"Disdainful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... distance, wave a hand at her. One young gentleman, leaning from the upper window of the chemical laboratory, calls, "Hello, Sylvia," and jerks his head out of sight. Sylvia's chin lifts a trifle, disdainful of the impudence of sophomores. She has recognized the culprit's voice, and will deal with him ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... look half friendly, half disdainful. "I like living," she said. "In the country in what you call the quiet, it is only to be half alive: we are always living here. But you never come to see us ride, to be among the crowd. You are never at the opera. You don't ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... idea of him than the writer of The Angel in the House. Certainly an autocrat in the home, impatient, intolerant, full of bracing intellectual scorn, not always just, but always just in intention, a disdainful recluse, judging all human and divine affairs from a standpoint of imperturbable omniscience, Coventry Patmore charmed one by his whimsical energy, his intense sincerity, and, indeed, by the childlike egoism of an absolutely self-centred intelligence. Speaking ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... starshine. Roderick and Florence were coming in through the wide patio door; Norton was just saying that Florrie had promised to play something for him when the front door knocker announced another visitor. Florence made a little disdainful face as though she guessed who it was; Engle went ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... her in her hiding-place. Isobel did not know about the pumps—she thought Jerry had retreated there from shyness. A disdainful smile curled her pretty lips. She had had moments, since the debate, when her conscience had bothered her, the more so because Jerry had not told what had happened; but, as is sometimes the way, after such moments, she had hardened her heart all the more ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... affections, wounded in her dignity as a sovereign, and resenting at fifteen years of age that twofold outrage in as lively a degree as in the maturity of life, Marie-Louise restricted herself at first to a disdainful silence which, nevertheless, revealed the hope either of a terrible vengeance or a speedy retaliation. Madame des Ursins submitted to the commands of her sovereign with the stately haughtiness, the expression of which is conveyed in one of her very best letters to Madame de Noailles. The consciousness ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Panshin interrupted him, with a caressing but almost disdainful carelessness, and without paying any further attention to him, he stepped up ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion For the fair, disdainful dame. ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... is made more plain in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Here we have perfectly described the experience of the repentant sinner and also the unsympathetic attitude of the disdainful Pharisee. The first is represented in the story by the prodigal and the second by the conduct of his ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... sunk through great bars of flame. All round him was a vast, solitary land, but nearer the estancia were pleasant homely sights and sounds. A cart yoked with five horses abreast stood by the galpon; a flock of geese walked with disdainful, important gait across the potrero; and the viscashos popped in and out of their holes with busy importance, like children keeping house. The farm horses, turned out for the night, cropped the short grass ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... hand!" echoed the lover, in disdainful tones, "She has the hand of a queen! The Empress of Roosia ain't got a whiter nor a finer hand! Miss Birdie ain't done no harder work than smackin' a kid that ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... court of amorous thoughts; the emotional and playful courtesy of the young newly married leaning upon the offered arm; eyes without fever, desire without appetite, voluptuousness without desire, audacious gestures regulated like the ballet for a spectacle, and tranquil defences disdainful of haste through their security; the romance of the body and the mind, soothed, pacified, resuscitated, happy; an idleness of passion at which the stone satyrs lurking in the green coulisses laugh with their goat-laughter. Adieu to the ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... golden eyes noted the pretty courtship, and her side glance rested on the little bride to be with an odd, indefinite curiosity, partly interrogative, partly disdainful. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... him from intruding upon me when I was occupied. He was as quick as any cultured civilised cosmopolitan to see if he was not wanted. He developed a certain cleanliness; he told me, with an air of disdainful superiority, that he had been to the public baths. I gave him an old suit of mine and a pair of boots. He very seldom asked for anything; once and again he would point to something and say that he would like to have it; if I said that he could not he expressed no disappointment; ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... four men, in unfamiliar Eastern garments; two other servitors, more bravely dressed, with yataghans and silver-hilted pistols in their belts, preceded this sombre equipage. Perhaps Margrave divined the disdainful thought that passed through my mind, vaguely and half-unconsciously; for he said, with a hollow, bitter laugh that had replaced the lively peal of his once ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... himself among comrades worthy of his steel, and secretly pricked by the presence of an English cabinet minister, relinquished the half-disdainful reserve with which he had entered, and took pains. He drew the man in question, en silhouette, with a hostile touch so sure, an irony so light, that his success was ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from seeking any such sign in the short intervals when he could have tried to go beneath the surface. On the other hand, this apparent indifference piqued her pride, and made her stiff, cold, and almost disdainful whenever there was any approach between them. Her vanity might be flattered by the knowledge that she was beyond his reach; but it would have been still more gratified could she have discovered any symptoms of pining and languishing after her. ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to let any cause remove her from Northwold, until after an event which it was hoped would render James less disdainful of his inheritance. But—'Was there ever anything more contrary?' exclaimed Jane, as she prepared to set out the table for a grand tea. 'There's Master James as pleased and proud of that there little brown girl, as if she was as fine a boy as Master Henry himself. I do believe, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they led the way through the long hall to the drawing-room. James followed, and en route he observed at the extremity of a side-hall two young people sitting with their hands together in a dusky corner. "Male and female created He them!" reflected James, with all the tolerant, disdainful wisdom of his years ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... others because their conversation is not altogether to your taste. Love them, and they will love you, and then they will converse with you, and will become like you, and better than you. Let not your soul coop itself up in a corner. For, instead of attaining to greater sanctity in a proud, and disdainful, and impatient seclusion, the devil will keep you company there, and will do your sequestered soul much mischief. Bury evil affections in good works. Wherefore be accessible and affable to all, and all in love. Love is an endless ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... about him, like a rock against which the foam beats. Made up as a kind of Roman Moltke, the lean, thoughtful soldier, he spoke throughout with a slow, contemptuous enunciation, as of one only just not too lofty to sneer. Restrained in scorn, he kept throughout an attitude of disdainful pride, the face, the eyes, set, while only his mouth twitched, seeming to chew his words, with the disgust of one swallowing a painful morsel. Where other actors would have raved, he spoke with bitter humour, a humour ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... to this disdainful speech. His own weakness of character placed him entirely in the power of his friend. The two men walked ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... go with a last disdainful tweak, gracefully escaping his charge and taking refuge behind Neville who was ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... note directed to me; wait till I see who it is from," and Dexie picked a tiny roll of paper from among the blossoms. One hasty glance over the written lines, and Dexie curled her lip in a disdainful smile. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... isn't of much consequence, is it? I shall hit upon it soon, I dare say. They say she's deucedly fond of him, though. Can't fancy disdainful Miss Mabel condescending to be deucedly fond of any one—but so they tell me. And I say, Holroyd, to come back to the point, is there any reason why you should stay ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... something; perhaps the Sacred Emperor's birthday, or rather birthnight. It would gradually dawn on the Chinese philosopher that the Emperor could hardly be born every night. And when he learnt the truth the philosopher, if he was a philosopher, would be a little disappointed ... possibly a little disdainful. ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... noble scorn I heard recounted the history of our Proteuses of politics! With what disdainful glances I regarded the Turcarets of finance, lolling on the cushions of some magnificent carriage, and conducted by a laced automaton to the boudoir of some Aspasia. But if I heard told the mighty ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... palest green. He looked, sideways, at Fleur's face. Rather colourless-no light, no eagerness! That love affair was preying on her—a bad business! He looked beyond, at his wife's face, rather more touched up than usual, a little disdainful—not that she had any business to disdain, so far as he could see. She was taking Profond's defection with curious quietude; or was his "small" voyage just a blind? If so, he should refuse to see it! Having promenaded round the pitch and in front of the pavilion, they sought ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... her punctiliously. Letty gathered her wraps upon her arm in a disdainful silence, warding him off with a gesture. As he opened the door for her she ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... about his neck the gold chain which she held for the prize; but I think they exchanged no looks. Only one other rider brought two rings, and this was a son of Lars Trolle, Olaf by name, a tall young knight, and well-favoured, but disdainful; whom I knew Sir Borre ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... niece, my dear Madame Campan, I send you both thanks and reproof:—thanks for the brilliant education you have given her, and reproof for the faults which your acuteness must have noticed, but which your indulgence has passed over. She is good-tempered, but cold; well-informed, but disdainful; lively, but deficient in judgment. She pleases no one, and it gives her no pain. She fancies the renown of her uncle and the gallantry of her father are every thing. Teach her, but teach her plainly, without mincing, that in reality they ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in a disdainful silence, turning her strange eyes—the eyes of a fanatic, in a singularly shrewd and capable face—now on Laura, now on her children. Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then an impulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ways of taking their pleasure, and the youth of King Charles's day were alternately bullies on the street and dandies at the feet of my lady disdainful. At the approach of the shouting, night-watchmen threw down their lanterns and took to their heels. Street-sweeps tossed their brooms in mid-road with cries of "The Scowerers! The Scowerers!" Hucksters fled ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Mrs. Bixby seemed rather disdainful of what Jessie had to offer her in the way of shawls. She continued to toss them to right and left, scattering them so carelessly about that one or two fell to the floor of the aisle and were retrieved by a near-by floor-walker, who glanced at poor Jessie, as much ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... of subjects; and the Greek sculptor as a workman almost exclusively intellectual, having only a sort of accidental connexion with the material in which his thought was expressed. He is fancied to have been disdainful of such matters as the mere tone, the fibre or texture, of his marble or cedar-wood, of that just perceptible yellowness, for instance, in the ivory-like surface of the Venus of Melos; as being occupied only ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... with a disdainful smile. "I am sure Marian will be accommodating enough to go with Alice, although you have walked no further than they did. You will go, ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... whoever she was, maintained an air of reserve which raised a barrier beyond which none of the curious might penetrate; and as if insolently disdainful of the attention she attracted, her face remained veiled; not too thickly, but effectively enough to set at naught these efforts ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... disdainful pity for me gathered in her dim smile; then she spoke in a voice that I hear at this hour: "It's my LIFE!" As I stood at the door she added: ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... resources of mortified and disappointed men were not for Ernest Maltravers. Rigidly secluded in his country retirement, he consumed the days in moody wanderings; and in the evenings he turned to books with a spirit disdainful and fatigued. So much had he already learned, that books taught him little that he did not already know. And the biographies of authors, those ghost-like beings who seem to have had no life but in the shadow ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is the central mountain mass of Kauai, about 6,000 feet high. Its summit, a cold, fog-swept wilderness of swamp and lake beset with dwarfish growths of lehua, is used as the symbol of a woman, impulsively kind, yet in turn passionate and disdainful. The physical attributes of the mountain are ascribed to her, its spells of frosty coldness, its gloom and distance, its fickleness of weather, the repellant hirsuteness of the stunted vegetation that fringes ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... the Baron's eyes were but three feet above the floor. His gaze, wandering idly, as that of a man who is just awake and collecting his ideas, fell on a door painted with flowers by Jan, an artist disdainful of fame. The Baron did not indeed see twenty thousand flaming eyes, like the man condemned to death; he saw but one, of which the shaft was really more piercing than the thousands on the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... worthy woman had insisted on giving it up to Mademoiselle Charlotte, for whom she manifested, since she had become the betrothed of the seven hundred thousand francs' income of the General, the most humble deference. Mademoiselle d'Estrelles had accepted this change with a disdainful indifference. Camors, who was ignorant of this change, knocked therefore most innocently at the door. Obtaining no answer, he entered without hesitation, lifted the curtain which hung in the doorway, and ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... the shore come the scents of a garden, And between a gap in the trees A proud white statue glimmers In cold, disdainful ease. ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... Her disdainful eyes wandered to the farther end of the portico, where Alfred Branch, in his natty suit of white grasscloth, plucked at his ebon whiskers with untanned fingers, and talked society nothings with ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... ever saw was the Priestess Lhyreesa as she stepped out of the empty hulk, kicking it away with a disdainful toe. Breathless from her ordeal, she sank to the grass, ...
— Grove of the Unborn • Lyn Venable
... his quarrels with the royal household, his transports of passion at the very Council-table, to ruin him in his master's favour. The king himself, while steadily supporting him against his rivals, was utterly unable to understand his drift. Charles valued him as an administrator, disdainful of private ends, crushing great and small with the same haughty indifference to men's love or hate, and devoted to the one aim of building up the power of the Crown. But in his purpose of preparing for the great struggle with freedom which he saw before him, of building ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... wholly satisfying the eye. With the dark bank it vanished towards the great city, now marked in the upper sky by a hovering brightness of light escaped beyond the smoky rampart to tell the effort of innumerable lamps beneath, all pouring their blurred and vain effulgence to the disdainful stars. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... themselves before. And let me make some use hereof, fair ladies, to you not to stand over-nicely conceited of your beauty and good parts when men solicit you with their best services. Remember then this disdainful gentlewoman, but more especially her, who being the death of so kind a lover was therefore condemned to perpetual punishment, and he made the minister thereof whom she had cast off with coy disdain, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... so many times I had wondered, at the somersaults of feeling she was capable of. Where was now the Margaret of the short, disdainful laugh? Not here, in the twilight between the bright room and the black yard. Here was a subtle, mysterious Margaret, half regret and half caprice, with one thought in her eyes and another ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... done with it?" said the virago, with a disdainful toss of her head—"what but fling it back in the face of the messenger— the worthless thing. No doubt it is a love-token sent to this ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... sometimes take place between the self-willed artist and his rebellious art. Nothing is more moving than these fits of rage alternating with invocation, in turn supplicating or imperative, addressed to a disdainful or fugitive muse. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... had once pledged himself to his subscribers for the fulfilment of his task, arose from, and could have arisen from nothing else than, his conscious ignorance of Greek in connection with the solemn responsibilities he had assumed in the face of a great nation. Nay, even countries as presumptuously disdainful of tramontane literature as Italy took an interest in this memorable undertaking. Bishop Berkeley found Salvini reading it at Florence; and Madame Dacier even, who read little but Greek, and certainly no English until then, condescended to study it. Pope's dejection, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... absurd," said Rosalind Merton, sidling up to Maggie and casting some disdainful glances at poor Priscilla, "the conceit of some people! Of all forms of conceit, preserve ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... to read. I was very glad, at any hazard, to prove to him that she could write four pages without asking about him. He read it with extreme attention: but when he came to the famous passage—'If I were a man, I would go and fight for them!'—he smiled, and returned me the letter, saying, in a disdainful and rather ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... inscrutably after one comprehensive, disdainful look at Mary Gowd's suit, hat, gloves and shoes. Now she sat up, her bewitching face ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... turned, and stared at Garnache with a look of wonder that artfully changed to one of disdainful recognition. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... remarkable about her. Stalwart and resolute and self-possessed she looked; sometimes she was beautiful, but not now. She was a woman at whom most men would havel ooked twice. Her expression was not sullen nor disdainful; in that, perhaps, there was something fine, because there was life, of its own kind, in her eyes, and independence in the carriage ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... hand in his, and said, "Tell me no more of them, Lilias, I cannot bear it;" he was thinking how the proud feet of his disdainful wife would spurn the turf from ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... unavoidable dissipation of military life, the vices of the camp, the brutality and want of moral sensibility engendered by the necessity of slaughter and the horrible ravages of war, will tend largely to counteract the good results already noted. Those who may be nobly disdainful of their own sufferings, will sometimes be even more regardless of the sufferings of others; and perhaps sometimes, with the natural perversion of human passion effected by civil war, will seek ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... when they do, as it were, draw their eyes inwardly and accurately fasten them upon some object, such are by their inclinations very malicious, vain-glorious, slothful, unfaithful, envious, false and contentious. They whose eyes are addicted to blood-shot, are naturally proud, disdainful, cruel, without shame, perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he whose eyes are neither too little nor too big, and inclined to black, do signify a man mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a good understanding; and one that, when need requires, will be serviceable ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... so close that he forced her back a step on the marsh path. Her disdainful eyes had drawn him to her, for, like all men, he could be drawn by the woman who scorned him, and mesmerized by the sheer repulse. By great effort, Jinnie had escaped from Maudlin's insults for many months, but ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... coffee," replied the thief. Victurnien sank into a bewildered stupor, darkness settled down over his brain. Visions of past rapture flitted across the misty gloom like the figures that Raphael painted against a black background; to these he must bid farewell. Inexorable and disdainful, the Duchess played with the tip of her scarf. She looked in irritation at Victurnien from time to time; she coquetted with memories, she spoke to her lover of his rivals as if anger had finally decided her to ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... to go and drink after her. It was not only that there was something akin to association and intimacy in drinking next, but there was the fearful joy of meeting her in transit and receiving a cold and disdainful look ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... disagreeable object to me in modern literature is the man the women novelists have introduced as the leading character; the women who come in contact with him seem to be fascinated by his disdainful mien, his giant strength, and his brutal manner. He is broad across the shoulders, heavily moulded, yet as lithe as a cat; has an ugly scar across his right cheek; has been in the four quarters of the globe; knows seventeen languages; had a harem ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... explanations of this fall of Rachel, without resorting to the theory of superior genius in Ristori. Undoubtedly Paris loves novelty, and has been impatient of the disdainful sway of Rachel. Her reputed avarice and want of courtesy and generosity, her total failure to charm as a woman while she fascinated as an artist, have, naturally enough, after many years, fatigued the patience and disappointed the humane ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... alors, Quakere? Quel drole de mot! Je ne suis pas Quakere, moi!' he might have answered, with a disdainful shrug of his high, narrow, aristocratic French shoulders. Yet here he ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... then, and with the pride and majesty habitual to her, entered the adjoining room, and, having taken three steps, stopped with a disdainful air, waiting for George to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of cheapness, in having dressed herself in her best and spent a whole evening at such unworthy business. "Whatever I am or am not fit for," said she to herself, "I'm not for society—any kind of society. At least I'm too much grown-up mentally for that." Her disdainful thoughts about others were, on this occasion as almost always, merely a ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... a singularly delightful human being awaiting him on the bank. She stood with her legs very wide apart, her hands behind her back, and her head a little on one side, watching his gestures with an expression of disdainful interest. She had black hair and brown legs and a buff short frock and very intelligent eyes. And when he had reached a ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... "Do not be so disdainful; woman understands all things through love; what she does not understand she feels; what she does not feel she sees; when she neither sees, nor feels, nor understands, this angel of earth divines to protect you, and hides her protection beneath the ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... too firmly enshrined in the loyalty of the district to be overcome by the parvenu's manoeuvres or his money. His ambition in time turned to rancor as he marked the patrician's disdainful disregard of his (Boone's) efforts to supplant him. Hatred of the Spragues became something like a passion in Boone. Sarcasms and disparagement leveled at his social and political pretensions he attributed ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... have reason to think so. I believe him to be a noble-hearted and honourable man; a little neglectful or disdainful of conventionalities, wearing his faith in God and his more sacred feelings anywhere than upon his sleeve; but a man who cannot fail to come ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... good-night, and leaves them to their fragrant meal. And this kindly action on his part suggests one of the best passages of the poem. Even old well-fed Dobbin occasionally rebels against his slavery, and released from his chains will lift his clumsy hoofs and kick, "disdainful of ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... as I came up the ladder, and could see directly you were mustering the crew. Naturally I called out my name. I thought you had it on your list, and would understand. You misapprehended." He stopped short. The folly around him was confounded. He was right as ever, and as ever ready to forgive. The disdainful tones had ceased, and, breathing heavily, he stood still, surrounded by all these white men. He held his head up in the glare of the lamp—a head vigorously modelled into deep shadows and shining ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... disdainful rejection of an unworthy proposal; spoken by bold maids to the vile offers ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... mind of almost any lover would be stirred up if he came fresh from an interview, in which his lady had pinned him, to use a cruel figure, in various places on the wall to see how he would spin and buzz in different lights. But the disdainful pin had not yet gone through a vital part of Lawrence's hopes, and they had strength to spin and buzz a good deal yet. As soon as he should have an opportunity he would rack his brains to find out what it was that had put Roberta ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... herself up to the dance. The young mountaineer was no mean partner. Forward and back they glided, their swift feet beating every note of the music; Faster receding before her partner, and now advancing toward him, now whirling away with a disdainful toss of her head and arms, and now giving him her hand and whirling till her white skirts floated from the floor. At last, with head bent coquettishly toward her partner, she danced around him, and when it seemed ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... of them in their families heard talk of La Blanchotte; and, although in public she was welcome enough, the mothers among themselves treated her with a somewhat disdainful compassion, which the children had imitated without in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... men may show, From none disdainful turn; For every one doth something know Which ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... at the sight of that white head of his and beyond it the black water in the trenches of the Bastille lying still as a canal in Venice, I had no words to answer him. Facino Cane thought, no doubt, that I judged him, as the rest had done, with a disdainful pity; his gesture expressed the whole ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... we read in the Diary of Fanny Burney. We can conceive Lord Cromer leaning against the Committee Box in earnest conversation with Mr. Windham and Mr. Burke at Warren Hastings' trial. We can restore the half-disdainful gesture with which he would drop an epigram ("from the Greek") into the Bath Easton Vase. His politeness and precision, his classical quotations, his humour, his predilections in literature and art, were those ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... Curs'd spirit! tarry thou. I know thee well, E'en thus in filth disguis'd." Then stretch'd he forth Hands to the bark; whereof my teacher sage Aware, thrusting him back: "Away! down there To the' other dogs!" then, with his arms my neck Encircling, kiss'd my cheek, and spake: "O soul Justly disdainful! blest was she in whom Thou was conceiv'd! He in the world was one For arrogance noted; to his memory No virtue lends its lustre; even so Here is his shadow furious. There above How many now hold themselves mighty kings Who ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... a curious person that Mohun sent me," he said; "at first she was disdainful enough; but I paid her a few compliments, and now she is in an excellent ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... disdainful little sniff. "You'd better get Daddy to steer your boat. He doesn't mind fog. Are there many people on board?" she added, with an air ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... brief space with her hands clenched on the rail that guarded the edge of the float. She was almost hypnotically conscious of his eyes burning with a sort of wildness into her own, but when she spoke it was in a manner regally unafraid—even disdainful. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... of my gratitude for M. Rudolph has wounded this young lady, so handsome, and of a rank so elevated," thought Fleur-de-Marie. "Now I comprehend the bitterness of her words! she expressed disdainful jealousy! She, jealous of me! then she loves him, and I love him, also! My love must have betrayed itself in spite of me! To love him—I—a creature forever ruined! ungrateful, and wretch that I am! Oh! if that were so, rather ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... romance—subjects exactly suited to the worthy Pedro's tastes. They were strangely battered, and stained as with salt water. How he had obtained them Lawrence would not say. The priest saw the books, but turned away from them with a disdainful glance, as if he could take no interest in subjects of a character so trivial. The contrast between the two strangers was very great. Pedro Alvarez was in figure more like an English sailor than a Spaniard. He was somewhat short, and broad-shouldered, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... put our finicking civilisation under his feet. Her god was a compound of the blood-reeking conqueror and the diplomatist supreme in guile. For such a man she would have poured out her safe-invested treasure, enough rewarded with a nod of half-disdainful recognition. It vexed her to think that she might pass away before the appearance of that new actor on the human stage; his entrance was all but due, she felt assured. Ah! the world would be much more amusing presently, and she meanwhile ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... eternity. Her arms were folded on the table, and her head was lying on her arms. Mr Verloc contemplated her back and the arrangement of her hair for a time, then walked away from the kitchen door. Mrs Verloc's philosophical, almost disdainful incuriosity, the foundation of their accord in domestic life made it extremely difficult to get into contact with her, now this tragic necessity had arisen. Mr Verloc felt this difficulty acutely. He turned around the table in the parlour with his usual ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... left me. 'Twas well he did; I could not have borne it another second, and I could not insult the man in my own house—anger, disdainful anger, possessed me. My heart had, in the course of a few hours, been successively a prey to many violent conflicting passions; and at the moment when I most wanted the support, the sympathy of a friend, I found myself duped, deserted, ridiculed! I felt alone in the world, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... that of the bee and the honey flower, slipped on down and ahead with perfect ease, while we, grimy, slow, determined, plowed on in her wake losing miles each hour the graceful Belle Helene chose to show us her light disdainful heels, serenely indifferent because wholly ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... she said, with a disdainful glance and a note of contempt in her sweet voice. "Unless you are entirely ignorant of English conventionalities, your remarks are unpardonable. Would you care to repeat to Mr. Standish, to whom I am engaged to be married, what you have ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... "Yi Yong-ik." Again I folded my arms and stood with a fine assumption of haughtiness. I do believe that I, Adam Strang, had among other things the soul of an actor in me. For see what follows. I was now the most significant of our company. Proud-eyed, disdainful, I met unwavering the eyes upon me and made them drop, or turn away—all eyes but one. These were the eyes of a young woman, whom I judged, by richness of dress and by the half-dozen women fluttering at her back, to be a court lady of distinction. In truth, she was the Lady Om, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... of our youths, in wearing of their garments; as carelessly to let their cloaks hang downe over one shoulder; to weare their cloakes scarfe or bawdrikewise, and their stockings loose hanging about their legs. It represents a kind of disdainful fiercenesse of these forraine embellishings, and neglect carelesnesse of art: But I commend it more being imployed in the course and forme of speech. All manner of affectation, namely [Footnote: Especially,] in the livelinesse and ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... not "what country consumes his wicked carcass." "You shall understand," he says, "that this sixth of November, I spoke with Sir Robert Bowes" (the head of the family, his bride's uncle) "in the matter you know, according to your request; whose disdainful, yea, despiteful, words hath so pierced my heart that my life is bitter to me. I bear a good countenance with a sore-troubled heart, because he that ought to consider matters with a deep judgment is become not only a despiser, but also a taunter of God's messengers—God be merciful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which seemed to have transferred all its curiosity to his account; then, at the corner of the Quai de d'Horloge, a man called up a carriage that had not been observed before, and Sainte-Croix took his place with the same haughty and disdainful air that he had shown throughout the scene we have just described. The officer sat beside him, two of his men got up behind, and the other two, obeying no doubt their master's orders, retired with a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... she, with an air equally disdainful and incredulous. O Lovelace, thou art surely nearly allied to the grand deceiver, in thy endeavour to suit temptations to inclinations?—But what honour, what faith, what veracity, were it possible that I could enter into parley with thee ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... his head already, sat down with the disdainful smile of a man who had discounted the moral of the story. Still he sat down and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. He ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... flock, said that he had seen lights in the grove. A party of young men, passing near the place, heard groans and lamentations. An unfortunate lover, in order to make an impression on the disdainful object of his affections, promised to spend a night under the tree and to bring her a branch from its trunk, but on the next day he was taken ill with a quick ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... the just perceptible contraction of her brows into a little frown, and the setting of her lips into a curve of determination. They were handsome lips, mobile and sensitive—lips that might easily have been disdainful had not the inner spirit softened them with a tremor—or it might have ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... Jeanne, who by this time had scaled the wall of the bulwark, called out to him, "Surrender! surrender to the King of Heaven! Ah, Glacidas, you have foully wronged me with your words, but I have great pity on your soul and the souls of your men." The Englishman, disdainful of her summons, was striding on across the drawbridge, when a cannon-shot from the town carried it away, and Gladsdale perished in the water that ran beneath. After his fall, the remnant of the English abandoned all further resistance. Three hundred of them had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... from his own adversity); then the long drooping mustachios, and the ample folds of the once white turbans, that lowered over the piercing eyes, and the haggard features of the men, gave them an air of gloomy pride, and that appearance of trying to be disdainful under difficulties, which I have since seen so often in those of the Ottoman people who live, and remember old times; they seemed as if they were thinking that they would have been more usefully, more honourably, and more piously employed in cutting our throats than in carrying our ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... curiously shy and nervous state of mind. There was perhaps no man living whose hands were more nearly at home upon the key-board of a piano, or whose mind was more disdainful of other people's opinions. But of the fact that he was suffering from incipient stage fright there could be no doubt whatever. Would this inoculate his playing, keep the soul out of it? Or worse, would it cause him to strike wrong ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... save too all those who will not pray. And add: it is not in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower than all men.... Love God's people, let not strangers draw away the flock, for if you slumber in your slothfulness and disdainful pride, or worse still, in covetousness, they will come from all sides and draw away your flock. Expound the Gospel to the people unceasingly ... be not extortionate.... Do not love gold and silver, do ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... suffering; there is no trace in her manner, of the woman on the bended knees, reposing her wild head, in beautiful abandonment, upon the pillow of the sleeping girl. That girl, all gentle and lovely, is at her side—a striking contrast to her own disdainful and defiant figure, standing there, composed, erect, inscrutable of will, resplendent and majestic in the zenith of its charms, yet beating down, and treading on, the admiration ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... shoot; she whets her tusks to bite; While he who sits to judge the fight Treads on the palm with foot so white, Disdainful, And sweetly floating in the air Wanton he spreads his fragrant hair, Like Ganymede ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... and disdainful, Rosie's merry and careless; insultingly, so Lulu thought, considering what had passed between them the previous day; and drawing herself up to her full height, she said, her eyes flashing with anger, "You ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... rabbits, which were out by hundreds all along the sides of the plantations, and round the great trees. A few of the nearest just deigned to notice him by scampering to their holes under the roots of the antlered oaks, into which some of them popped with a disdainful kick of their hind legs, while others turned round, sat up, and looked at him. As he neared the house he passed a keeper's cottage, and was saluted by the barking of dogs from the neighboring kennel; and the young ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... complete knowledge of one of the Captains opposing him. He knew and accurately estimated Bluecher. He did not know and he did not accurately estimate Wellington. He viewed the latter with contempt; the former with a certain amount of disdainful approbation, for while Bluecher was no strategist and less of a tactician, he was a fighter and a fighter is always dangerous and to be dreaded. Gneisenau, a much more accomplished soldier, was ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... had risen to devote The mystic wafer, from the band that stood About the altar came a sudden note Of sweetness over my disdainful mood; A voice that, speaking from the brazen throat Of warlike trumpets, came like the subdued Moan of a people bound in sore distress, And thinking ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Arabian enchantment; it lays hand on the powers of storm and commotion like a god. It would be politic not to press the despotism more; but it would be a pity perhaps if some further act did not take place, just to see a nation flinging aside the shackles of superstition; disdainful of threats, determined to seek its own good, resolutely to put aside all external tradition and rule; adhering to its own judgment, though priests falsely say the hosts of the everlasting are arrayed in battle against it, though they threaten the spirit with ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... Kitty," he said slowly. "That is a stunning sort of dress you have on—not so pretty, though, as that old blue muslin you used to wear last summer—and your hair is pretty good. But you look rather disdainful and, after all, I believe I ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... disguise, Form'd only to deceive Ernestus' eyes? Vers'd in the changeful temper of mankind, From day to day I watch'd his varying mind; I saw, where'er he roved, unsettled thought In his weak mind a storm of passion wrought; At length, this morn, he cast a scowling eye Upon his prince, and pass'd disdainful by. This theme, I knew, the moody youth would fire, And rouse to rage his long collected ire. Enough of this; a weightier care demands Our keen reflection, and our active hands. While here we feast, increasing dangers lower, And ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... exclaim, "that disdainful Apollo. Thus cold, callous, and triumphing in the work of destruction, must be the angel of death, who winged the shaft ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... natives for their eccentric jargon, and against the universe for the rush and discomfort of the last quarter of an hour, was disposed to express her feelings by a marked lack of relish for her food. She regarded Hadria's hearty appetite with a disdainful expression. Martha ate bread and butter and fruit. She was to have some milk that had been brought for her, when ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... me, which he did in very good English. His submissiveness only deepened my perplexity, but I couldn't help laughing as he walked away surrounded by the "troops," with Dutch leading the way—Dutch fully conscious that he had vindicated himself and disposed to be rather disdainful of his comrades. ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... amazement, the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsive to his thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, nor friendly—simply indifferent to a degree unknown and incomprehensible to any human mind. He sent Brandon only one message, which came clear and ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity; she has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless, and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and equal rights; she has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... rebuff from Sebastian of Portugal, to whom they had offered Margaret of Valois in marriage. The young king had replied, through Malicorne, "that they were both young, and that therefore about eight years hence that matter might be better talked of," "which disdainful answer," the English ambassador wrote from the French court, "is accepted here in very ill part, and is thought not to be done without ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... her father and mother in the same year left her to her own discretion, under the dangerous circumstances attendant on youth and beauty. She was fond of company, delighted with admiration, yet disdainful of the opinion of the world, when it happened to contradict her inclinations; had a gay and brilliant wit, and was mistress of all the arts of fascination. Her conduct was such as might have been expected, from the weakness of her principles and the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... rather disdainful than sad, Philip listened to the babble round him, and observed the ungenial characters with which he was to associate. He cared not to please (that, alas! had never been especially his study); it was enough for him if he could see, stretching to his mind's eye beyond the walls of that ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... into him, and thus disable him. This would have ruined all. I had come above three hundred miles on purpose to get a cayman uninjured, and not to carry back a mutilated specimen. I rejected their proposition with firmness, and darted a disdainful eye upon the Indians. ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... common habit of hills and mountains, as we all know, to turn disdainful as they grow skyward; they only too eagerly drop, one by one, the things by which man has marked the earth for his own. To stand on a mountain top and to go down to your grave are alike, at least in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... had, on the whole, an agreeable preponderance over the uneasy feeling. He and Betsy shared a secret admiration for the brilliant qualities which were flashed before their eyes; they privately agreed that May was more of a real lady than either the baronet's hard-tongued wife or the disdainful Hilda Shale. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... finds its full scope, as in other half-human creations of the artist's imagination. Apollo as the inspired musician or—if we accept the derivation of the Apollo Belvedere from a fourth-century original—as the disdainful archer, Hermes, the protector and playmate of his little brother Dionysus, and many other such representations of the gods in their personal moods and characteristic actions, seem in many ways less divine, less ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... haughty, overbearing, supercilious, cavalier, overweening, disdainful, imperious, lordly, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... it into the middle of the fire, and stood with her back to the chimney in a threatening attitude before either of the agents recovered from their surprise. The scorn which flamed from her eyes, her pale brow, her disdainful lips, were even more insulting than the haughty action which treated Corentin as though he were a venomous reptile. Old d'Hauteserre felt himself once more a cavalier; all his blood rushed to his face, and he grieved that he ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... officer of the boat eagerly asked what this meant. To which, Captain Delano, turning a disdainful smile upon the unaccountable Spaniard, answered that, for his part, he neither knew nor cared; but it seemed as if Don Benito had taken it into his head to produce the impression among his people that the boat wanted to kidnap him. "Or else—give way for your lives," ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... men were admirably drawn, those of women not so well. He repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the Dunciad. While he was talking loudly in praise of those lines, one of the company* ventured to say, 'Too fine for such a poem:—a poem on what?' JOHNSON, (with a disdainful look,) 'Why, on DUNCES. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst THOU lived in those days! It is not worth while 'being a dunce now, when there are no wits.' Bickerstaff observed, as a peculiar circumstance, that Pope's fame was higher when he was alive ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... hold, And unto earth unwilling now she flowed, and waxen cold Slowly she slipped her body's bonds; her languid neck she bent, Laid down the head that death had seized, and left her armament; 830 And with a groan her life flew forth disdainful into night. ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... an accomplished fact. At four o'clock, in the full glare of a late March sun, a business-like detachment of twenty horses, and one disdainful camel, proceeded at a brisk trot along the lifeless desolation of the Bunnoo Road. The party kept in close formation, straggling of any sort being inadmissible when the bounds of the station have been left behind. Ten of the riders were English, and an armed escort ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... practices, principles of conduct unworthy of the Monarch of Nature, offerings, sacrifices, expiations, useful, in fact, to the ministers of God, but very onerous to the rest of mankind. I find also, that they often have a tendency to render men unsocial, disdainful, intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, inhuman toward all those who have not received either the same revelations as they, or the same ordinances, or ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful, Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... rabbits!" repeated Angelina, in a disdainful tone. "Oh, detain me not in this cruel manner!—I want no Tenby oysters, I want no Welsh rabbits; only let me be gone—I am all impatience to see a dear friend. Oh, if you have any feeling, any humanity, detain me not!" cried she, clasping ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... With a disdainful exclamation the man sprang to his feet. For a time he paced the room in silence, watched by Billy's fearful eyes; then he came back and dropped into the low chair at Billy's side. His whole manner had undergone a complete change. He was ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... of children spoiled by schooling, of daughters educated away from their commonplace parents and rendered disdainful of them, but never for one instant did he fear that his girl was that sort. He just knew better. He could no more have doubted "Bob's" love for him than his for her, or-God's love for both of them. Such love is perfect, absolute. He took ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... nose, for there is no work more disgusting than to mix food for a beetle and to carry it to him. A pig or a dog will at least pounce upon our excrement without more ado, but this foul wretch affects the disdainful, the spoilt mistress, and won't eat unless I offer him a cake that has been kneaded for an entire day.... But let us open the door a bit ajar without his seeing it. Has he done eating? Come, pluck up courage, cram yourself till you burst! The cursed creature! It wallows ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... laughed; a cold laugh, disdainful, yet not bitter. "You wanted that before, my lord; yet you neglected the opportunity my folly gave you. I thank you—you, after God—for that ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... chiefs, but because I felt that if properly handled in that open country our force was of sufficient fighting strength to repel any ordinary attack from ill-armed savages, my long border experience rendering me a bit disdainful of Indian courage and resourcefulness. So it was that my restless mind dwelt rather upon other matters more directly personal. I could not put away the thought of the half-seen girl flitting about amid the dusk of the ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... hall the two men were standing; Marcion, with disdainful eyes and sneering lips, taunting the unbidden guest; John, silent, quiet, patient, while the wondering slaves looked on in dismay. He lifted his searching gaze to the haggard face ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... The disdainful couple make friends. Don John thwarts the marriage of Claudio by his tale of Hero's unchastity. Claudio casts off Hero at the altar. Hero swoons, and is conveyed away as dead. Beatrice and Benedick are brought into close alliance by their ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... go, the milestones are grave-stones;" "He had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming;" "When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance." ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... compliment. Bonaparte listened coldly, and the conversation flagged. In despair she blurted out, "General, what woman could you love the most?" "My own," was the stinging reply. ("Quelle femme?" "La mienne.") Woman and wife being the same word in French, Napoleon's retort was a disdainful pun. "Very well; but which would esteem you the highest?" she persisted. "The best housekeeper." "Yes, I understand; but which one would be for you the foremost among women?" "She who should bear the most children, madame," was the icy rejoinder, as the harried and disgusted soldier turned on ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... treated them with haughtiness; and pretended, that every thing he suffered them to possess, ought to be esteemed a favour; adding this farther insult, "That they ought either to overcome like brave men, or learn to submit to the victor."(676) So harsh and disdainful a treatment only fired their resentment; and they resolved rather to die sword in hand, than to do any thing which might derogate from the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... stopped, and a hot wave of mingled scent and cigar smoke struck my nostrils. The first thing I noticed over Davies's shoulder, as he preceded me into the room, was a woman - the source of the perfume I decided—turning round from the piano as he passed it and staring him up and down with a disdainful familiarity that I at once hotly resented. She was in evening dress, pronounced in cut and colour; had a certain exuberant beauty, not wholly ascribable to nature, and a notable lack of breeding. Another glance showed me Dollmann putting down a liqueur glass of brandy, and rising ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... A most disdainful and impatient shrug of her shapely shoulders was Miss Beaubien's only answer to that allusion. The possibility of Mr. Jerrold's being suspected of another entanglement was something ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... walked up the aisle with his sister's hand on his arm, his face was crimson and reluctant, and he stared straight before him as if unwilling to meet all the watching eyes that followed their progress. But the bride walked proudly and firmly, her head held high with even the suspicion of an upward, disdainful curve to her beautiful mouth, the ghost of a defiant smile. To all who saw her she was a splendid spectacle of ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... scoffed was there, With jewels in her midnight hair, Her dark, disdainful eyes, And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... could but evolve a medley of old styles, some foreign, some native, all inappropriate. Take the case of Mayfair. Mayfair has for some years been in a state of transition. The old Mayfair, grim and sombre, with its air of selfish privacy and hauteur and leisure, its plain bricked facades, so disdainful of show—was it not redolent of the century in which it came to being? Its wide pavements and narrow roads between—could not one see in them the time when by day gentlemen and ladies went out afoot, needing no vehicle to whisk them to a destination, and walked to and fro amply, needing elbow-room ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... taken to belong to those who had brought him up and fed him. Janetta was a lively girl, of quick perception and some discretion, though she often talked much nonsense. She was rather proud of her position, and somewhat disdainful of uneducated folk; though (thanks to her father) Lyth was not one of these. Possibly love (if she had felt it) would have swept away such barriers; but Robin was grateful to his patron, and, knowing his own place in life, would rightly have ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... for the palate of their day, and is now too familiar, perhaps. It is a peculiar fate, and would form the scheme of a pretty study in the history of literature. But in whatever she did she left the stamp of a talent like no other, and of a personality disdainful of literary environment. In a time when most of us had to write like Tennyson, or Longfellow, or Browning, she never would write like any one ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cheery, her face had been the constant reflector of his own good spirits, and he had every reason in the world to feel that his suggestion would be received with pleasure. It was a shock to him, therefore, to see the friendly smile fade from her eyes and a disdainful gleam succeed it. Her voice, a moment ago sweet and affable, changed its tone instantly to one so proud and arrogant that he could ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon |
