sought to overawe the city. The gun-shops were plundered, and the rabble armed themselves with whatever weapons they could lay their hands upon. The National Assembly decreed the formation of a national guard to quell disturbances, and placed Lafayette at the head of it. Besenval, who commanded the royal troops, was forced to withdraw from the capital. The city was completely ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... hundred killed and wounded. Nor were the mere numbers the most telling point about it; for the worse half escaped—Livingston's Montreal 'patriots,' many of whom had done very little fighting, Montgomery's time-expired New Yorkers, most of whom wanted to go home, and Jerry Duggan's miscellaneous rabble, all of whom wanted a maximum of plunder with ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... 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, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... themselves as slaves, and laboured with the negroes on the plantations for the purpose of preaching the gospel during the intervals of labour. The Methodist missionaries have been treated with much indignity, and have had their lives endangered by the violence of the white mob. In 1816, the white rabble of Barbadoes, collected together, and totally destroyed the Methodist chapel. The destruction of the chapel occupied two successive nights, and so listless were the authorities, that no attempt was made to prevent it. And ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... godless and immoral prince of that time. He had several wives; associated with heretics, and even gave his children to be educated by them. This prince undertook the leadership of the heretical Albigenses, and with them, and other rabble by which France at that time was overrun, scoured the country, robbing and plundering wherever they went. This lawless band, under the direction of this godless prince, robbed churches of their treasures, ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings

... up, the entire population of Carcajou Point gathered on the shore to witness Hooliam's departure. Stonor was there, too, of course, standing grimly apart from the rabble. Of what they thought of this summary deportation he could not be sure, but he suspected that if the whisky were all gone, they would not care much one way or the other. Hooliam was throwing his belongings in a dug-out of a different style from that used by the Beavers. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... brings, By Christmas we shall see strange things." Why should I tell of ponds and drains, What carps we met with for our pains; Of sparrows tamed, and nuts innumerable To choke the girls, and to consume a rabble? But you, who are a scholar, know How transient all things are below, How prone to change is human life! Last night arrived Clem[6] and his wife— This grand event has broke our measures; Their reign began with cruel seizures; The Dean ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... rabble, and as out of place as a swarm of butterflies in frost-silvered air, a band of high-born women was to be seen approaching the City this early December morning. Gorgeously attired pages, hardly more warlike ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... from replying to this unjust accusation by a rabble of rude boys, who had gathered round them, and began to assail the poor pig with sticks and stones. Bladud at first mildly requested them to desist from such cruel sport; but finding that they paid ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... Galbraith in Honesty; adding: "for all she wants of Irishmen is their lives that she might live," and he warned Irishmen that "she (England) who took everything they had and stripped them naked and left them like Christ to the ribald jest and sneer of the rabble in the world's back-streets, would, like every bully, try to have revenge when she ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard

... call these fools; it is the style all holy writers have afforded them, set down by Solomon in canonical Scripture, and a point of our faith to believe so. Neither in the name of multitude do I only include the base and minor sort of people: there is a rabble even amongst the gentry; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these; men in the same level with mechanicks, though their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses compound for their follies. But, as in casting account three or four men ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... of your splendidness. Never taking anything to yourself. Jane, will you believe this—that what I may be hereafter will be because of you? If I ever do a big thing or a fine thing it will be because I came upon you that night with your head high and that rabble round you. You were light shining into the darkness of Tinkersfield. Jove, I wish I were a painter to put you on canvas as ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... Buttone, I mean,) who gave out, in public, I was condemn'd a sforzato to the galleys, for poisoning the cardinal Bembo's—cook, hath at all attached, much less dejected me. No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pavement, as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccacio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist: some ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... shallow, for a couple of strokes would have brought the man clean into us. The shock of the icy water sobered him. He splashed and spluttered to his feet, climbed up the bank like a giant water-rat, and would have slunk towards the house; but the rabble were on him before he had taken a dozen paces, and tormented him till he roared like a wounded bull. The woman with the brand cried out on him with vile words that made my face burn in the dark, and belaboured ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... blue haze, upward and upward until they became a purple curtain that filled half the heavens. The paved still town was squalid by day, but in the evening it became theatrically incredible, with an outdoor cafe amidst flowers and creepers, a Hungarian military band, a rabble of promenaders like a stage chorus in gorgeous costumes and a great ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... me to seek wealth For Empires sake, nor Empire to affect For glories sake by all thy argument. For what is glory but the blaze of fame, The peoples praise, if always praise unmixt? And what the people but a herd confus'd, A miscellaneous rabble, who extol 50 Things vulgar, & well weigh'd, scarce worth the praise, They praise and they admire they know not what; And know not whom, but as one leads the other; And what delight to be by such extoll'd, To live upon thir tongues and be ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... days were occupied in examining witnesses in the case; after the examination was closed, while Colonel Taylor was engaged in a very able, lucid, and argumentative speech on the part of the prosecution, some man collected a parcel of the rabble, and came within a few yards of the court-house door, and bawled, in a loud voice, 'Part them! part them!' Everybody supposed there was an affray, and ran to the door and windows to see, and behold ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... out of church, there was some religious life in the place, as is shown not only by the presence of the church, but also by that of the chapel. Now, wherever there is a chapel it indicates thought, independence, and a sensible elevation above the reckless, senseless rabble. Some kinds of Nonconformity also indicate a first step toward education ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... street between the barricades, surged, hooted, and yelled that wildest and most dangerous of incomprehensibles—a Paris mob. Half-a-dozen orators were speaking at once, and no one was listening to them. Here and there amidst the rabble a voice was raised ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... the door, and seeing the rabble in the street, he called out, "ladies and gentlemen, I beg to draw your attention to the respectable character of my visitors," pointing to us as we walked away. I called upon him a couple of days afterwards; told him who ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum

... replied, "and I will forgive your having been so easily fooled. But this fellow may have some of Wallace's followers with him, and contemptible as the rabble are, we had best be on our guard. Send round to all my vassals, and tell them to keep good watch and ward, and keep a party of retainers under arms all night in readiness to sally ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... ever called out on so large a scale, in the State of New York. It was supposed that the effect would be decidedly injurious to a community and the idea was abandoned. Young men were so liable to be fascinated by the magnificent spectacle, that not the rabble only were attracted by the "trappings of war," but they have a tendency to induce young, and old men even, of fair prospects, to neglect their agricultural interests for military pursuits, which, in a new country, were certainly of paramount ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... Dulness. Venus is here understood in her noblest character, as the Alma Venus of Lucretius's invocation, as the Power of Love and the Beautiful in the Universe. The Goddess of Wisdom speaks for herself. Against them a heterogeneous rabble of monsters direct their artillery, under a dog-headed barking protagonist, (what a chosen symbol of an impudent, wide-mouthed, yelping Bayes!) the ringleader of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... crumbling banks, and there was a nook of grass between the water and the hill. Just before entering this place, we saw the emigrants encamping at two or three miles' distance on the right; while the whole Indian rabble were pouring down the neighboring hill in hope of the same sort of entertainment which they had experienced from us. In the savage landscape before our camp, nothing but the rushing of the Platte broke the silence. Through the ragged ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... hours; Joan was there five minutes, and neither spoke with them nor heard them speak, yet she marked them for men of worth and fidelity, and they have confirmed her judgment. Whom has she sent for to take charge of this thundering rabble of new recruits at Blois, made up of old disbanded Armagnac raiders, unspeakable hellions, every one? Why, she has sent for Satan himself—that is to say, La Hire—that military hurricane, that godless swashbuckler, that lurid conflagration of blasphemy, that Vesuvius of profanity, forever in eruption. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... collected are prepared, fitted, and mortised together, and a building fit for use begins to rise. Knowledge also is for use, and not primarily for storage. That simple acquisition and quantity of knowledge are not enough is illustrated by the analogy of an army. Numbers do not make an army, but a rabble. A general first enlists raw recruits, drills and trains them through a long period, and finally combines them into an effective army. Many of our ideas when first received are like disorderly raw recruits. They need to be disciplined into proper ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... A rabble of dusky shapes headed by a torch-bearer who had doubtless lighted his fat-stick at the burning temple, pressed forward to force ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... after messenger to Forde, urging him to return; and he himself, with his frightened army, hurried towards Condore. Forde had, indeed, retraced his steps immediately he heard the fire of the guns, and soon met the rajah's rabble in full flight; and, uniting with them, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... A rabble followed us on our way to the inn, but I turned on them so fiercely from time to time that ultimately they ran off. We made direct for my chamber, where I ordered food and drink immediately to be served. Once alone there with Paddy I allowed my joy ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... Every country, from Britain to Egypt, was squeezed for the means of filling the granaries and adorning the theatres of Rome. On more than one occasion, long after the Cortes of Castile had become a mere name, the rabble of Madrid assembled before the royal palace, forced their King, their absolute King, to appear in the balcony, and exacted from him a promise that he would dismiss an obnoxious minister. It was in this way that Charles the Second was forced to part with Oropesa, and that Charles the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... noble animal, in spite of his bleeding wounds, rushed in; then the whole pack of mongrels, curs, puppies, lurchers, and turnspits ran in too in a long string, till poor Baptiste was covered with the vile rabble rout; he did what he could, he rolled over and over as far as his chain would let him, growling and grunting, crushing one, sending another away with a bite, struggling furiously. The brave Dane still showed the greatest intrepidity; he had caught the bear between ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... her to pluck up a little spirit; not fancy affronts, and not to pester you with them. Poor child! you have been sadly victimised to-day and yesterday. No wonder you were bored past patience, with that absurd rabble of women!" ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... the 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 as many ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... and enthusiasm. They taught them to believe that they were the distinguished favorites of Heaven; that celestial doctrines had been revealed to them, too holy to be communicated to the profane {34} rabble, and too sublime to be comprehended by vulgar capacities. Princes and legislators, who found their advantage in overawing and humbling the multitude, readily adopted a plan so artfully fabricated to answer these purposes. The views of those in power were ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... aristocracy, but the most reckless democracy in the world. It was, and is, the English contradiction, which has so much misrepresented us, especially to the Irish. Our national captains were carpet knights; our knights errant were among the dismounted rabble. When an Austrian general who had flogged women in the conquered provinces appeared in the London streets, some common draymen off a cart behaved with the direct quixotry of Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad. He had beaten women ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton

... children than it heals us Revenge, which afterwards produces a series of new cruelties Reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble Richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow Ridiculous desire of riches when we have lost the use of them Right of command appertains to the beautiful-Aristotle Rome was more valiant before she grew so learned Rowers ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... Were the effort to be made, it would prove a total failure; for they would either grow disgusted with the restraint, and desert altogether, or so infect the other troops with their own habits of disorder, that the whole force would become a mere rabble. Arm them well, let them have plenty of ammunition, and free liberty to use it in their own way and their own time, and we should soon see that they would prove a greater terror to the English than double the number ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... don't let any of the rabble come into this barn for the present," directed Hal's company commander. "Come, Guarez, ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock

... soon as the seeming adversaries were got into Lincoln's Inn Fields, they both fell a running as fast as they could, with their swords drawn, up towards Lord Powis's house, which was then building, and leaped into a saw-pit. The rabble presently ran after them, to part them again, and feared mischief would be done before they could get up to them, but when they arrived at the saw-pit, they saw Chevalier at one side of it and Ogle at the other, sitting together as lovingly as if they ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... is "to scower off in a 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 ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... friendship of the British so long as he merited it. A few presents were then distributed among the Indians, and the council ended. The chiefs, with their blankets still tightly wrapped about them, filed out of the council-room and scattered to their villages, followed by the disappointed rabble of fully three hundred Indians, who had assembled in ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... walled in by the main structure and its two wings and a wooden fence some fifteen feet high. There was a ragged, dirty rabble of "rebel" prisoners, among whom was Solomon Binkus, all out for an airing. The old scout had lost flesh and color. He held Jack's hand and stood for a moment ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... Courtenays,—a Courtenay of 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, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... to try what force of reason the Bishop hath to back his opinion. As for the ragged rabble of human testimonies which he raketh together, I should but weary my reader, and spend paper and ink in vain, if I should insist to answer them one by one. Only thus much I say of all those sentences of the fathers and constitutions of princes ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... nature; not for nothing do the Indians worship Siva the Destroyer; the warrior is filled with the enthusiasm of destruction; wars purify the atmosphere like thunderstorms....[26] We may here refer to H. Leo's phrase as to the "fresh and joyous war that shall sweep away the scrofulous rabble" [vom "frischen und froehlichen Krieg, der das skrofuloese Gesindel wegfegen soll."].—J. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... fatal square on 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

... the incomes where new preferment was to 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

... the torches ceased waving. Then the mob surged all the more angrily upon Peter and Jesus. Peter snatched his short sword from his belt and struck a wild blow. A man cried out sharply. The captain shouted a command: soldiers pushed through the rabble and seized Jesus. A burly soldier knocked Peter backward; he fell ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith

... competent a judge as Mr. Grote.] This very capability for rule must render them not only all the more desirous of obtaining it, but exceedingly dangerous as seekers after it. They are not an ignorant rabble, but men who have an intelligent idea of what they want, and rational modes of effecting its realization. Colonel Sleeman adds, "It is not only the desire for office that makes the educated Mahometans cherish the recollection ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... discriminate between the careful opinions of mature and deliberate judgment, and the headlong assertions of rash busy-bodies and amateurs. They understand, because they feel, the inevitable esoterism that must persist at the kernel of all democracies, unless these degenerate into mere rabble and intellectual mob: they are the last, therefore, to maintain that one person's word is as good as another's; that common sense is competent to solve all questions; that freedom of thought means the right of all to think as they please. Knowing, on ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... people, was but a mob! a vile colluvion of the offscourings of all climes and regions—Greeks, Syrians, Africans, Barbarians from the chilly north, and eunuchs from the vanquished Orient, enfranchised slaves, and liberated gladiators—a factious, turbulent, fierce rabble! ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... without any sort of humility begged vegetables, or talked of the good God. The women shouted: the old scales with their green painted pans jingled and clanked with the noise of their chains; the big dogs harnessed to the little carts barked loudly, proud of their importance. In the midst of the rabble Christophe saw Rebecca.—Her real name was Lorchen (Eleanor).—On her fair hair she had placed a large cabbage leaf, green and white, which made a dainty lace cap for her. She was sitting on a basket by a heap of golden onions, little pink turnips, haricot beans, and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... region, came down the lakes from Michillimackinac with a fleet of canoes manned by two hundred and fifty Ottawa and Ojibwa warriors; stopped a while at Detroit; then embarked again, paddled up the Maumee to Raymond's fort at the portage, and led his greased and painted rabble through the forest to attack the Demoiselle and his English friends. They approached Pickawillany at about nine o'clock on the morning of the twenty-first. The scared squaws fled from the cornfields into the town, where the wigwams of the Indians clustered about the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... approbation of the town. If I were rich enough, I would get a copy of it, and bring it over. Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat with him part of this evening; and I am now come home to write an hour. Patrick(9) observes, that the rabble here are much more inquisitive in politics than in Ireland. Every day we expect changes, and the Parliament to be dissolved. Lord Wharton expects every day to be out: he is working like a horse for elections; and, in short, I never saw so great a ferment among all sorts of people. I had a miserable ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... half-drunken "patriots" tried to force their way into the park one day, with the intention of cutting down the trees and pillaging the chateau, but all the villagers instantly assembled, armed with pitchforks, rusty old guns and stones, and dispersed the rabble. ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... 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 I daresay ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... and friars and confessors, necessarily and essentially, a sordid, stupid, and wretched herd; or than they could be in any other country, where an archbishop held the place of an universal bishop, and the vicars and curates that of the ignorant, dependent, miserable rabble aforesaid; and infinitely more sensible and learned than they could be in either.——This subject has been seen in the same light by many illustrious patriots, who have lived in America, since the days of our forefathers, and who have adored their memory for the same reason.——And methinks there ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... may be done away. An ye follow, 'tis like some of us shall die, but by such death our brethren shall win to honour, and home, and happiness, for happiness is all men's birthright. Ye are but a wild, unordered rabble, yet are ye men! 'Tis true ye are ill-armed and ragged, yet is your cause a just one. Ye bear weapons and have arms to smite—why then lurk ye here within the wild-wood? Will not fire burn? Will not steel cut? He that is not coward, let him ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... were so, cousin, that you should be brought through the broad high-street of a great long city; and if, all along the way that you were going, there were on one side of the way a rabble of ragged beggars and madmen, who would despise and dispraise you with all the shameful names that they could call you and all the villainous words that they could say to you; and if there were then, all along the other side of the same street where you should come ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... Industry perform, 'When Science plans the progress of their toil! 'They smile at penury, disease, and storm; 'And oceans from their mighty mounds recoil. 'When tyrants scourge, or demagogues embroil 'A land, or when the rabble's headlong rage 'Order transforms to anarchy and spoil, 'Deep-versed in man, the philosophic Sage 'Prepares, with lenient hand, their phrenzy ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... tell ye, Ivan, 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 pretender ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... and defying regular soldiers, State troops, deputy marshals, and police, rabble mobs fell to destroying cars and tracks, burning and looting. The mobs were in large part composed of Chicago's semi-criminal proletariat, a mass quite distinct from the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... Barraneche, were at first spared. Even the conscience of Talma hesitated to murder the good and amiable Garces, who had never been to him and his people anything but a kind and generous friend, but the rabble declared these two were the worst of all, and under this pressure Palma yielded. It was the last terrible scene of this act in the life-drama we are following. The lights were out, the curtain down. Military expeditions were sent to avenge the ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... strolled in the antelope parks, enjoying the scenery and sport excessively. A noble buck nsunnu, standing by himself, was the first thing seen on this side, though a herd of hertebeests were grazing on the Usoga banks. One bullet rolled my fine friend over, but the rabble looking on no sooner saw the hit than they rushed upon him and drove him off, for he was only wounded. A chase ensued, and he was tracked by his blood when a pongo (bush box) was started and divided the party. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... "A rabble of pigmies scaling Heaven," said the noble though misguided young Prisoner. "Prometheus was ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a little while after to call, as he had been invited to do, and went late to avoid the bustle of the tea-table, and the usual rabble of that no longer intimate but wildly gregarious house. And he was not without his reward. Perhaps a habit he had lately formed of passing by Curzon Street in the late afternoon, when he was on his way to his club, after work ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... vengeance that the ambassador was forced to protest his innocence before the Collegio, more in the spirit of one deprecating punishment than defying accusation. He then earnestly solicited protection against the rabble surrounding his palace; for "God knows," affirmed his pale and affrighted secretary more than once, "the danger of our residence is great!" The Vice-doge, who during the interregnum between the death of one chief magistrate and the election of another presided over the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various

... this plan, but, instead, surrendered ignominiously to the Germans. It is supposed that being attached to the emperor, and dreading a Republic, he declined to fight for France if it was to benefit "the rabble Government of Paris," as he called the Committee of Public Defence. He seems to have thought that the Germans, after taking Paris, would make peace, exacting Alsace and Lorraine, and then restore ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

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

... Chinese who leave their native land to make a new home elsewhere, and it is not to be expected that they will be much improved by intercourse with the Australian "larrikins," who are composed of the lowest and most criminal orders. This refuse of humanity is largely made up of the rabble of London and Liverpool, many of whom have had their passages paid by relatives and interested persons at home solely to get rid of them, while others have worked their passage hither to avoid merited punishment ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... to use a self-revealing phrase of Chopin's. An aristocrat, he knew that in the country of the idiot the imbecile always will be king, and, "like many a one who turned away from life, he only turned away from the rabble, and cared not to share with them well and fire and fruit." His Kingdom of Green was consumed and became grey by the regard of his coldly measuring eye. For him modern man is an animal who bores himself. Laforgue is an essayist who is also a causeur. His abundance is never exuberance. Without ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... was away there in Montreal waiting for the New Yorkers to take it—if they could. They were a sorry rabble, for they rushed on La Prairie, that meagre ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker



Words linked to "Rabble" :   folk, lynch mob, rabble-rousing, mob, folks, ragtag and bobtail, common people, trash, rabble-rouser, scum, ragtag, rout



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