"Boast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Library." This sermon was printed in the year 1787, with the following dedication: "To his Excellency Benjamin Franklin, President of the State of Pennsylvania, the Ornament of Genius, the Patron of Science, and the Boast of Man, this Discourse is Inscribed, with the Greatest Deference, Humility, and Gratitude, by his Obliged and Most ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... fair type of the money-getter. Furthermore, what he had built had been raised by his own hands unaided; he was a self-made man, whose one boast was that he owed nothing to any one, not even so little as a debt of gratitude. One realized the fact, too, in the way he carried on his affairs; for in his business he was alert and determined, implacably pursuing his money-making ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... not to strain her; her sails were all in holes, as if they had been riddled with bullets; and where ropes had broken in the rigging, they had been tied in clumsy knots, instead of being spliced in proper sailor-like fashion. There was not much to boast of in the way of navigation either; the captain keeping his log by the simple method of spitting over the side, or throwing a chip of wood overboard, and making his calculations according to the pace it drifted past. The food, too, was ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... find you keep silence about it, they will give you credit for discretion, while it would certainly do you a good deal of harm, and might even now lead to your being promptly sent across the frontier, were it known that you made a boast of ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... it not your boast that the Senor Allen is the supreme caballero of California?" Jose was frank, at least, and Dade liked him the better for it. "For three years I have held the medalla oro [gold medal] for riding and for riata throwing; if it is ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... his work, it is, perhaps, scarcely possible to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the oldest prose composition among the Arabs, by whom Mohammed's boast of the unapproachable excellence of his work is almost universally sustained; but it must not be concealed that there have been among them very learned men who have held it in light esteem. Its most celebrated passages, as those on the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... had captured Famagosta from Genoa, a feat of prowess for his youth—and so would make his boast on it—keeping it ever in mind," an elderly citizen explained to the crowd with a singular mingling of admiration and disapproval. "And mayhap he might have lived to learn more wisdom—may God have mercy ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... summer in the close shadows which they threw. It was a pleasant ride, especially after mother and son had reached the main road, and other horsemen and horsewomen issued from the gates of farms on either side, taking their way to the meeting-house. Only two or three families could boast vehicles,—heavy, cumbrous "chairs," as they were called, with a convex canopy resting on four stout pillars, and the bulging body swinging from side to side on huge springs of wood and leather. No healthy man or woman, however, unless he or she were very old, travelled ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... something of that grandeur which is familiar to our thoughts—which, indeed, constitutes the staple of the ordinary American speech, apparently having all the characteristics of exaggerated jesting and idle boast. We frequently hear our enthusiastic countrymen talk of anchoring Great Britain in one of our northern lakes. They speak contemptuously of the petty jurisdictions of European powers contrasted with the magnificent domain of our States, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... adored Samuel Brohl, and he relied upon her devotion; it were impossible that she could refuse him anything! She was prepared in advance for every compliance, every obedience; she was ready to be his humble servant in all things. Knaves make it their boast that they can readily fathom honest people; the truth is, they only half comprehend them. Honest people have sentiments, as do certain languages, reputed easy, which are full of mystery, of refined delicacy, inaccessible to the vulgar mind. A commercial traveller often learns to speak ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... that he was as one dead, buried, cast down to oblivion. Even before he had accepted the physician's invitation to cross his threshold, he had resolved to turn this silence to his own profit: he, whose inward boast was his stainless honor, had resolved to act a silent lie. Was it not fair to outwit the rogues with their own weapon? He had faded from human memory—let it be so. Was he to be cut off from this sudden joy of friendship with one of his blood ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... practical, hard-headed people. That is our national boast. You are a Yankee of the good old Massachusetts stock, I understand, proud of the fact that you can trace your descent right back to the Pilgrim Fathers. But with all our hard-headed practicality, Jonathan, there is still some sentiment left in us. Most of us dread the thought of ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... Crabbe's writings one has at least the comfort and consolation of a high moral sense, charming versification, and an occasional tender, exquisite expression of the beauties of nature. Our play to-night could not boast of these alleviations. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... go on just for a bit. So you see what a blessing the giving up the drink has been to me and my family. And, what's better still, it's left room for the gospel to enter. It couldn't get in when the strong drink blocked up the road. I'm not going to boast; I should get a tumble, I know, if I did that. It ain't no goodness of mine, I'm well aware of that. It's the Lord's doing, and his blessing on Thomas Bradly's kindness and care for a poor, wretched, ruined ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... terrors, and by the naval neophytes who hope to emulate the deeds of their fathers. Even a non-combatant like myself feels his heart beat faster and fuller, though it is only with the feeling of the unworthy boast of the substance in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... yet waited the spark that was wanting to unite them—so long 'the laws of England' might be, indeed, at a Falstaff's or a Nym's or a Bardolph's 'commandment,' for the Poet has but put into 'honest Jack's' mouth, a boast that worse men than he, made good in his time—so long, the faith, the lives, the liberties, the dearest earthly hopes, of England's proudest subjects, her noblest, her bravest, her best, her most learned, her most accomplished, her most inspired, might be at the mercy of a woman's ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... relationship. The lesson intended was probably sensible and wholesome, but the effect produced upon the child was a terror of Fenimore Cooper which lasted as long as life. On the other hand, one who was a slip of a girl at the time used afterward to boast that Fenimore Cooper had opened a gate for her when she was riding horseback, and stood hat in hand while she ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Jacopo's boast and promise were justified, for even now there is no finer complete work of sculpture in the whole of Rome than the Pieta at St. Peter's. It is said that Michael Angelo overheard certain Lombards ascribe the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... whose fine face and sweet low voice bespoke refinement, looked fixedly at Mrs. Paxton, and wondered that any woman should be willing to boast so foolishly. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... strange you could never git on the trail. I don't boast of my own powers, but I'll lay if I'd been in the neighborhood, I'd 've found it and stuck to it like a bloodhound, till I'd ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... there was amusing. There were boats of all sorts and descriptions alongside; but there is one peculiarity of which Valetta may boast, to the disadvantage of nearly all other ports. The boats intended for the conveyance of passengers are kept in good order, and beautifully clean; and the boatmen belonging to them are also very careful to dress neatly—their ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Wyoming, not far from the Montana line, you will hear the people proclaim the greatness of the town in which they live. You expect this sort of thing in the Far West, and you are prepared for it, but you will be surprised at the nature of the Philipsburg boast. Its proud inhabitants will not tell you that it is bound to be the largest city between the Missouri and the coast, they will not assert that since the horizon touches the earth at an equal distance on all sides of the town, it is, therefore, the natural centre of the ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... their intelligence, and their heart and their soul, and their wits. They emerge thence, and decamp from their families. All newspapers are pests; all, even the Drapeau Blanc! At bottom, Martainville was a Jacobin. Ah! just Heaven! you may boast of having driven your grandfather to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... me to believe she was with Dicky, I knew, whether her boast were true or not. But how was it that she was coming to see me? Lillian put a reassuring hand upon my shoulder as she ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... is the only "virgin" continent in this world. From the day of its birth there had not been a drop of blood shed on its soil in the strife of war. No other country can make so glorious a boast. Yet it is true. It is not to be wondered at when, for the first time for a considerable number of years, a British army was reported to be in peril, Australia offered to share with them the burden and heat of the day. The British Government ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... it, mother! Truly we didn't! Leon said we'd found something not intended for children, and we'd be whipped sick if we ever went near or told, and we never did, not even once, unless Leon wanted to boast to the traveller man, but if he showed him the place, he thought sure the money had all been spent on the ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... did the Vendean peasants, for now they had joined some degree of discipline and method to their accustomed valour; but the number of their enemies was too great for them, and they consisted of the best soldiers of whom France could boast. The Vendeans, moreover, could not choose their own battle-field. They could not fight as they had been accustomed to do, from behind hedges, and with every advantage of locality on their side. They had thrown themselves on the veteran troops, who had signalized themselves ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... us a hearty welcome. He was as rough-looking as his companion, but scarcely rougher than Mudge, with his unshaven beard, his moustache, and long hair; and I, though I had not a beard and moustache to boast of, must have looked ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... hunting studios for, and even, maybe, going to the Academy? Besides, suppose your struggling artist comes to the front. What price the five-guinea specimen of his early style then? Your artistic virtue is indeed its own reward, and, besides, you can boast about finding him. The poor man of culture and the struggling artist live for one another, or at least they ought to—though I am afraid it is not much of a living for the struggling artist." He paused abruptly. "I suppose that autotype cost thirty shillings, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... they had been the pin by which his mai. had scrued them up to that willingnesse. So we sie its usefull sometymes (as Matchiavell teaches) for a prince to entertaine and foment tua factions in his state, and whiles to boast the ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... surprise for you and Lois on Thanksgiving. I don't like to boast, but it's rather nice—even mother ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... may boast, nor boast in vain, These Virtues and these Graces in her train. What on the instant should be said, to say; Things, best reserv'd at present, to delay; Hoc amet, hoc spernat, promissi ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... nations to abandon the practice of electing their chief magistrate; preferring to receive that officer by hereditary succession. Men have found that the chances of having a good chief magistrate by birth, are about equal to the chances of obtaining one by popular election. And, boast as we will, that the superior intelligence of our citizens may render this government an exception, time will show that this is a mistake. No nation can be an exception, till the Almighty shall change ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... between France and the Austrian family began. Philip, son of that marriage, married Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; and their son, Charles I. of the Spains, became Charles V. of Germany. Thus there centred in his person a degree of power such as no other sovereign could boast, and which alone would have sufficed to make him the rival of the King of France, Francis I., had no personal feeling entered into the relations between them. But such feeling existed, and grew out of their competition for the imperial ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Morse, Alpheus Spring Packard, Frederick Ward Putnam, Samuel Hubbard Scudder, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, William Stimpson, Sanborn Tenney, Addison Emory Merrill, Burt Green Wilder and Henry Augustus Ward—as brilliant a galaxy of names as American science can boast, bearing remarkable testimony to the inspiring qualities ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... day complaining to him of certain small land-owners, who having nothing but their gentle birth to boast of, and being as poor as Job, yet set up as great noblemen, and even as princes, boasting of their high birth, of their genealogy, and of the glorious deeds of their ancestors. I quoted the saying of the wise man, that he hated, among other things, with a perfect hatred the poor ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... class, families like mine have no prejudice against Negroes nor they against us. We know them thoroughly and they know us. There is never the slightest trespass on forbidden ground by us or by them. It is a boast of many Negroes that they can tell a 'quality' white person on sight, and practically all Negroes ascribe their troubles to a certain ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... boast of heraldry, the —— of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave. Await alike the inevitable hour; The paths of glory lead ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... please," repeated Mr. Gresham, mildly; "I can make allowance for all this—you were bred a soldier, jealous of honour—but listen to me: there is one thing I must tell you before you see Miss Panton—though I apprehend it may somewhat mortify you, as it will interfere with your boast of disinterestedness and your vow of poverty—Miss Panton I have from her cradle been in the habit of considering partly as my own—my own child—and, as such, I have left her in my will ten thousand ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... we have already seen, had spent a part of his youth with the monks of the desert. It was his proudest boast that he had acted as acolyte to the great St. Antony. He resolved, therefore, to visit the district known as the Thebaid, where St. Pachomius, the father of monasticism in the East, had founded many monasteries and drawn up a rule ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... love-longing my heart is sore set: Might I find a fode[205] that were fair and free, To lie in hell till doomsday for love I would not let. My love for to win All game and glee, All mirth and melody, All revel and riot, And of boast will I never blin. But, sirs, now I am nineteen winter old, I-wis, I wax wonder bold: Now I will go to the world A higher science to assay: For the World will me avance, I will keep his governance, His pleasing will I pray, For he is a king in all substance. All hail! master, full ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... Hand Laundry was a boast. On a line strung from side to side hung snowy, creaseless examples of the ironer's art. Pale blue tissue paper, stuffed into the sleeves and front of lace and embroidery blouses cunningly enhanced their immaculate virginity. White ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... like you touch," she repeated. "I good girl. I mind priest, I read prayers, I mind Wagalexa Conka—" There she faltered, for the last boast was ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... story vile!— Would make his heart her boast: In the growing glamour of her smile He forgot the lovely ghost: Forgot her for bitterness wrapt in wile, For the lady was false as a crocodile, And her heart ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... would," returned Leonard; and he was quite sincere in his boast, as we know from his ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... achievement and pinned an Iron Cross on Him, but they kept mortgaging His resources for the future. Those who had protested that the war had been forced on a peaceful Germany and that her majestic fight was all in self-defense came out now to confess—or rather to boast—that they had planned this triumph all along; for thirty years they had built and drilled and stored up reserves. And now they were about to sweep the world and ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... it is the false name of jealousy that prevents many an early struggle against the real vice of envy. I have heard young women even boast of the jealousy of their disposition, insinuating that it was to be considered as a proof of warm feelings and an affectionate heart. Perhaps genuine jealousy may deserve to be so considered: the anxious watching over even imaginary diminution ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the Cavaliers, in the years when the chances of battle had not gone over wholly to the Puritans. Not that the figure illustrates the contrasting conditions adequately. For, if the South prided itself at all—and the South did pride itself vauntingly, clamorously, and incessantly—it made its chief boast the point that its people were the gentry of the land, and that under the rebel banner the hosts of chivalry had assembled anew to make all manner of fine things the rule of life. Jack, writing and talking of his few months' experience, dwelt with wonder ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... was that he managed to inspire this confidence. Greece owes most of the wheelroads, railways, and mines of which she can now boast to the dozen years of his more or less consecutive administration. But the roads are unfinished, the railway-network incomplete, the mines exploited only to a fraction of their capacity, because the forces against Trikoupis ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... rational atmosphere of Powells, he felt with a shock of perception that in rattling off Love in Babylon he had been guilty of one of those charming weaknesses to which great and serious men are sometimes tempted, but of which great and serious men never boast. And he therefore confined his personal gossip with Sir George to the turkey, the mince-tarts, and the question of contagion. He plunged into his work with a feeling akin to dignified remorse, and Sir George was vehemently and openly delighted by the proofs which ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... when she had put on her hat she and Albert left the Howes cottage and began their walk home. It was one of those nights such as Cape Codders, year-rounders or visitors, experience three or four times during a summer and boast of the remainder of the year. A sky clear, deep, stretched cloudless from horizon to horizon. Every light at sea or on shore, in cottage window or at masthead or in lighthouse or on lightship a twinkling ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... fane to emulate the last, Oh! might we draw our omens from the past, Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. 30 On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art O'erwhelmed the gentlest, stormed the sternest heart. On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew; Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew, Sighed his last thanks, and wept his last adieu: But still ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... no old man worth naming—no old man at all. Yer teeth bain't half gone yet; and what's a old man's standing if so be his teeth bain't gone? Weren't I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? 'Tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there's people far past four-score—a boast ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... Monsieur Keroulan. We have so many Europeans over there now that our standard has fallen off from the days of Emerson and Whitman. And didn't America give Europe Poe?" She knew that this boast had the ring of the amateur, but it pleased her to ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... and female, have been baptized by the name of "Jesus," "Saviour," or "Redeemer." If I were asked the old question, "What's in a name?" I should answer, "Very little," for in South America the most insolent thief will often boast in the appellation of Don Justice, and the lowest girl in the village may be Seorita Celestial. Don Jesus may be found incarcerated for riotous conduct, and I have known Don Saviour throw his unfortunate wife and children down a well; Don Destroyer ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... Vandalism, when a certain emperor visited a certain city) is the proudest feature in the public library at Vienna. The books are in very fine old binding, and, generally of the largest dimensions. And, indeed, old England has not a little to boast of (at least, so bibliomaniacs must always think) that, from the recently published Memoirs of Eugene (1811, 8vo., p. 185), it would appear that the prince "bought his fine editions of books AT LONDON:"—he speaks also of his "excellent French, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... being the rendezvous of drug-fiends. Long wanted and at last cornered, Frazer had fought tigerishly and died in his tracks, preferring death to capture. A sly and secretive creature, he had had a checkered career in the depths. It was his one boast that more than anybody else he had known and been a sort of protege of the once notorious Slippy McGee, that King of Crooks whose body had been found in the East River some years since, and whose daring and mysterious exploits were not yet altogether forgotten ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... emerge, expand, and flutter forth in an ample suit of shiny broadcloth. For Mr. Meech was the pastor of the Hard-Shell Baptist Church in Clayton, and if his domestic economy was a matter of open gossip, there was no question concerning the fact of his learning. It had been the boast of the congregation for years that Judge Hollis was the only man in town who was smart enough to understand his sermons. When Mr. Meech started out in the morning with a book under his arm and one sticking out of each ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... could no longer boast the beauty which was hers when first we met her, but she was still a sweet and graceful woman, her figure remaining almost as slim as it had been in girlhood. The grey eyes also retained their depth and fire, only the face was worn, though more by care ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... time there was a sermon one Sunday morning for the same new church of which Miss Crawford had spoken to her brother. Mrs. Falla was one of the few who were to be found regularly in their places in church; and Mary, who was always with her mother, heard the sermon. We cannot boast of our little heroine that she always listened to the sermon; sometimes she did not understand it, sometimes she did not find it interesting; but this sermon she did find interesting, and liked very much, for it was ...
— Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native • Anonymous
... that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... rambling; with a paved inner court, and countless tall chimneys, like minarets; with a secret chapel and a priests' "hiding-hole," for the Crafords were one of those old Catholic families whose boast it is that they "have never lost the Faith"; with a walled formal garden, and a terrace, and a sun-dial; with close-cropped bordures of box, and yews clipped to fantastic patterns: the house so placed withal, that, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... strength to some more than to others, was it to boast of their ability to abide the stroke, and upbraid those that had not the same gift and support, or ought not they rather to have been humble and thankful if they were rendered more useful ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... that ungallant disorder, and had I a mind to brag, I could boast of a little rheumatism too; but I scorn to set value on such trifles, and since your ladyship does me the honour to bespeak my company, I will come if 'twere in my coffin and pain. May I hope your ladyship will favour us at Maria's nuptials? Sure the Graces were ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... 4th.—Breakfast 10.30. We've got some supplies here. Nothing much to boast of. Fixed up our boat again for the long run for home. We feel pretty safe now. Left Andrew at Old Crow, but saw some people at Rampart who knew about him and other travelers who are back of us on the Porcupine. We hope they will all get out. Winter will come any time now. ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... gave utterance to that boast he did not really mean it, and only had the encouragement of his chum in view. He knew that it was apt to prove a difficult task, landing in that enclosed valley, where the vegetation must ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... think not," exclaimed Diana indignantly. "I wouldn't be likely to boast of it if he did, the horrid creature! I knew you couldn't guess it. Mother had a letter from Aunt Josephine today, and Aunt Josephine wants you and me to go to town next Tuesday and stop with her ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sea to avoid shipwreck, again to return the instant the wind moderated. This sort of work greatly added to the experience my companion and I had gained on the coast of Ireland, so that we could boast of being efficient seamen. ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the Partick, when that club could boast of having as good a team as now, Struthers was associated with the old pioneers in Messrs. Boag, James S. Campbell, Love, Sutar, Bell, and Smith, and joined the Rangers the previous year before the tie. He was a beautiful dribbler, after the style ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... the clanging of the church bell. In a few words he explains the reasons of the occupancy. He orders the hired men to remain in the enclosure under the guard of the sentinels. He dresses skilfully the wound of Maxime. He patches up the face of the wounded scout, whose proudest future boast will be that Joaquin Murieta gave ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... a shame," said he, "that in a great and free country like America a community of people should be so oppressed, and not allowed that liberty of which you boast." ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... as destitute of branches as the early Adam was of small-clothes, his bark sabled by the flames, the few summit leaves—which alone indicated vitality—scarce more in number than the centuries he could boast, and trembling, as it were, at their perilous weight and doubtful tenure, while around him stood stumps more sabled, on whom the flames had done more deadly work, the whole—when the poetry had passed away—reminding one of a black Paterfamilias ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... that there is only one kind! Lately I have recalled two instances in my life that make me believe this. When I was young I was strong and, if I may boast, handsome. Once when I was making a trip on a steamer and sitting with a few friends in the saloon, the young stewardess came and flung herself down by me, burst into tears, and told us that her sweetheart was drowned. ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... wilde World? So fare thee well: Now boast thee Death, in thy possession lyes A Lasse vnparalell'd. Downie Windowes cloze, And golden Phoebus, neuer be beheld Of eyes againe so Royall: your Crownes away, Ile mend it, and then play- Enter the Guard rustling in; ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... country which lies right across the main line of industrial progress. The position is too absolutely artificial. A handful of people by the right of conquest take possession of an enormous country over which they are dotted at such intervals that it is their boast that one farmhouse cannot see the smoke of another, and yet, though their numbers are so disproportionate to the area which they cover, they refuse to admit any other people upon equal terms, but claim to be a privileged class who shall ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at Calthorpe was a matter of no small pride to its citizens. Any western city could possess broad and beautiful avenues. Any city might well boast hotels of six, eight, or even ten floors, and express elevators, and things of that sort. A cathedral was not unknown even, and electric surface cars. But a race-track—a recognized race-track—which was included in the official western circuit of race meetings, ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... The boast of the ancient philosophers was that their doctrine formed the minds of men to a high degree of wisdom and virtue. This was indeed the only practical good which the most celebrated of those teachers even pretended to effect; and undoubtedly, if they had ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... single truth before he died Poor Dick could only boast; "Alas, I die!" he faintly cried, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... it be that would give orders to Constantine Stefanopoulos, and ask where "my people" were? Who else, I also asked myself, save the daughter of the noble house, would boast the air, the hands, the face, that graced our young prisoner? In all certainty ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... listening, as to an oracle, to the opinion of some Oxford horse-dealer, delivered with insolent familiarity—here were the men who drunk out of a fox's head, and recounted imaginary runs with the Heythrop. Happy was he amongst them, and a positive hero for the day, who could boast a speaking acquaintance with any of those anomalous individuals, at present enshrouded in great-coats, but soon to appear in all the varieties of jockey costume, known by the style and title of "gentlemen riders;" who could point out, confidentially, to his admiring companions, "Jack B——," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... folks will get to tellin' things, and finally tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em themselves—boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the truth, though they ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... them on the weaker tribes in the country; and when a kraal was captured all the male defenders-were instantly killed with the spear, while the women were put to death during the night with clubs. The Masai, indeed, never made slaves or took prisoners, and it was their proud boast that where a party of elmorani had passed, nothing of any kind was left alive. The object of these raids was, of course, to capture live stock, for the Masai are not an agricultural people and their wealth consists entirely ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... from the cart, and trudged off victorious. He had always been a whig; and after this adventure, he became more decided than ever in his politics. He often used to boast that he would rather have a paper continental dollar, than a golden English guinea. The family amused themselves by exciting his zeal, and Polly made him believe he was such a famous whig, that the ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Victors shouldn't boast—and I was a victor, of course, about the school. But when I thought of what Father had said about my reciting my lessons to him every day in the library—I wasn't so sure whether I'd won out or not. Recite lessons to my father? Why, I couldn't even imagine ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... short of it is that I have come to the end of my tether. I have tried, as truly as I believe any woman ever did, to do my share, with money and with work, to help make life better for those whose life is bad; and though one mustn't boast of good works, I may say that I have been pretty thorough, and, if I've given up, it's because I see, in our state of things, no hope of curing the evil. It's like trying to soak up the drops ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... Indeed, there was no mistaking his ancestors, in whose language he spoke whenever the Dominie paid him a visit, which he did quite often, for Hanz had always good cheer in the house; and a bed for a stranger. In short, it was a boast of Hanz that no traveller ever passed his house hungry, if he knew it. And it increased his importance with his neighbors that he raised more bushels to the acre than any of them, and sent better vegetables to ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... none; for Brazil does not boast of many such conveniences, except in the chief towns; so they were obliged, in travelling, to make use of an empty hut or shed, when they chanced to stop at a village, and to cook their own victuals. More frequently, however, ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... and embroideries, and a sword with a hilt of silver, and she vowed that she would slay Achilles. But when Andromache, the wife of Hector, heard her she said within herself, "Ah, unhappy girl, what is this boast of thine! Thou hast not the strength to fight the unconquerable son of Peleus, for if Hector could not slay him, what chance hast thou? But the piled-up earth ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... the delight of seeing the noble shire-hall—the boast of the county—and of catching glimpses of the dancers, and hearing the band; much as she longed for some variety to the dull, monotonous life she was leading, she could not feel happy to accept a privilege, granted, as she believed, in ignorance of ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... can as yet boast of having accomplished but very little by them, Ledru," added Flocon, with a meaning smile. "The masses are easily roused, but they don't stay roused, and then they often get unmanageable, even by those by whose summons they were stirred up. They fight well, but, somehow or other, ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... he does not speak of himself as the disciple who loved Jesus,—this would have been to boast of himself as loving the Master more than the other disciples did,—but as the disciple whom Jesus loved. In this distinction lies one of the subtlest secrets of Christian peace. Our hope does not rest in our love for Jesus, but ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... faith? did I appeare a guest So infinitly worthles that you thought The fragments of thy honour good enough To sate my appetite, what other men Had with unhallowd hands prophaind? O woman, Once I had lockd in thy deceiving brest A treasure wealthier then the Indies both Can in their glory boast, my faithfull heart, Which I do justly ravish back from it Since thou art ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... artistic pups, sponsors for "The girl coming down-stairs," or "The stairs coming down the girl," or "The coming girl and the down-stairs," it makes no difference which, all are equally incoherent and unintelligible; but it will be something which, at least, will boast the element of beauty which is the one and only excuse for art's existence. I may not live to see Meissonier's second dawn and I never want to see Sorolla's eclipse, but you may. You have only to remember Turner's second high noon to be ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... 'ware the Man-cub's breed! Scenting-dew or starlight pale, Choose no tangled tree-cat trail. Pack or council, hunt or den, Cry no truce with Jackal-Men. Feed them silence when they say: 'Come with us an easy way.' Feed them silence when they seek Help of thine to hurt the weak. Make no bandar's boast of skill; Hold thy peace above the kill. Let nor call nor song nor sign Turn thee from thy hunting-line. (Morning mist or twilight clear, Serve him, Wardens of the Deer!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... Musas'; 'for I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country.' Cleric had explained to us that 'patria' here meant, not a nation or even a province, but the little rural neighbourhood on the Mincio where the poet was born. This was not a boast, but a hope, at once bold and devoutly humble, that he might bring the Muse (but lately come to Italy from her cloudy Grecian mountains), not to the capital, the palatia Romana, but to his own little I country'; to his father's fields, 'sloping down to the river and to the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... eyes and doubtfully relinquished the tiller to me. Isn't it queer how people of our sort are always deemed to be quite helpless with their hands? I may boast of the fact that the ancient mariner was soon satisfied that his craft was in fairly competent ones. I had to use just a little more strength than I had expected to, and to stand and brace myself against the pull. But it was glorious and made me feel to its full extent the delight of the sea. In ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... scheme—was very important, and it was understood to be mainly the work of Mr. Gladstone. Out of nearly 1200 duty-paying articles, a total abolition, or a considerable reduction, was made in no fewer than 750. This was certainly a great step towards the freedom of manufacturers, Sir Robert Peel's boast that he had endeavored to relieve manufacturing industries was more than justified by this great and comprehensive measure. The very best means for relieving the ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... Mrs. Shelley with conscientious enthusiasm. It was her favourite boast that she sincerely tried to make allowances for all and permitted ill-speaking of none. In the years before the war, when Lady Barbara's friends were wondering whether they really could continue to know her, Mrs. Shelley remained ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... me his name. Will he come to me? children generally do," said she in a shy sort of way, but still holding out her arms. In her face and manner was that inexplicable motherliness which some girls have even while nursing their dolls —some never; ay, though they may boast of a ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... heedless what he said or what he did. He had long had a criminal intercourse with Fulvia, a woman of high birth; but growing less acceptable to her, because, in his reduced circumstances, he had less means of being liberal, he began, on a sudden, to boast, and to promise her seas and mountains;[132] threatening her, at times, with the sword, if she were not submissive to his will; and acting, in his general conduct, with greater arrogance than ever.[133] ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... I think I have heard you boast of the cook of your club.' And then again there was silence for ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... suitors, among them the base Florez, whom her father promptly forbids the house. Idalia's vanity is piqued at the loss of a single adorer, and more from perverseness than from love she continues to correspond with him. He makes no further use of her condescension than to boast of her favors, until at the command of his patron, Don Ferdinand, he induces Idalia to make an assignation with him. Ferdinand meets her and not without difficulty at length effects her ruin. Her lover's friend, Henriquez, in conducting ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... and met Knight's eyes with an answering laugh in her own. Inside the box was a shimmering red silk sash. Knight had kept his promise to himself to buy Blue Bonnet the "fanciest thing in the sash line that Chicago could boast"—even though it had taken the last penny of ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... inquiries with a natural courtesy, which at least some of us felt to be a condescension. 'Gentlemen,' she said, 'it is true, as your attendant states, that I am a lady. In my youth, I married a titled man. I make no boast of that—it was, indeed, my misfortune. I was brought up and educated to occupy a station inferior to few: I filled that station for many years; it is not for me to say how appropriately; and though ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... as the human face. My book-shelves were made by a blind man who could identify by their steps nearly all who passed his window. Yet he has admitted to me that he could not tell wherein my steps differed from others; and this I believe, though rejecting his boast that he could distinguish a minister's step from a doctor's, and even tell to which denomination ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Scarborough. He rose to his feet, and the very fact of his doing so quieted for a time the exuberant mirth of the party. "Gentlemen, Mr. Hart speaks to you of honesty. I am not going to boast of my own. I am here to consent to the expenditure of a very large sum of money, for which I am to get nothing, and which, if not paid to you, will all go into my own pocket;—unless you believed that you wouldn't ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... Bacchus may boast of his care-killing bowl, And Folly in thought drowning revels delight, Such worship soon loses its charms for the soul, When ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... ornaments; and we intended to point out some of the splendid passages in which he has used them. But we have room now for only one of those priceless sentences in which he has set the diamond and the pearl as they were never set before. No kingly diadem can boast such jewels as glow along these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... endeavour to acquire or preserve the reputation of abilities or ingenuity, while they abound in the words of others, have little cause to boast of their own inventions. For the composers of that polished language, in which such various cases as occur in the great body of law are treated with such an appropriate elegance of style, must ever stand forward in the first ranks of praise. I should indeed have ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... may boast men's deeds of glory, you may tell their courage great, But to die is easier service than alone to sit and wait, And I hail the little mother, with the tear-stained face and grave, Who has given the flag a soldier—she's the bravest of the brave. And that banner we ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... brother, that your entry into the Five Hundred had no warmer opponent than I. No! I was not your accomplice, but the repairer of the evil which you had done to yourself!—and that at my own peril, and with some generosity on my part, because we did not then agree. Not to boast, I may add that no one in Europe, more than I, has disapproved the sacrilege ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the statue that enchants the world, So bending tries to veil the matchless boast, The mingled beauties of exulting Greece. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... the heavy pressure of toilful industry! O Creator! all that I see are the effects of thy power! thou art the soul of nature and doth actuate every part! the stated periods and glittering appearance of yon orbs, and the unquenched fires of the revolving sun, proceed from thy hands, and boast thy impression! ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... he threaten? Hark ye, I owe him nought. Let justice be done. The fortune was mine by birth. Our father acted basely. My brother did very properly restore it. Shall he boast of a bare act of justice? He hath no claim on me. Shall I furnish his profligacies, his expenses, his foreign debaucheries, because I ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... down sinners. Its supreme manifestation is the vice crusade, an armed pursuit of helpless outcasts by the whole military and naval forces of the Republic. Its supreme hero is Comstock Himself, with his pious boast that the sinners he jailed during his astounding career, if gathered into one penitential party, would have filled a train of sixty-one coaches, allowing sixty to ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... in the world to boast of a kindness," continued Smith, in his faintly mocking manner, "but I gave you fair warning ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... wondered at, that on this fertile Amsterdam soil intellect and art blossomed splendidly in other ways also. Music was in great favour and could boast a celebrity: Sweelinck, the organist and composer. Besides this there was a great literary movement; to emphasize its importance it suffices to say that half of the literary productions of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt
... proud of Stockholm, and justly so. No European capital, except Constantinople, can boast such picturesque beauty of position, and none whatever affords so great a range of shifting yet ever lovely aspects. Travellers are fond of calling it, in the imitative nomenclature of commonplace, the "Venice of the North"—but it is no Venice. It is not that swan of the Adriatic, singing ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... owners with legal claims had been paid condemnation damages. Long ago the natives had been warned to move, and the banks of the lake-to-be specified. But many of these skeptical children of nature had taken this as a vain "yanqui" boast and either refused to move until burned out or had rebuilt their hovels on land that in a few months more would also ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... too, is Rheinstein, on the very bank of the river. Its early owner was hanged by the Emperor Rudolph. One of the Prussian princes has fitted up the fortress in magnificent style; and I learn that there is no palace in Europe that can boast of such mediaeval splendor. Every thing that can serve to illustrate the dark ages is carefully collected for this charming spot, which seems a ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... prevent her farther flight. She has already confessed that she is a fugitive, and in search of a place of concealment, until she should be able to escape into foreign parts.—Charlotte, Countess of Derby, I attach thee of the crime of which thou hast but now made thy boast." ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... able to copy in his scrawl the fine Roman hand of the concealed poet. I am surprised that the Baconians have never made that point. Will's "copy" was almost without blot or erasion, the other actors were wont to boast. Really the absence of erasions and corrections is too easily explained on the theory that Will was NOT the author. Will merely copied the fair copies handed to him by the concealed poet. The farce was played for some twenty years, and was either undetected or all ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... by the triumphanters; but truth to tell, they were miserably feeble and faint, compared to what they had been in the beginning of the amusement; sufficiently evincing that, although they might boast of the name of victory, they had got a bellyful of beating; still there ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... delegates from Massachusetts and South Carolina, for spectacular effect, entered the great wigwam arm in arm. This picture of apparent reconciliation evoked the most enthusiastic cheers, and became the boast of the Johnsonians until the wits likened the wigwam to Noah's Ark, into which there went, "two and two, of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Conference; from Congressmen, vice crusaders, and the heresies of Henry Van Dyke; from jokes in the Ladies' Home Journal, and from the Revised Statutes of the United States; from Colonial Dames, and from men who boast that they take cold shower-baths every morning; from the Drama League, and from malicious animal magnetism; from ham and eggs, and from the Weltanschauung of Kansas; from the theory that a dark ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... bar, belongs to that class. He enjoys and has enjoyed a reputation as a 'bad man,' a desperate and brutal ruffian. Free him to-day, and you set a premium on such reputations; acquit him of this crime, and you encourage others to like evil. Let him go, and he will walk the streets with a swagger, and boast that you were afraid to touch him—afraid, gentlemen—and children and women will point after him as the man who has sent nine others into eternity, and who yet walks the streets a free man. And he will become, in the eyes of the young and the weak, a hero and ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Nanty, 'I would give a thousand guineas, if I had them, to have you worth my beating! Had you said you repented, it had been between God and your conscience; but to hear you boast of your villany—Do you think it little to have reduced the aged to famine, and the young to infamy—to have caused the death of one woman, the ruin of another, and to have driven a man to exile and despair? By Him that made me, I can scarce ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... swilling, and the rank habits and braggadocio manners which it engendered, came to a climax in George IV's reign. Since then, excessive drinking has gone out of fashion, but an elaborate style of gastronomy has come in to fill the void; so there is not much gained. Byron used to boast of the quantity of wine he had drunk. He said, "We young Whigs imbibed claret, and so saved our constitutions: the Tories stuck to port, and destroyed theirs ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... concealed, with the plague, in his cellars, 765 Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red man! But when Standish refused, and said he would give them the Bible, Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and to bluster. Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of the other, And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to the Captain: 770 "Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... differently, for the Prince could scarce make a prisoner of a single piece save of one temple and two bowmen only, and presently it was the turn of Meriamun to cry 'Pharaoh is dead,' and to sweep the pieces from the board. This time Meneptah did not boast but scowled, while I set the board and the scribe wrote down the game upon his tablets. Now it was the Prince's turn to ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang |
