"Depraved" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must be sensible that there is no appeal from his master." Where the slave is placed by law entirely under the control of the man who claims him, body and soul, as property, what else could be expected than the most depraved social condition? The marriage relation, the oldest and most sacred institution given to man by his Creator, is unknown and unrecognised in the slave laws of the United States. Would that we could say, that the moral and religious teaching in the slave states were better than the laws; ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... this odd kind of Mixture in People of depraved Minds and mean Education; who tho' they are not able to meet a Man's Eyes, or pronounce a Sentence without Confusion, can Voluntarily commit the greatest Villanies, or most ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... do? I was a stranger. Were they all equally depraved, and equally contemptible?—That, said I to myself, is what I wish to know, and I suffered him to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... said our crime was "glorifying the cause of murder." The story of the crown is a very terrible, a very startling one. It alleges a state of things which could hardly be supposed to exist amongst the Thugs of India. It depicts a population so hideously depraved that thirty thousand of them in one place, and tens of thousands in various other places, arrayed themselves publicly in procession to honour and glorify murder—to sympathise with murderers as murderers. Yes, gentlemen, that ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... the Needle; And from whence can that come, but out of Vessels? unless {318} accidentally, as by a Contusion, &c., it be extravased, in which case my Argument will not be injured, because the part is depraved, whereas I speak of the parts, as they are ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... punctual disposition, looked as ill at ease as the Major. Miss Scrawen, who wrote fiercely sensuous poetry and led a blameless life, merely displayed irritation; if you are methodical and virtuous in private you don't necessarily want every one to know it. Bertie van Tahn, who was so depraved at seventeen that he had long ago given up trying to be any worse, turned a dull shade of gardenia white, but he did not commit the error of dashing out of the room like Odo Finsberry, a young gentleman who was understood to be reading ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... that in this Christian nation a cross of considerable dimensions is generally ready for instant use in immolating the person who is rash enough to interfere too strenuously or persistently with the operations of our morally depraved and generally rum-soaked political bosses, who have boldly usurped the functions of government and whose aims and purposes are widely at variance with all of the teachings of the lowly Nazarene; that, much as we pride ourselves upon our philosophical advancement, ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... for the time; character is what we truly are. Reputation and character may be in harmony, but they frequently are as opposite as light and darkness. Many a scoundrel has had a reputation for nobility, and men of the noblest characters have had reputations that relegated them to the ranks of the depraved, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... sex who use exercise, will, in their exemption from a depraved or deficient appetite, in the freshness or in the glow of their color, in the firmness of their make, in the advantages to their shape, in the goodness in general of their constitution, find themselves not ill repaid ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... times! O customs how depraved! At first fair Alice frowardly behaved; But in the sequel 'gan to change her way, And said, her mistress, as the foll'wing day, A certain remedy to take designed; That, in the morning then, if so inclined, They could at leisure in the cavern ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... gentle elements. Touched to the core by the contaminating influence of "time and tide," its instincts were yet to the kindly, the generous, and elevated; and those about him who knew him best—attached to him more by his affections than his glory—eagerly attested that in the bosom of this depraved citizen resided most of the qualities which, under happier agencies, would have made him a dutiful son, a devoted husband, an attached friend, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... small fields, by the same tedious process. Their stone axes or hatchets, were never used for cutting, but only for splitting and pounding. They burned down and hollowed out trees by fire, for canoes, and never chopped off the timber, but only deadened it, in clearing land. The condition of depraved man, unimproved by habits of civilization, and unblest with the influences and consolations of the gospel, is pitiable in the extreme. Such was the character and condition of the "Red skin," before his land was visited by the "Pale faces." I have often seen the aboriginal man in all his ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... the young man's courage in the eager, caressing thrusts of the cold nose against his palm. And he had need of every help, even the least, for, in this period of inactivity, the spirit within him was near to fainting. Because he knew fully the depraved nature of Hodges, he could not blind himself to the frightful peril of Plutina in the outlaw's power. The girl's plight was one to inspire horror in any decent breast; to the lover, worshiping her as ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... in like manner a picture of woman's ascendency, but one much more depraved than the former. In the dress of men the women steal into the public assembly, and by means of the majority of voices which they have thus surreptitiously obtained, they decree a new constitution, in which there is to be a community of goods and ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... voice issuing through the possessed man's lips that it was the woman fiend, Lilith, who in female guise doth walk the earth in darkness, we resorted with much speed to the office specially prepared for that evil and depraved being. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... them as dangers or despised them. He was resting one night in a location called Ambagan, not far from Tandag. An Indian, without other motive than his barbarous inclination, conceived the thought of killing him, and obtained two companions, who aided him with their weapons in his depraved purpose. He climbed into the house boldly, leaving his two companions ready on the ladder. When he tried to enter the apartment where the minister was sleeping, a venerable old man stopped him, who asked him in his native language: "Where art thou going, profligate? I am guarding ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... and running, by an alloy from intervention of other parents from stolen intrigues; whether a weakness in their progenitors had impaired the seminal virtue, or by a decline necessary through a long course of time, the originals of nature being depraved in these latter sinful ages of the world— whatever was the cause, it is certain that Lord Peter's bulls were extremely vitiated by the rust of time in the metal of their feet, which was now sunk into common lead. ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... grows maudlin on behalf of the willful prostitute is a curse; to confound her with the entrapped or coerced girl, the real white slave, is both foolish and wicked. There are evil women just as there are evil men, naturally depraved girls just as there are naturally depraved young men; and the right and wise thing, the just thing, to them, and the generous thing to innocent girls and decent men, is to wage stern war against the evil creatures of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... were wretched little street boys of her own neighborhood, from whom she learned to swear and to understand and indulge in vile practices, though, as is often the case with children, she was not utterly depraved thereby, at that. At eleven, when her mother died, she ran away from the wretched children's home to which she had been committed, and by putting up a piteous tale she was harbored on the West Side by an Irish family whose two daughters were clerks in a large retail store. Through ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of the Illuminati was. One fact is, the high popularity which these secret societies at that period enjoyed. It was unbounded. There is something which commends such secret organizations most powerfully to the depraved human nature. Men love them because they are secret, and because they can wield such tremendous power. The other fact to be considered, is the absence, to a such vast extent, of the controlling elements of true religion in the European ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... the use of yelling? Already the shanty is packed, and judging from the thundering screeches and clapping of hands, the entertainment is such as suits the depraved tastes of the ruffianly "bums" who have paid their "four ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... believe you are most innocent!" interrupted La Tour, impetuously; "yours was a heart too guileless to deceive, too firm in virtuous principle to be sullied, even by a union with the vicious and depraved. No, Adele, I have never cherished one feeling of resentment towards you; you, like myself, was the victim of that baseness, which invented a tale of falsehood to deceive you, of that meanness, which flattered your father's ambitious hopes, by a boast of rank and wealth; ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... work it out, I should not pander to the depraved public taste as Hester does. I should use my talent, as I have often told her, for the highest ends, not for the lowest. It would be my aim," Mr. Gresley's voice rose sonorously, "to raise my readers, to educate them, to place a high ideal ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... consequences they would hear no words. The women and girls, like the men, would clamor for the raw alcohol, and gulp it down in long draughts. When ardent spirits are more sought after by women and girls than are beads and looking-glasses it surely shows a terribly depraved taste. Even the chattering monkeys in the trees overhead would spurn the poison and eagerly clutch the bright trinket. Perhaps the looking-glasses I gave the poor females would, after the orgies ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... that the so-called "lost" are so irredeemably depraved as to be incapable of as much as a good thought; they are described in the graphic language of Aquinas and Suarez as "obstinated in evil," "confirmed immutably in malice"; in fact, absolutely diabolised. And all this for missing attendance at mass on one of the Church's festivals! "Paris ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... Schrank differs from other men is in mind. He undoubtedly is a degenerate possessing a depraved and diseased mind, but there is nothing in his physical make-up that would ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... lotteries, printed in the most gaudy and attractive colors, showing a brilliant schedule of prizes, and pledging almost certain wealth to all who would venture their money on the "grand scheme." They will also call to mind how many a victim there was to this deceptive and depraved system of legal fraud, until it became so injurious to the public morals, that Legislatures were forced to hurl the bolts of the law against them, in all parts of the United States, and so put an end to their iniquity. Lotteries have been justly prohibited by wise governments, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... girls of five and six years are sent out as decoys by the larger ones to "rope in" customers; for detectives and agents of the various societies, on the lookout for depraved girls, teach those young Messalinas caution. When one of these smaller girls has secured a customer she pilots the way to the place where the larger ones are to be found. In one instance this was a cellar, under ground, not fifty feet from the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... something naturally below its rulers, and as born to be protected and governed, paternally or otherwise, by an accidental selection from its own species, which by some mysterious process has shot up much nearer to heaven than itself—is often described as brutal, depraved, self-seeking, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... brown-red, with a dry, bright skin, that seemed to crinkle with his mobile expressions. His eyes were arresting—brown, full, like a rabbit's, or like a troll's, or like the eyes of a lost being, having a strange, dumb, depraved look of knowledge, and a quick spark of uncanny fire. Whenever Gudrun had tried to talk to him he had shied away unresponsive, looking at her with his watchful dark eyes, but entering into no relation ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... shame exist in every man who is not utterly depraved, and honor is everywhere recognized as something particularly valuable. The reason of this is as follows. By and in himself a man can accomplish very little; he is like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island. It is only in society that a man's powers can ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... 'Is the alligator fond of his grandmother? Does he devour his children? Does he hanker after little niggers? Is he wholly depraved and given up to the sins of the flesh, or hath he some social and playful qualities? And, lastly, what are his habits of life?' You have given me quite too long a text, Sir: the more especially as I think, that upon most ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... the years of discretion. Among them were a great many who were disposed to be wild boys, and not a few who had found it difficult to remain in similar institutions on shore. They were not criminal or depraved, but simply wild; with a tendency to break through reasonable restraint; with a taste for mad pranks, and ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons and devils—spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, but utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, inasmuch as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid of charms, etc., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact with the ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... set of people among the Hindus are so depraved as the dregs of our own great towns." (It might have been wiser to have employed English missionaries ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... A depraved and mongrel pointer, who had tugged at his chain in a wild endeavor to point the whole heterogeneous mass of feathered creatures from sparrow to swan, lost his head and howled dismally until dragged off by the lean-legged student who was attached ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... Imperialism, are now among the shouters of "Vive la Republique" and the new Democratic Ministry. Let us hope not. Let us hope a great many things from the downfall of a corrupt Court, and the call for heroism and self-sacrifice to a frivolous and depraved city—frivolous and depraved, and yet containing so much of noble and good—all the nobler and better, perhaps, from the constant struggle to remain so in that atmosphere. Even if, as God grant, there is no siege, the serious ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the one was not more certain to supply the material of paradox, than the other to draw it out. The deacon had been enlarging in lofty strain on the power and position of the clergy. 'Then I suppose,' said Kinnaird, 'you would hold that the most depraved and irreligious priest has a much higher standing in the sight of God than any layman?' 'Of course,' was the immediate reply. [Footnote: Of course, Mr. Palmer, who was clear-headed, knew what he was saying, and meant that, in comparing an irreligious priest with a religious layman, the ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... "taken in" by women,—putting them, one and all, unto the same category, as suspicious. These strong-minded persons are usually weak men who have a special catechism in the matter of womenkind. To them the whole sex, from queens of France to milliners, are essentially depraved, licentious, intriguing, not a little rascally, fundamentally deceitful, and incapable of thought about anything but trifles. To them, women are evil-doing queens, who must be allowed to dance and sing and laugh as they please; they see nothing sacred or saintly ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... is crowded back beyond the tide of emigration, and hanging like the froth of the billows upon the very edge is generally a host of law-defying whites, who introduce among the Indians every form of demoralization and disease with which depraved humanity in its most degraded form is afflicted. These the Indian see more of than anybody else (except the military, whom they look upon mostly as protectors), as good people come along, the Indian must push on, still farther toward ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be wholly without its use. We know, indeed, that in the olden times it has been made the organ of communication between the Deity and His creatures; and when, as I have seen, a dream produces upon a mind, to all appearance hopelessly reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lasting as to break down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of an abandoned sinner, we see in the result, in the reformation of morals which appeared incorrigible, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the guest of the ranch, her life and welfare being placed for the time in the keeping of the boss. What kind of a foreman would it be who would turn her over to a hireling or intrust her innocent mind to a depraved individual like Bill Lightfoot? And all the decent cowmen were scared of her, so who was naturally indicated and ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... proper means, and see that their beneficent intentions are carried out with regard to this wretched remnant. It is not possible that a race so full of wild natural eloquence, of graceful imagery, of tender metaphor, of stern endurance, can be utterly lost and depraved. Be it our noble task to try to save these wild children of the forest, while throwing the most complete protection around our brave frontier population. Our nationality is now fully born—on our banner ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... earliest age of all (A.D. 100?) some copyist of St. Luke ii. 14 (call him X) inadvertently omitted the second [Greek: en] in the Angelic Hymn. Now if the persons (call them Y and Z) whose business it became in turn to reproduce the early copy thus inadvertently depraved, had but been content both of them to transcribe exactly what they saw before them, the error of their immediate predecessor (X) must infallibly have speedily been detected, remedied, and forgotten,—simply because, as every one must have seen as well as Y and Z, it was impossible ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... was strange, but it was true; and the saddest part of it was, Mr. Wittleworth had received no share of the money. He had given his valuable advice to the barber's daughter, and his late employer had received the full benefit of it. If he, Mr. Wittleworth, had been so vicious and depraved, so lost to the high instincts of a gentleman, as wilfully and maliciously to have given Miss Maggimore bad advice—advice not based on his experience and knowledge of the world; in a word, if he had told her that the papers were good for nothing, ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... thought, with good reason, that, though little confidence could be placed in Sunderland's professions, much confidence might be placed in Sunderland's situation; and the truth is that Sunderland proved, on the whole, a more faithful servant than a much less depraved man might have been. He did indeed make, in profound secresy, some timid overtures towards a reconciliation with James. But it may be confidently affirmed that, even had those overtures been graciously received,—and they appear to have been received very ungraciously,—the twice turned renegade ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with pecuniary difficulties—exasperates beyond all that can be imagined, a man's sensibility to insult. He is even apprehensive of insult—tremulously fantastically apprehensive, where none is intended; and like Wordsworth's shepherd, with his very understanding consciously abused and depraved by his misfortunes is ready to say, at ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... inhuman sacrifices, and to partake of them without remorse, they should be looked upon as demons in human shape, and expect a retaliation of those tortures which they have inflicted on the innocent, for the gratification of their own depraved and unnatural appetites. ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... from Spain criminals under sentence of either partial or perpetual banishment, while other delinquents had had their sentences remitted on condition that they would emigrate to the Indies. So dissolute was the general tone of the colonies and so depraved the habits of many of the colonists that Columbus could, with sincerity, exclaim, "I vow that numbers of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... more willingly thou couldst not seem At Heaven's high feasts to have fed: yet what compare To whom the winged Hierarch replied. O Adam, One Almighty is, from whom All things proceed, and up to him return, If not depraved from good, created all Such to perfection, one first matter all, Endued with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and, in things that live, of life; But more refined, more spiritous, and pure, As nearer to him placed, or nearer ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... interrupted, with a superior smile: "I've no inquiries to offer, Mr. Tombs. I know the plan of salvation, sir, perfectly! We're all totally depraved, and would be damned on Adam's account if we wa'n't, for we've lost communion with God and are liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and the pains of hell forever; but God out of his mere good pleasure having elected some to everlasting life, the rest of us—O I know ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... married man, and happy in all the relations of life. The missionary of the church knew him through years of comfort and prosperity. Years passed away, and there came a dark place in his life. Intemperance, of the most depraved kind, made his career most dreadful. He disappeared, and was not heard from for some time. He separated himself from his family, and from ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... private stations. 11. In this manner Diocle'sian lived some time, and at length died either by poison or madness, but by which of them is uncertain. His reign of twenty years was active and useful; and his authority, which was tinctured with severity, was adapted to the depraved state of morals at ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the way he came to spend a few days with his aunts, being now a very different young man from the one who had spent the summer with them three years before. He then had been an honest, unselfish lad, ready to sacrifice himself for any good cause; now he was depraved and selfish, and thought only of his own enjoyment. Then God's world seemed a mystery which he tried enthusiastically and joyfully to solve; now everything in life seemed clear and simple, defined by the conditions ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the same ratio that his material possessions increased. Like the land, they held the forests and minerals and waters and animals in common. These were the sacred things, the gift of nature, and could not be bartered or sold. In their eyes, only the depraved soul of a peddler ever could have conceived the idea of turning them into merchandise. Naturally it had taken centuries of evolution to create this attitude—but they had attained. There was, however, no need of wealth. Since ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... asking how a God of love and mercy could bid the Israelites utterly to destroy the cities of Canaan, and to kill their inhabitants, but the more we discover of these ancient tribes, the more hopelessly depraved do we find them to have been. For centuries God had been waiting in patience; the warning He had given to them through Sodom's swift destruction had been unheeded; now at last the cup of their iniquity was full (Genesis xv. 16) and the Israelites were to be His means ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff
... spectacle. But ridiculous as he was, I managed to make the inspector believe that I had kidnapped him, and that he was indispensable to my happiness. I found that incorruptible official, like most people, willing to aid one so utterly depraved. I could never have got that boy out for any proper, reasonable purpose, such as giving him a job or sending him to school. Well, it's a queer world! But I must cut all that and get to ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Chupin, and receive a foul insult from M. Wilkie. The latter's cruel words stabbed her to the heart, and yet she tried to construe them as mere proofs of her son's honesty of feeling—as proof of his scorn for the depraved creatures who haunt the boulevards each evening. But though her energy was indomitable, her physical strength was not equal to her will. On returning home, she felt so ill that she was obliged to go to bed. She shivered with cold, and yet the blood that flowed in ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... hearing of the event, Astyages sent for a certain officer of his court, an unscrupulous and hardened man, who possessed, as he supposed, enough of depraved and reckless resolution for the commission of any crime, and addressed him ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... prosperous as its neighbour it could scarcely have absorbed the glut of workmen; but it was really on the verge of bankruptcy—its finances were embarrassed, its trades and industries at a standstill. But not only were the convicts idle; they were utterly depraved. It was soon found that the system which kept large bodies always together had a most pernicious effect upon their moral condition. "The congregation of criminals in large batches without adequate supervision meant simply wholesale, widespread ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... teaching that has made human nature depraved and cut off from the divine source of all perfection, has hindered the development of the higher faculties of understanding. It has led to a misapprehension of the creative power of parenthood. From the idea that the creation of humanity ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... rapidly, owing largely to the fact that it was tremendously profitable to those depraved mortals who indulged in it, and because the people generally, until very recently, were ignorant of the fact that it was becoming so extensive. And even at this time, when a great deal has been said by the pulpit and the press about the horrors ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... ability, and was both active and industrious; yet so overwhelming at this time were the difficulties of Governorship in New South Wales, that his term of office was little more than a distressing failure. The colony consisted chiefly of convicts, who were—many of them—the most depraved and hardened villains to be met with in the history of crime. To keep these in check, and to maintain order, was no easy task; but to make them work, to convert them into industrious and well-behaved members of the community, ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... sprang to my feet. I did not give him the butt; I did not let him run with yards of line down the brook; nor reel him in, and let him make another mad course up stream; I did not turn him over as he jumped into the air; nor endeavor, in any way, to show him that I understood those tricks, which his depraved nature prompted him to play upon the angler. With an absolute dependence upon the strength of old Peter's tackle, I lifted the fish. Out he came from the water, which held him with a gentle suction as if unwilling to ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... exists! he is there! Where can he lie concealed? Is it possible to conceive that the most depraved human being could, single-handed, carry out an idea so infernal as that of bursting through the bed of a lake? I believe I shall end by thinking, like Jack Ryan, that the evil demon of the mine revenges himself on us for having invaded ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... say that these are consequences of human imperfection; that we know; but whence arises the imperfection? It does not satisfy us to assert that they proceed from the depravity of man; how came he depraved? Nor is it more consoling to declare that all human institutions must change and perish. Why must they? Human institutions, if founded upon eternal principles, become divine, and may be immortal; it is not the human, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... dear; and I have no doubt but many such are to be found. They must be depraved indeed, who can be wanting in affection to their parents. But I fear we must not comment a great deal on this story at present, or there will not be time to give you some account of Geography, which I intend ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... stomach.—There are probably but few symptoms exhibited by the horse that will lead one to suspect the presence of gastric calculi, and possibly none by which we can unmistakably assert their presence. They have been found most frequently in millers' horses fed sweepings from the mills. A depraved and capricious appetite is common in horses that have a stone forming in the stomachs. There is a disposition to eat the woodwork of the stable, earth, and, in fact, almost any substance within their reach. This ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... heartlessly and shamefully. They took rank for intelligence; even at sixteen they were already talking about a snug berth. Of course, a great deal of it was due to their stupidity, to the bad examples with which they had always been surrounded in their childhood and boyhood. They were monstrously depraved. Of course a great deal of that, too, was superficial and an assumption of cynicism; of course there were glimpses of youth and freshness even in their depravity; but even that freshness was not attractive, ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... draft of one hundred and fifty men, recruits raised principally from the refuse of the streets of London and Dublin, was embarked for the regiment by orders from the inspector-general at Chatham. These men were of the most depraved character, and of such dissolute habits, that one-half of them were unfit for service; fifteen died in the passage, and seventy-five were sent to the hospital from the transport as soon as they disembarked. The infusion of such ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... concentration is radically defective. It supposes the existence in the breasts of criminals of a principle of action, and a desire of improvement and of a change in their condition sufficiently powerful to enable them to resist the temptations to vice held out by habitual intercourse with the depraved. No doubt there are individuals to be found, even among those who have incurred the penalty of banishment from their native country, of firm character and strong sympathy for virtue; but the majority must of course consist of men almost incapable of resisting ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... anticipation If one were poor, one ought to be deserving Look of challenge, of interrogation, almost of reproof Malevolent agitators Meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation Neatness that brings despair Noble uselessness Openly depraved by shows of wealth People have never had ideals, but only moods and fashions People of wealth and fashion always dissemble their joy Plagiarism carries inevitable detection with it Refused to see us as we see ourselves So many millionaires and so many tramps Superiority one likes to ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... with an air of saucy indifference, coquettish under her rags, and walking with elastic steps, you would have guessed in her the young Parisian girl, the sister of the poor 'gamin,' a thousand times more wicked than her brothers, and far more dangerous to society. She was as depraved as the worst of sinners, fearing neither God nor the Devil, nor ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... her quote this poetry, and was certified that there was no escaping compliance with what willed she, he said, "O King of the age, if thou must needs have it so, make covenant with me that thou wilt do this thing with me but once, though it avail not to correct thy depraved appetite, and that thou wilt never again require this thing of me to the end of time; so perchance shall Allah purge me of the sin." She replied "I promise thee this thing, hoping that Allah of His favour will relent towards us and blot out our mortal offence; for the girdle of heaven's ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... water on a sunny day. At Loch Skene, on the top of a hill, twenty miles from any town, otters are occasionally found by the keeper or the shepherds, concealed near the shore. The practice of ottering can give little pleasure to any but a depraved mind, and nothing educates trout so rapidly into "rising short"; why they are not to be had when they are rising most vehemently, "to themselves," is another mystery. A few rises are encouraging, but when the water is all splashing with rises, as ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... him from exercising his profession as an advocate, for in this year he defended Fundanius [14] in a speech now lost, and Cluentius [15] (who was accused of poisoning) in an extremely long and complicated argument, one of the most difficult, but from the light it throws on the depraved morals of the time one of the most important of all his speeches. Another oration belonging to this year, and the first political harangue which Cicero delivered, was that in favour of the Manilian law, [16] which conferred on Pompey the conduct ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... been the servant and the trusty friend of the very best of masters, he has come to be the ally and accomplice of the very worst of masters. His first name, the name of his first office, still sticks to him, indeed; but, like himself, and with himself, his name has become depraved and corrupted till you would not know it. A varlet, then, is just short and sharp for a scoundrel who is ready for anything; and the worse the thing is the more ready he is for it. There are riff-raff and refuse always about ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... scout or messenger, hardly interfered with slumbers which the fatigues of the day, and, unhappily also, the potations of the night rendered doubly deep. An early morning mass mustered all the Catholics, unless the very depraved, to the chaplain's tent—for several of the officers, and the chaplains always were supplied with tents; and then a hasty meal was snatched before the sun was fairly above the horizon, and the day's work commenced. The endurance ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... and the shebeen—all were struck with terror and dismay. Their occupation was doomed to go. No more in the dishonest avarice of gain where they to coax and jest with the foolish tradesman, until they confirmed him in the depraved habit, and led him on, at his own expense, and their profit, step by step, until the naked and shivering sot, now utterly ruined, was kicked out, like Art Maguire, to make room for those who were to tread in his steps, and share ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... the hand, and mute sorrowful glances, as though he would have said, "Dear mistress, I know all your troubles. I know all you say, but I cannot answer you!" There is something touching in the silent sympathy of the dog, to which only the hard-hearted and depraved can be quite insensible. I remember once hearing of a felon, who had shown the greatest obstinacy and callous indifference to the appeals of his relations, and the clergyman that attended him in prison, whose heart was softened by the sight ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... it fireth the imagination; and yet, it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... destroys the eggs and the young of innocent birds which we should like to preserve; he purloins fruit from the garden and orchard, and carries off young ducks and chickens from the farmyard. Beside his mischievous propensities and his habits of thieving, he is accused of cunning, and of a depraved disposition. He who would plead for the Crow will not deny the general truth of these accusations, but, on the other hand, would enumerate certain special benefits which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... terribly; their breath smelt of liquor, and they talked the language of a depravity to which Noddy, with all his waywardness, was a stranger. There were boys no older than himself in the company, but they did not seem a whit less depraved ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... less so to them. The youth looks forward with disgust to the old age which is to follow him, and the old man has far more in common with other old men, his own contemporaries, than with the youth who preceded him. How frequently do we see the youth vicious and depraved, and the man who follows him upright and virtuous, hating iniquity! How often, on the other hand, is a pure and innocent girlhood succeeded by a dissolute and shameless womanhood! In many cases age looks back upon youth with inexpressible longing and ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... Profound researches, scientific inventions: to what end? To contract the sum of human wants? to teach the art of living on a little? to disseminate independence, liberty, and health? No; to multiply factitious desires, to stimulate depraved appetites, to invent unnatural wants, to heap up incense on the shrine of luxury, and accumulate expedients of selfish and ruinous profusion. Complicated machinery: behold its blessings. Twenty years ago, at the door of every cottage sate the good woman with her spinning-wheel: ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... unprincipled pair who found shelter in her house, and she now determined to come upon them separately, and torment each soul by itself. Annie, of course, would come in for the lesser share of the punishment, for the fact that the wretched and depraved Null was no more, had, in a great measure, mitigated her offence. She was safe, and her aunt intended to hold her fast, and do with her as she would, when the time and Junius came. But upon Lawrence ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... translated into English, Spanish, and German. It fell in with certain passionate movements of the popular mind against some anti-social practices of the Catholic Church. Perhaps it is not unjust to suppose that the horrible picture of the depraved abbess has had some share in attracting ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... she went. Was this then the lazybones who had such dreadful headaches at the least bit of work? But she laughed; at headwork, yes; but exertion with her hands and feet did her good, seemed to straighten her like a young sapling. She confessed, even as she would have confessed some depraved taste, her liking for lowly household cares; a liking which had greatly worried her mother, whose educational ideal consisted of accomplishments, and who would have made her a governess with soft hands, touching nothing vulgar. How Christine had been chided ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... one great function of a national worship,—not otherwise. This, however, we must overlook and pardon, as being a fault essential to the religion: the poor creatures did the best they could to praise their god, lying under the curse of gods so thoroughly depraved. But in D, the case is different. Strictly speaking, the ancients never prayed; and it may be doubted whether D approaches so near to what we mean by prayer, as even by a mockery. You read of preces, of αραι, &c. and you are desirous to believe that pagan supplications were not always ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... such scenes, but from then-deference to the "multaque tolles ex oculis" of Horace; from the conviction of their utter unfitness for public exhibition. There is, however, a numerous class of inferior caterers to the public, ready to minister to any appetite, however foul and depraved, if they be once furnished with a precedent; and we foresee an inundation of blood and abomination if they be not awed or ridiculed into silence. We have quietly submitted to these inflictions from two or three distinguished writers, whose talents may extenuate, though ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... corpse; but when the soul gleams forth in the flashing eye and quivering lip, waves of unseen fire are issuing with every sentence, and arrows of light silently piercing every heart. The most stubborn prejudices are forced to melt and the most depraved wills are swept on the crest of the grand tidal wave, slowly gathering from the start; but when the preacher forgets himself and his surroundings, flings self-consciousness away, goes outside himself, pouring the hot tide from his own glowing heart, till every flash of his eye and every ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... Those three constitute the Scientific Definition of Immortal Mind. Next, we have the Scientific Definition of Mortal Mind. Thus. FIRST DEGREE: Depravity. 1. Physical—Passions and appetites, fear, depraved will, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge, sin, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... should think. But I'm not killed. Remember that, Tom. You've got money, support, sentiment on your side. I've got nothing but my own determination. But I'm not afraid to fight. And I will, if you force me. You'd better be pretty careful how you handle such an utterly depraved person as you seem to think I am. Why, I didn't know you had such ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... plated chains; and she had her first thrills of feminine vanity on receiving bouquets and sonnets from subalterns and cadets in small garrison towns. Boldini followed her everywhere, neglecting his lessons, in pursuit of this, his last depraved infatuation. "All for art, art for all!" He must enjoy the fruits of his creation, be present at the triumphs of his star pupil! So he said to Doctor Moreno; and that unsuspecting gentleman, thankful for this added courtesy of ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... men and old women call education is the custom of dissimulating natural manners, and when they have completely depraved us they say that we are well-bred. One evening my mistress begged one of the young ladies to sing. When this girl went to the piano and began to sing I recognized at once an Irish melody that I had ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... be hung! Listen to adroitly narrated lies of detectives, caring only for vindication of their theories of guilt! Witness the heartless curiosity of vulgar crowds feasting on rumor and depraved gossip! Meet the cold, relentless gaze of those demanding satisfaction of outraged law! Hear the distorted evidence of witnesses, the impassioned appeal of the public prosecutor, as with hypocritical craft he urges the jury to hang no innocent man, and then pleads with ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... work of Andreyev. The idea that he mostly presents is not the power of bestial instincts, but rather the indestructible vitality of human feelings and aspirations towards a better existence, which sometimes comes to light among the most miserable and depraved people, and even among those who are in the most ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... material drawn from elsewhere. In the present case this has been done as sparingly as possible, and entirely from the Scriptures. In so doing, the Prodigal himself has been conceived, not as of a naturally brutish and depraved disposition,—a view taken by many commentators, with apparently little knowledge of human nature, and no recollection of their own youthful impulses,—but rather as a buoyant, restless youth, tired of the monotony of home, and anxious to see what lay beyond the narrow confines of his father's ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... ruinous consequences it entails on ourselves? Do we grieve at sin in others? Do we know any thing of "vexing our souls," like righteous Lot, "from day to day," with the world's "unlawful deeds," the stupid hardness and obduracy of the depraved heart, which resists alike the appliances of wrath and love, judgment and mercy? Ah! it is easy, in general terms, to condemn vice, and to utter harsh, severe, and cutting denunciations on the guilty: it is easy to pass uncharitable comments on the ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... foulness, we can plead, was imposed on us as a necessity by the use of horses and of huge retinues; but flogging has never been so imposed: it has always been a vice, craved for on any pretext by those depraved by it. Boys were flogged when criminals were hanged, to impress the awful warning on them. Boys were flogged at boundaries, to impress the boundaries on their memory. Other methods and other punishments were always available: the choice of this one betrayed ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... barbarities excited by British agents, and cruelties to American seamen impressed by British officers. With the true instinct of his fine nature, he made his friends and companions among the wisest and highest of his time, although he loved all company that was not vicious and depraved. He knew Gerrit Smith in 1814; a few months' stay, as a journeyman printer, at Auburn, forged a lasting friendship with Elijah Miller, the father-in-law of William H. Seward, and with Enos T. Throop, afterward governor. His intimacy with Gorham A. Worth, a financier of decided literary tastes, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... perpetually made evident. And, it followed, that coming now upon Richard Calmady alone, here, in the stark, unnatural pallor of the winter dusk, holding silent communion with that long-ago victim of merciless practices and depraved tastes, not only caused him a painful shock, but also moved him with fervid desire to offer comfort and render help.—Yet, what to say, how to approach Richard without risk of seeming officiousness and consequent offense, he could ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... learning the design of Litavicus, lays the matter before Caesar almost at midnight; he entreats that Caesar should not suffer their state to swerve from the alliance with the Roman people, owing to the depraved counsels of a few young men, which he foresaw would be the consequence if so many thousand men should unite themselves to the enemy, as their relations could not neglect their safety, nor the state regard it as a matter of ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... But the man who could go to Africa, and rob her of her children, and sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer, that he can never receive pardon at my hands. No! he may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... confessors be not from the men who have brought thee up. And do not wonder because I talk so; for many a time thou mayest have heard me say, and it is the truth, that the talk of so-called pious men and women, full of depraved expressions, ruins the souls and the habits and practices of Religious. Beware that thou bind thy heart to none but Christ crucified; for the hour would come when thou wouldst wish to set it free and ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... scarcely have believed that human nature could become so depraved, as an instance I witnessed with my own eyes convinced me it might be. I saw two Irishmen, who had their wives and families on board, slip over the ship's side, and drop down towards the boat, with ropes in their hands. Little as they deserved it, they ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the full with trouble, and now you are trying to vex my deathbed, to warp my boy's mind, and make a depraved man ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... that would thus carefully employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from those conspicuous stations of life to which they have been sometimes advanced, and all this without any regard to his private interest, would be no small benefactor to ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... are not only apt to be sickly, but the liability to premature death is greatly increased. For this reason it is better that the first year of married life should be allowed to pass without conception taking place. A child begotten in an intoxicated or depraved condition of a parent may be depraved itself in the same way, and is apt to be ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... terrible fascination; it shed a mild warmth, it was pathetic without being startling, and the sternest wills were melted in its flame. Esther had conquered hatred, she had astonished the depraved souls of Paris; in short, that look and the softness of her skin had earned her the terrible nickname which had just led her to the verge of the grave. Everything about her was in harmony with these characteristics of the Peri of the burning sands. Her forehead was firmly and proudly molded. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... proclaimed an apocalypse. Could so depraved a creature as La Cibot exist? If Pons was right, it seemed to imply that there was no God in the world. He went right down again ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... the curse of the law, Gal. iii. 13. But yet, there is another point of vast distance, I may say contrariety and enmity, between us and him. He is holy and undefiled, all fair, and no spot in him; we are wholly defiled and depraved by sin, our souls are become the habitation of devils, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird; in a word, he hath not only our enemies to overcome, but our own hearts to conquer, and our enmity ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... and pretended discovery; nor have I any doubt that they were by no means unimportant, as the people's delay in condemning him was occasioned not by the merits of the cause, but by the place of trial. This seems deserving of notice, that men may know what great and glorious achievements his depraved ambition of regal power rendered not only bereft of all merit, but absolutely hateful. He is said to have brought forward near four hundred persons to whom he had lent money without interest, whose goods he had prevented from being sold, whom he had prevented ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... who now sits before the court licking her paws," resumed the Woggle-Bug, "has long desired to unlawfully eat the fat piglet, which was no bigger than a mouse. And finally she made a wicked plan to satisfy her depraved appetite for pork. I can see her, in my ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... some suppose, the empire never could have been established. We comfort ourselves, however, by the reflection, that when the people surrendered themselves to factions and demagogues and tyrants, they were both ignorant and depraved. Self- government has never yet succeeded, because there have never been virtue and intelligence among the masses. So long as we can boast of virtue and intelligence among the people, we need not despair with the government in their ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... of Liholiho, was proclaimed king with the title of Kamehameha III., and Kaahumanu as regent during his minority. Her administration was signalized by a series of outrages at Lahaina and Honolulu, committed by a depraved class of foreigners who resented certain regulations made to restrict ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... losing some of its hold in New England, had captured the people of the rest of the country. Except as to the Catholics and the Episcopalians, all Americans were born, or thought themselves born, utterly depraved and weighted down with the sin of Adam and Eve, their "first parents," from which burden the only way of escape was through prayer and agony of soul. Even this prospect was denied to many, for some influential religious ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... it is not difficult for them to represent, what indeed is truth, to the people, that the drawing of so much treasure from the country to support Lisbon, which can neither govern nor protect them now, is a rational ground of complaint. It is said, that the morals of the clergy here are most depraved. This is probably true. Men cut off by vows like those of the Roman clergy, from the active charities of social life, have only the resources of science and literature against their passions and vices. But here the very names of literature and science ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... peculiarities. Even the Prince Regent condescended to humor this remarkable taste by ordering a dish of liver and bacon to be placed on the table when the Chancellor dined with him at Brighton. Sir John Leach, Master of the Rolls, was however less ready to pander to a depraved appetite. Lord Eldon said, "It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and since you are good enough to ask me to order a dish that shall test your new chef's powers—I wish you'd tell your Frenchman to fry ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... distinguished the later productions. No part indeed of the execution of this remarkable novel is inferior. Young Bailey and Sweedlepipes are in the front rank of his humorous creations; and poor Mrs. Todgers, worn but not depraved by the cares of gravy and solicitudes of her establishment, with calculation shining out of one eye but affection and goodheartedness still beaming in the other, is in her way quite as perfect a picture as even the portentous Mrs. Gamp with her grim grotesqueness, her filthy ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... a standing example of canine inutility. The scurvy cur is not only totally depraved in his morals, but his hair stands the wrong way, and his tail is of that nameless type intermediate between the pendulously pitiful and the spirally exasperating-a tail which gives rise to conflicting emotions in the mind of the beholder, and causes the involuntarily ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... bound and gagged. In less time than is required to tell the story, both of them were lying helpless before their assailants, while the open doors of the bank vault revealed the treasures which had excited the passions of these depraved men, and led to the assault which had just been ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... than all the crowns and sceptres of earth can bestow. Let those whose lives are consecrated to the task of teaching young hearts to love God, of recalling the wanderer to the paths of his duty, of battling with the errors of worldly wisdom and the passions of the depraved human heart,—let them gather from this book not only the motives which will be powerful over the souls of men, but also the strength and courage which they themselves need in their toils for the good of their neighbor. In a word, let all study this precious volume:—Catholics and Protestants, ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... fled from his throne of Poland to take that of France as soon as he heard of the death of his brother, had not even the few good qualities of the latter. Depraved, prodigal, effeminate, capable only of the most puerile occupations, he excited the indignation of the Parisians by his dissolute manners, by his travesty of feminine apparel, his fine collars, his necklaces of pearls, his pourpoint opened to show his throat. ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... blue jay. A jay-thrush and several smaller birds were killed by laughing thrushes,—which simply love to do murder! A nightingale was killed by a catbird and two mocking- birds. Two snake-birds killed a third one—all of them thoroughly depraved villains. Three gulls murdered another; a brown pelican was killed by trumpeter-swans; and a Canada goose was killed by a gull. All these victims were birds ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... to listen! And you would be influenced by her—you could not help it, any more than you can help being distressed about what she has already said. She intimated to Dr. Perrin that she believed that I had been a man of depraved life, and that my wife and child were now paying the penalty. How can I tell what vile stories concerning me she may not have heard? How could I have any peace of mind while I knew that she was free to pour ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... as ever went forth armed and determined for premeditated crime; stout in frame, stout of heart, invulnerable by any physical apprehension, unassailable by any touch of conscience, pitiless, fearless, utterly depraved. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... else." He spoke with increasing coldness. "At any rate, it doesn't in the least concern you whether I am, or am not, married—just as little as it concerns me what repulsive personages, whom nothing but a depraved instinct can enjoy, you keep company ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... intellectual part of the character, and seem vicious on reflection, and of set purpose. Rubens' are noble specimens of a class; Poussin's are allegorical abstractions of the same class, with bodies less pampered, but with minds more secretly depraved. The Bacchanalian groups of the Flemish painter were, however, his masterpieces in composition. Witness those prodigies of colour, character, and expression at Blenheim. In the more chaste and refined delineation of classic fable, Poussin was without a rival. Rubens, who ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... "and especially so, that the idle public has a hankering for such things! But are there no obscene details at all, then? grumbles the disappointed idle public to itself, something of reproach in its tone. A public idle-minded; much depraved in every way. Thus, too, you will observe of dogs: two dogs, at meeting, run, first of all, to the shameful parts of the constitution; institute a strict examination, more or less satisfactory, in that department. That ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... pleasant, conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures; for though these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a man's taste that bitter things may pass for sweet, as women with child think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense, when corrupted either by a disease or some ill habit, does not ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... merely to retain his present advantage, unconsciousness would soon have overcome his victim, but he tried to improve his grip, and the attempt proved disastrous. His thumb, seeking better vantage, fell into Harris's gasping mouth. Harris was no more depraved than most of mankind, but when fighting for life, and choking to death in the hands of an unknown enemy, he was ready to seize any advantage, and with a great effort he brought his jaws ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... and elevate the taste of the public. In the second and third centuries the playhouse in every large town was a centre of attraction; and whilst the actors were generally persons of very loose morals, their dramatic performances were perpetually pandering to the depraved appetites of the age. It is not, therefore, wonderful that all true Christians viewed the theatre with disgust. Its frivolity was offensive to their grave temperament; they recoiled from its obscenity; and its constant appeals to the gods and goddesses of heathenism ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... refused a hearing through those laws which bad white men take the advantage of? He is compelled to submit to those which were made to govern the worst slaves! And why is he subjected to that injustice which gives him no voice in his own behalf when the most depraved whites are his accusers? Can it be the little crimp that is in his hair? for he has a fairer skin than those who make laws to oppress him. If he inhaled the free atmosphere from abroad, can it be that there is contagion in it, and Malcome Brown is the dreaded medium of its communication? And if ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... retained, the word MATTER should be never missed in common talk. And in philosophical discourses it seems the best way to leave it quite out: since there is not, perhaps, any one thing that hath more favoured and strengthened the depraved bent of the mind towards Atheism than the use ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... the habit of overawing common juries. The evidence for the crown would probably have been thought amply sufficient on the Western Circuit or at the City Sessions, but could not for a moment impose on such men as Rochester, Godolphin, and Churchill; nor were they, with all their faults, depraved enough to condemn a fellow creature to death against the plainest rules of justice. Grey, Wade, and Goodenough were produced, but could only repeat what they had heard said by Monmouth and by Wildman's emissaries. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seeing no remedy, drew up close to Minerva, and whispered very softly in her ear this sage remark: "Since the world is grown so depraved, they ought to be esteemed most wise who have eyes to see and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... learned that, who had not been practically brought into collision with men in all ranks, from the highest to the lowest. Hence his characters are almost all overdrawn. Vice and virtue are exhibited in too undisguised colours; the malignity of the wicked is laid too bare to the reader. He makes the depraved admit they are bad, but yet persevere in their crimes; a certain proof that he did not know the human heart. He knew it better who said, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Napoleon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... to betray Valancourt into a course of life so different from that, which the virtues, the tastes, and the pursuits of his early years had promised; but she still loved him too well to believe, that his heart was even now depraved, though his conduct had been criminal. An observation, which had fallen from M. St. Aubert more than once, now occurred to her. 'This young man,' said he, speaking of Valancourt, 'has never been at Paris;' ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... paragraphs in the newspapers, as there are, I am sorry to say, foolish and violent speeches in both houses of Congress. In truth, Sir, I must say that, in my opinion, the vernacular tongue of the country has become greatly vitiated, depraved, and corrupted by the style of our Congressional debates. And if it were possible for those debates to vitiate the principles of the people as much as they have depraved their tastes, I should cry out, "God save ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... London, would visit as a matter of course as he would visit St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey; and yet London has advanced enormously in all that constitutes wealth and civilization. In Paris, as in ancient Greece, courtesans are rich, brilliant, and depraved; here in London the women are poor, stupid, and almost virtuous. Kitty is revolution. I know for a fact that she has had as much as L1000 from a foreign potentate, and she spends in one day upon her tiger-cat what would keep a poor family in affluence for a week. Nor can she say half a dozen ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... artificialness indicating that there had been such commixture, and, as it were, adultery, of various vegetable species, that the production was no longer of God's making, but the monstrous offspring of man's depraved fancy, glowing with only an evil mockery of beauty. They were probably the result of experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in mingling plants individually lovely into a compound possessing ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... much is apt to be worse than much too little; and theory and practice are very different things, not to be rashly confounded. You want to hold the right theories, and then to live as near them as depraved mundane conditions will allow. The manly weapons of which Jane spoke so scornfully last night are the right ones—when you can use them. In the case in hand, to tell all I know would have been at any time, and would still be, impossible and ruinous. Hartman ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... the measure of the ruler's good morals, even so will be the time; as says the apostle of God (on whom be peace and salvation), 'There are two classes, who if they be virtuous, the people will be virtuous, and if they be depraved, the people also will be depraved: even princes and men of learning.' And it is said by a certain sage, 'There are three kinds of kings, the king of the Faith, the king who watches over and protects those things that are entitled to respect and honour, and the king of his ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... becomes depraved, and a person thus affected, feels a desire to eat substances that are by no means nutritious, or even esculent: this often depends on a debilitated state of the whole system. There are some instances, however, in which ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... perfect realisation of his name, with his pale hair, and his fragile face illuminated with the idealism of a depraved woman. He takes you by the arm, by the hand, he leans towards you, his words are caresses, his fervour is delightful, and to hear him is as sweet as drinking a smooth perfumed yellow wine. All he says is false—the ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... As for novels, there are some I would strongly recommend; but romances infinitely more. The one is a representation of the effects of the passions as they should be, though extravagant; the other, as they are. The latter is falsely called nature, and is a picture of depraved and corrupted society; the other is the glow of nature. I would therefore exclude all novels that show human nature depraved:—however well executed, the design ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... many visitors of licentious and depraved morals meet, of both sexes, and where such an unlimited liberty reigns, intrigues must occur, and have of course not seldom furnished materials for the scandalous chronicle. Even Madame Joseph herself has either been gallant or calumniated. Report ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... tasted mighty sweet, and we gnawed it just like dogs. At the close of the repast, I took a look at Bill. His face was as black as tar from contact with the burnt pork, and in other respects his "tout ensemble" "left much to be desired." I thought if I looked as depraved as Bill certainly did it would be advisable to avoid any pocket looking-glass until after a thorough facial ablution with soft water and plenty of soap. Dinner over, we were soon ready for the march to camp, (there being no dishes to wash,) ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... this child-murder, the depraved creature does a little provisioning. They all experience the same necessity to go backwards in the sequence of actions in order to pick up the thread of their interrupted occupations. Her next work is to lay her egg and then she conscientiously ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... and for whom (remembering the old adage: when one hand washes the other both are made clean) she procured the command of the army—this Duke, the triumphant general of Mahon and one of the most distinguished noblemen of France, did not blush to become the secret agent of a depraved meretrix in the conspiracy to blacken the character of her victim! The Princesses, of course, joined the jealous Phryne against their niece, the daughter of the Caesars, whose only faults were those of nature, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... by the application of the scrubber only. The exuberant buoyancy of my spirits suffered a sudden and distinct check as I glanced at the faces of those about me, which, without exception, seemed to belong to the lowest and most depraved class of seamen— sullen, brutal, reckless, resembling, more than anything else, in air and expression, an assemblage of wild beasts, whose natural ferocity has not been eradicated but is held in check, subdued, and daunted by the constant exercise of a ferocity ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... and harmless as doves.' Ever growing, the human mind must reach with the tendrils of its thought beyond the confines of to-day. The intuition of our souls, this Godlike attribute which we inherit directly from our Father, is ever seeking to be our guide. None can be so utterly depraved that they have not sympathy either in one way or another with its utterances. Prison bars and dungeon cells may hold souls whose central thoughts are pure as noon-day; and sometimes hard-visaged men, at the ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... at peace, lost but sainted, Were grief I could compass; Depraved—'tis for Christ's poor dependent A ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... moved to London for the winter, she began her remarkable work in Newgate prison. The condition of prisoners was pitiable in the extreme. She found three hundred women, with their numerous children, huddled together, with no classification between the most and least depraved, without employment, in rags and dirt, and sleeping on the floor with no bedding, the boards simply being raised for a sort of pillow. Liquors were purchased openly at a bar in the prison; and ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton |
