"Epithet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looked up at the husband in blank surprise at so unusual an epithet as "charming" coming from his lips, and applied to her. But the truth is, Thornton had done an unusual thing—taken one glass too much, and he spoke unguardedly. He even drew Althea's little hand within his own and through his left arm on the way to St. Mary's, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... literally, and that no one of any perception took it otherwise. Tribute to Aunt Jeannie's charms had been paid on both sides; the woman had heard of her as "too fascinating," Victor had found her charming. Daisy herself, from her own point of view, could find no epithet too laudatory, and she endorsed both the "fascinating" and the "charming." But she was just conscious that she would have preferred that Victor should have called her fascinating, and Mrs. Beaumont charming, rather than that it should have been the ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... hills many may be called with Homer's Ida 'abundant in springs', but few can deserve the epithet which he bestows upon Pelion by 'waving their leaves.' They exhibit very little variety; being almost wholly covered with dark heath, and even that seems to be checked in its growth. What is not heath is nakedness, a little diversified by now and then a stream rushing down the steep. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... that the earl fell into this part of the character (of a laborious writer) merely for the sake of the verse; if hasty, says he, would have stood as an epithet for Wycherley, and slow, for Shadwel, they would in all probability have been so applied, but the verse would have been spoiled, and to that it was necessary to submit. Those, who would form their judgments only upon Mr. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... belong to paper and books. They are less easily destroyed than an epithet engraved on a stone; but who of deliberation would carve an insult, as this is carved, for a ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... demagogue, ridicule his scientific theories, shudder at his irreligion, sneer at his courage, and allude coarsely to his private morals in a manner more discreditable to themselves than to him; crowning all their accusations and innuendoes with a reckless profusion of epithet. While at the same times and places the whole company of the Democratic press, led by Bache, Duane, Cheetham, Freneau, asserted with equal energy that he was the greatest statesman, the profoundest philosopher, the very sun of republicanism, the abstract of all that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... euphonical name of "Old Hunkers," are thus described:—"Standing midway between this wing of the Democracy and the Whig party, is that portion who have taken upon themselves the comfortable title of 'Old Hunkers.' The etymological origin of this epithet is already lost in obscurity. They embrace a considerable portion of our citizens who are engaged in banking and other active business, but at the same time decided lovers of political place and power. At heart they believe in progress, and are in ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... mention again the name of the old cur—, I mean dear old gentleman, little mother, there!" And then catching the twinkling eye of Fritz, the two burst into a simultaneous laugh at the narrow escape there had been of his repeating the obnoxious epithet; while Madame Dort could not help smiling too, as she gazed fondly into the merry face of the roguish boy, standing by his brother's side and clinging to him with that deep fraternal affection which is so rarely seen, alas! in members ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... accident, misprint, error in copying, or other special circumstance be not held sufficient to account for the single remaining instance, I have then only to say that I prefer deformed to deforming, as an epithet applied disparagingly to Time's hand as more in accordance with Shakspeare's practice, who was not in the habit of repeating the same idea, which, in the latter case, would occur again in the word "defeatures" in the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... their petty persecutions in such a manner that one can shape no charge against them, and consequently finds himself helpless. One must endure these little tortures—the sneer, the shrug of the shoulder, the epithet, the effort to avoid, to disdain, to ignore— and thus suffer; for any of them are—to me at least— far more hard to bear than a blow. A blow I may resist or ignore. In either case I soon forget it. But a sneer, a shrug of the ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... He was profoundly indifferent to the character of the people with whom he had to do, whether they were catalogued in the "book of snobs" or not. It is generally people who are themselves snobs who call their intimates by that offensive epithet, attributing to them the sin they fall into themselves. The Duke distinguished between gentlemen and cads, when it was a question of dining at the same table, but in matters of business he believed the distinction of no importance. He came to America for business purposes, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... 246.).—"The folk story," as to the derivation of this word (if such a comparatively modern invention deserves such an epithet, for the Carron works, I believe, did not exist a hundred years ago) is quite correct. This gun is said to have been invented in Ireland by General Melville; but having been perfected at Carron, it ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... up in hoists. Barrels are rolling out of wagons. Crates are being lifted in. Is the exchange never to stop? Is no warehouse satisfied with what it has? English, which until now you judged a soft concordant language, shows here its range and mastery of epithet. And all about, moving and jostling the boxes, are men with hooks. One might think that in a former day Captain Cuttle had settled here to live and that his numerous progeny had kept ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... mehndi or henna, the henna-leaves being pounded with catechu and the mixture rubbed on to the feet and hands. After a little time it is washed off and a red dye remains on the skin. It is supposed that the similar custom which prevailed among the ancient Greeks is alluded to in the epithet of 'rosy-fingered Aurora.' The Hindus use henna dye only in the month Shrawan (July), which is a period of fasting; the auspicious kunku and mahawar are therefore perhaps not considered suitable at such a time, but as ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... returned the Captain's and Mr. Clifford's respectful greeting, and resumed again her embroidery, disclaiming, however, as she did so, the epithet of dreary, as being quite inappropriate, in her estimation, to the place which had afforded her so ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... The epithet gave rise to a burst of merriment. But Don Luis, as though in a hurry to finish his story, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... that there exists but one way of expressing one thing, one word to call it by, one adjective to qualify, one verb to animate it, he gave himself to superhuman labour for the discovery, in every phrase, of that word, that verb, that epithet. In this way, he believed in some mysterious harmony of expression, and when a true word seemed to him to lack euphony still went on seeking another, with invincible patience, certain that he had not yet got hold of the unique ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... nebulous and illusive, that the stage as background has no significance one way or other, but that the impropriety upon which (I must say frankly) the appeal of the book seems to depend is given without stint, in a measure that certainly may, for some readers, justify the publishers' epithet. You will understand therefore that I experience a little natural hesitation about suggesting the intrigue. It is certainly of the simplest—a mere question as to whether Edward and Vivian, casual acquaintances of a restaurant, shall or shall not spend a sequence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... began at once to bait one of their number, a slight youngster of twelve years, much better clothed than the rest, who had adventurously strolled in from a neighbouring manufactory. This child answered their jibes in an amiable, silly, drawling tone which seemed to justify the epithet 'Loony,' frequently applied to him. Now and then he stammered; and then companions laughed loud, and he with them. It was known that several years ago he had fallen down a flight of stone steps, alighting on the back of his head, and that ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... they reached the Viscount of Ghent, who arose from his seat and respectfully restored the cap to its owner. Brederode then took a large "cup of silver and gold," filled it to the brim, and drained it to the confusion of Cardinal Granvelle; stigmatizing that departed minister, as he finished, by an epithet of more vigor than decency. He then called upon all the company to pledge him to the same toast, and denounced as cardinalists all those who should refuse. The Archbishop, not having digested the affronts which had been put upon him already, imprudently ventured himself once more into ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... practical acquaintance with human nature in all its phases, and the human heart in all its changes, is the first requisite of the Dramatic Poet. The power of condensed expression—the faculty of giving vent to "thoughts that breathe in words that burn"—the art of painting, by a line, an epithet, an expression, the inmost and most intense feelings of the heart, is equally indispensable. The skill of the novelist in arranging the incidents of the piece so as to keep the attention of the spectators erect, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... to the subject I have now undertaken; which is to examine, what the consequences would be, upon supposition that the Whigs were now restored to their power. I already imagine the present free P[arliamen]t dissolved, and another of a different epithet met, by the force of money and management. I read immediately a dozen or two stinging votes against the proceedings of the late ministry. The bill now to be repealed would then be re-enacted, and the birthright of an Englishman reduced again to the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... boss is full of the milk of human kindness; but the superficial or adventitious altruism of such men should not blind us to their fundamental, though often entirely unrealized, selfishness. A complementary fallacy is that which denies the epithet "unselfish" to a man who enjoys helping others. Who has not heard the cynical remark, "There's nothing unselfish about So-and-So's benevolence that is his enjoyment in life!" Such a comment ignores the ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the Baron, bowing his very best to the talented authoress), for one of the cheeriest, freshest, and sweetest—if I may be allowed to use the epithet—of one-volume'd stories I've read for many a day. The three daughters are delightful. I question whether you couldn't have done better with "two only, as are generally necessary;" but perhaps this is ungrateful on my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... [Sun] 1. A printer. 2. A person who wastes paper. This epithet should be interpreted in a broad sense; 'wasting paper' includes the production of {spiffy} but {content-free} documents. Thus, most {suit}s are tree-killers. The negative loading of this term may reflect the epithet 'tree-killer' applied by Treebeard the Ent to the Orcs in J.R.R. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... author of the Independent Whig, and translator of Tacitus, has very freely censured L'Estrange. He bestows very freely upon him the epithet of a buffoon, an ignorant droll, &c.——He charges him with having no knowledge of the Latin tongue; and says, he is unfit to be read by any person of taste. That his stile is full of technical terms, and of phrases picked up in the streets, from ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... The epithet "cynhaiawc," assuming it to be the proper term, would also, by reason of its contrasting effect, considerably enhance the value of our hero's domestic ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... kings of Kau sank nearly to the level of the princes of the states, and the poems collected in their domain were classed among the 'Lessons of Manners from the States,' though still distinguished by the epithet ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... despair. "I know someone else to whom that epithet would apply uncommonly well. This is worse than I expected! I'll give him one more chance, and then—" But at the third hearing Mr Newcome was discoursing on "allegorical figures and pseudo- classic statues," whereupon Raymond dashed off into the house and horrified his sisters by an account ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... find someone who fitted that attractive word. Middle-aged men, "too Old at Forty," discoursed in the waiting-rooms on the outlook in the trade; it had never been so bad, they said, while Mr. Polly wondered if "De-juiced" was a permissible epithet. There were men with an overweening sense of their importance, manifestly annoyed and angry to find themselves still disengaged, and inclined to suspect a plot, and men so faint-hearted one was terrified to imagine their behaviour when it came to an interview. There was a fresh-faced young ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... Wedmore, standing, frightened and anxious, in the background, thought she had never seen her darling boy look so handsome, so manly. He came in very quietly, without swaggering, without defiance, as if he had not noticed the offensive epithet. ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... indeed, what it is, that the Gentlemen, who talk of Low Scenes, wou'd desire should be understood by the Epithet?—-Nothing, properly speaking, is low, that suits well with the Place it is rais'd to.——The Passions of Nature are the same, in the Lord, and his Coach-man. All, that makes them seem different consists in the Degrees, in the Means, and the Air, whereto ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... a mistake, however, to identify too closely the parties in England with the parties in America. The old Tory party in England was very different from the so-called Tory party in America. The term Tory in America was, as a matter of fact, an epithet of derision applied by the revolutionists to all who opposed them. The opponents of the revolutionists called themselves not Tories, but Loyalists or 'friends ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... XII., in Kingsborough's Mexico). His high priest was called Youallauan, "the nocturnal tippler" (youalli, night, and tlauana, to drink to slight intoxication), and it was his duty to tear out the hearts of the human victims (Sahagun, u.s.). The epithet Yoatzin, "noble night-god," bears some relation to the celebration of his rites ...
— Rig Veda Americanus - Sacred Songs Of The Ancient Mexicans, With A Gloss In Nahuatl • Various
... sensitive capabilities in a very high decree. His careful choice of epithet and name have even been criticised as lending to some of his narrative-writing an excessive air of deliberation. His daintiness of diction is best seen in his earlier work; thereafter his writing became more vigorous and direct, fitter ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... its own fat] and ukha [soup] as prepared by the fishermen of the Volga. The Petersburg and Moscow people cannot even tell you the meaning of the word 'zhiryokha'" was the reply. "As for the famous 'amber' soup, you have seen that even Osip's efforts do not deserve the epithet." ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... hard epithet that Evelyn did not apply to Mr. Basil Bainrothe during her hysterical mania, and before the doctor's arrival; but, on her recovery, she begged me to repeat nothing of the sort, if she had been indiscreet ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... visited Ascot. Race-courses are similar every where, and present the same objects; good horses, cruel riders, knowing men, dupes, jockeys, gamblers, and a large assemblage of mixed company. But this is a gayer scene than most others; and every epithet, appropriate to a course, diminutive or otherwise, must be in the superlative degree when applied to Ascot. This is the general, and often the only impression that most men carry away ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... In the edition of "Grammont" it is not actually called Lady Rochester, but "La Triste Heritiere." A similar falsification had been practised in Edwards's edition of 1793, but a different portrait had been copied. It is needless, almost, to remark how ill applied is Hamilton's epithet.—B.] ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Anne asked looking at me, and continued without waiting for my confirmation of the epithet, "Why didn't you let ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... relentless, and that they had no hope of escape. The old crones went up to them, pointed their long bony fingers in their eyes, and hissed and shrieked in their ears. What was said I could not understand, but they were evidently using every insulting epithet they could imagine to exasperate or ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... occasion which more than any other helped to gain for him the epithet of "The Good"—when an entire squadron of the Militia was condemned to death for some supposed mistake in giving the salute. The record, unfortunately, is somewhat involved in obscurity and hard to disentangle; so much is clear, however, that the sentence was duly promulgated ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a genius in his line (I had almost written an evil genius) who invented that rare epithet, that singular combination of the sweetest and purest of all luxuries, the most healthful and innocent of dainties, redolent of association so rural and poetical, with the vilest abominations of great cities, the impure ...
— Mr. Joseph Hanson, The Haberdasher • Mary Russell Mitford
... the influence of Austria during the rest of his reign; in 1848 he was compelled to grant constitutional rights to his people, but was distrusted, and an insurrection broke out in Sicily; with merciless severity he crushed the revolt, and by his savage bombardment of the cities won him the epithet "Bomba"; a reign of terror ensued, and in 1851 Europe was startled by the revelations of cruel injustice contained in Mr. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... not call me holy, my daughter," he said earnestly, the old shadows of pain and prote gathering in his eyes, "Nothing can make me more sorrowful than to hear such an epithet applied to one who is so full of errors and sins as myself. Try to look upon me just as I am,—merely an old man, nearing the grave, with nothing of merit in me beyond the desire to serve our Lord and obey His commands,—a desire which is far stronger than the practical force to obey it. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... to take place during total solar eclipses. This phenomenon, it seems to me, ought to account for, and will possibly satisfy, the spectroscopic conditions observed just before, during, and after totality; which has probably led to the epithet used by some leading observers—"the fickle corona." The peculiar phenomenon observed in the spectroscope, the flickering bands or lines of the solar spectrum flashing upon and across the coronal spectrum, has caused ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... on the character of David, and there was a note in it, a note of historical imagination, a power of sketching in a background of circumstance, and of biting into the mind of the listener, as it were, by a detail or an epithet, which struck Langham as something new in his experience of Elsmere. He followed it at first as one might watch a game of skill, enjoying the intellectual form of it, and counting the good points, but by the end he was not a little carried away. The peroration ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... man, but on the one hand more splendid and powerful, on the other more intense and free. It is a wonderful and a gorgeous creation. It is eminently in accordance with the signification of the English epithet—rather a favorite, apparently, with our old writers—the epithet jovial, which is derived from the Latin name of its head. It is a life of all the pleasures of mind and body, of banquet and of revel, of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... details of his system is indeed what gives us our resultant impression of the philosopher, but it is on the resultant impression itself that we react. Expertness in philosophy is measured by the definiteness of our summarizing reactions, by the immediate perceptive epithet with which the expert hits such complex objects off. But great expertness is not necessary for the epithet to come. Few people have definitely articulated philosophies of their own. But almost ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... of his fury. Smiting his beast right and left, he dashed in among them, completely overturning one of the party, leaving her on the field, and dispersing everybody else except Pomaree. Backing her horse dexterously, the incensed queen heaped upon him every scandalous epithet she could think of; until at last the enraged Tanee leaped out of his saddle, caught Pomaree by her dress, and dragging her to the earth struck her repeatedly in the face, holding on meanwhile by the hair of her head. He was ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... self-sacrifice would have added a strange zest to a happy crisis. She was indignant at what she considered to be Mrs. Gibson's obtuseness to so much goodness and worth; and when she called Roger 'a country lout', or any other depreciative epithet, Molly would pinch herself in order to keep silent. But after all those were peaceful days compared to the present, when she, seeing the wrong side of the tapestry, after the wont of those who dwell in the same house with a plotter, became ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... prejudice of every other mercantile interest in the Colony. As a natural consequence it was cordially hated, and richly deserved the maledictions which generally accompanied the mention of the Friponne—the swindle—a rough and ready epithet which sufficiently indicated the feeling of the people whom it at once cheated ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... country is mainly carried on, do not scruple to express their contempt of it;—they applaud with enthusiasm all irreligious sentiments in the theatres, and seldom mention priests, of any persuasion, without the epithet of sacres. ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... quaint is to be picturesque, and to be picturesque is to be old-fashioned. But the stranger's voice and manner were so pleasant, almost so ingratiating, that Philip did not care to differ from him on the abstract question of a qualifying epithet. After all, there's nothing positively insulting in calling a house quaint, though Philip would certainly have preferred, himself, to hear the Eligible Family Residences of that Aristocratic Neighbourhood described in auctioneering ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... their swords swinging at their thighs, came down the narrow street abreast. At another time Ned would not have given way, and even now it hurt him to do so, but prudence made him step from the sidewalk. One of them laughed and applied an insulting epithet to the "peon," but Ned bore it and continued, his sombrero pulled ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... because he feared sudden translation to a brighter sphere. They complain that the Colonel's stables are too handsome, and that they themselves live in cabins less luxurious than the lodgings of the landlord's horses. There is no epithet too strong to express their indignation against the devoted Colonel, who was described by one imaginative peasant, who had worked himself up to a sort of descriptive convulsion, as a "Rawhacious Vagabone," a fine instance of extemporaneous word-coining of the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the river ate 20 tons of flour daily, and it is easy to imagine how bitter amid ordinary circumstances would have been the battle between the commissariat officers, whose duty it was to insist on proper quality, and the contractors—often, I fear, meriting the epithet 'rascally'—intent only upon profit. But in the well-managed Egyptian Service no such difficulties arose. The War Department had in 1892 converted one of Ismail Pasha's gun factories near Cairo into a victualling-yard. Here were set up their own mills for grinding ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... did: at full length, with every wounding epithet and absurd detail repeated and emphasised; he had his own vanity and Huish's upon the grill, and roasted them; and as he spoke he inflicted and endured agonies of humiliation. It was a plain man's masterpiece of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... phrase by which to describe her, a term of contempt that rose to her lips, called forth by I know not what confused and mysterious mental ratiocination. She said: 'That woman is a demoniac.' This epithet, applied to that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly droll. I myself never called her anything now but 'the demoniac,' experiencing a singular pleasure in pronouncing aloud this word ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and I have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues, for she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of my children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until things fell into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... he exclaimed, when he once more found himself unfettered and in sunshine. "Henceforward, I must hold this man's life sacred, or deserve the epithet of coward and villain. Oh! I would a thousand times have preferred the galleys! In ten years I should have returned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... The epithet 'delicious' applied to the mushroom whose wound weeps tears of blood is highly exaggerated. It is edible, no doubt, but it is coarse eating and difficult to digest. My household refuses it for cooking purposes. We prefer to put it to soak in vinegar and afterwards ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... above to the interesting fact that the god Orpheus, of "Thracia" (?) is called the "dark-skinned." Has it escaped notice that he is "supposed to be the Vedic Ribhu or Abrhu, an epithet both of Indra and the Sun."* And if he was "the inventor of letters," and is "placed anterior to both Homer and Hesiod," then what follows? That Indra taught writing to the Thracian Pelasgians under the guise of Orpheus,** but left his own spokesmen ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Stephen will be sure to fly at him.' The plan succeeded admirably. Whitbread asked for information about the proposed marriage of the Princess Charlotte to the Prince of Orange. Stephen instantly sprang up and rebuked the inquirer. Whitbread complained of the epithet 'indecent' used by his opponent. The Speaker intervened and had to explain that the epithet was applied to Mr. Whitbread's proposition and not to Mr. Whitbread himself. Stephen, thus sanctioned, took care ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Campi, for assemblies of the people and martial exercises, as well as for games. Of nineteen which are mentioned, the Campus Martius was the principal. It was near the Tiber, whence it was called Tiberinus. The epithet Martius was derived from the plain being consecrated to Mars, the god of war. In the later ages it was surrounded by several magnificent structures, and porticoes were erected, under which, in bad weather, the citizens ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... receptacles scoured the ocean floor and collected every marine exhibit in their path. That day they gathered up some unusual specimens from these fish-filled waterways: anglerfish whose comical movements qualify them for the epithet "clowns," black Commerson anglers equipped with their antennas, undulating triggerfish encircled by little red bands, bloated puffers whose venom is extremely insidious, some olive-hued lampreys, snipefish covered with silver scales, cutlass ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... theory, is that which most ennobles and beautifies human character. And here let me register my last attack upon Socialistic controversy, which is, that fundamentally it tends to degrade human character by adopting for, and applying to the manual workers of the world a contemptuous epithet. When Marx, if it was he, I am not sure, shouted: "Proletariat of all nations, unite" he said a very wicked thing. It is not my conception of the manual worker that he is a mere "child getter," but rather that he is ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... disagreeable chances, a single servant who could speak Russian, and had it not been for a German physician (Dr. Renner) who in the most handsome manner volunteered his services as our interpreter as far as Moscow, we should have justly merited the epithet of deaf and dumb, applied by the Russians to persons unacquainted with their language. Well! even in this state, our journey would have been quite safe and easy, so great is the hospitality of the nobles and the people of Russia! On our ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... occasionally occur: but there is considerable probability, that the interpretation that has adhered to the term lunacy, more especially in the estimate of the lawyer, has been the source of considerable error, and has also tended to introduce the middle and undefined epithet of unsoundness. The old physicians, for whom modern practitioners entertain less reverence than lawyers feel for their predecessors, concurred, that lunatics were not only persons of disordered mind, but that their intellectual aberrations corresponded with certain changes of the moon: and this lunar ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... great words and small deeds. All that he did she found ill done, and told him of it. His sober, godly garments of sombre hue afforded her the first weapon of scorn wherewith to wound him. A crow, she dubbed him; a canting, psalm-chanting hypocrite; a Scripture-monger, and every other contumelious epithet of like import that she should call to mind. He heard ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... obstacles with which he had to contend, was the greatest general of the age; but it is his efforts in civilization which entitle him to his epithet of Great. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... intellectual (Tintoret), color spiritual (Angelico)—form sensual (French sculpture), form intellectual (Phidias), form spiritual (Michael Angelo). Above all, our author should have been careful how he attached the epithet "sensual" to the element of color—not only on account of the glaring inconsistency with his own previous assertion of the spirituality of painting—(since it is certainly not merely by being flat instead of solid, representative ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... what we have been so long admiring. We must go home and burn our idols." "Courage, Moliere," cried an old man from the pit; "this is genuine comedy." The price of the seats was doubled from the time of the second representation. Nor were the effects of the satire merely transitory. It converted an epithet of praise into one of reproach; and a femme precieuse, a style precieux, a ton precieux, once so much admired, have ever since been used only to signify the most ridiculous affectation. There was, in truth, however, quite as much ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... me that there was nothing whatever of the adventuress about her. And I was impressed—I will go further, I was moved—dry-as-dust old lawyer as I am, by something—How shall I express it without being ridiculous?" He paused and searched in his vocabulary and gave up the search. "No, the epithet which occurred to me yesterday at the dinner-table and immediately, still seems to me the only true one—I was moved by something in this woman of tragic experiences which was ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... how can we define it? About two months ago I wrote something about it, so I refer those that are interested to my former article. . . . They played it excellently," and he enumerated the entire cast, placing beside the name of each actress a sugary epithet, and an ingratiating remark, a polite description, a melancholy ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... flowery—I should say florid—never mind a false epithet or two in a page, they will never be observed. A great deal depends upon the first two pages—you must not limp at starting; we will, therefore, be particular. Take ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... that beauty is an agreeable object to the eye, and even worthy some admiration, would be false and foolish. Beautiful is an epithet often used in Scripture, and always mentioned with honour. It was my own fortune to marry a woman whom the world thought handsome, and I can truly say I liked her the better on that account. But to make this the sole consideration of marriage, to lust after it so violently ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Panachrantos associated with Veccus were different Houses, the churches of both monasteries were dedicated to the Theotokos under the same attribute—Panachrantos, the Immaculate. The invocation inscribed on Phenere Isa Mesjedi addresses the Theotokos by that epithet. But to identify different churches because of the same dedication is only another instance of the liability to allow similarity of names to ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... benevolent designs, which included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the grasp of mind and the iron energy of will, which were necessary to conceive such projects and to overcome the difficulties which beset them. It will not vitiate his claim to the epithet that his manners were coarse and boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and revolting to a polished taste; if that claim be questionable, it is because he who aspired to be the reformer of others was unable to control the violence ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... Roselli family a position between that of a family friend and a servant. In spite of his prolonged residence in Germany, he had learnt very little German, and only knew how to swear in it, mercilessly distorting even the terms of abuse. 'Ferroflucto spitchebubbio' was his favourite epithet for almost every German. He spoke Italian with a perfect accent—for was he not by birth from Sinigali, where may be heard 'lingua toscana in bocca romana'! Emilio, obviously, played the invalid and indulged himself in the pleasant sensations of one ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... end in bloodshed, appears to me deserving of the epithet," said the Doctor, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... forty-seven thousand persons. Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a less barbarous age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion; yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane,[20] either the Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... term audacious in speaking of Delacroix, and circumstances forced him to justify the epithet. Yet to a student of his work, and still more of his character as revealed in his writings (his recently published letters and the few articles published during his life in the "Revue des Deux-Mondes"), he would appear to have been by nature prepared to receive the full academic tradition, ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... to me at any price. I argued, pleaded, threatened; all to no purpose. At length, seeing there was no other alternative, I snatched his strawberries away, threw him a ducat, and walked off with the prize. He picked up the gold, but as he did so, he saluted my imperial ears with an epithet—such an epithet! Oh, you will shudder when you hear what language the little rascal used to his sovereign! You never will be able to bear it, Coronini: you, whose loyalty is offended every time you address me as Count Falkenstein. I only wonder that the sun did not hide its ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... foreigners are designated by the opprobrious epithet of 'little'—that is, contemptible—'demons.' This, by the way, is a phrase never used to designate foreigners in this region except by those in the mandarin offices. Besides the absurdity of charging foreigners with distributing poison, the whole confession bears the ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... philosophies, but it rapidly developed into utter cynicism, and culminated in the asserted impossibility of attaining to virtue. Epicureanism started out fairly well, but its founder was not dead before it earned for itself the opprobrious epithet that it was a doctrine worthy only of swine. Look at Buddhism, with its filthy ceremonies and cruel tortures. All these systems exhibit a conflict between theory and practice. They failed in their object, ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... he thought: he had certainly not shown himself an affectionate husband to her for many years. But there was truth in the epithet: little as she might believe it, or as it might appear. He would not stop to re-read the letter: he had said what he wanted to say, and she could read his meaning easily enough. He had held out the olive branch. It was for her to accept or ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... whom Ganganelli called the "beautiful" Braschi, well deserved that epithet. No nobler or more plastic beauty was to be seen; no face that more reminded one of the divine beauty of ancient sculpture, no form that could be called a better counterfeit of the Belvedere Apollo. And it was ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... speaks of the Roman People as having been brought, by their own infatuation, "under the tyranny of Sulla." Now, though we have seen that Milton had modified his opinion of the worth of Cromwell's Government all in all, we should have been shocked by an epithet of posthumous opprobrium applied to the man he had so panegyrized while living. Fortunately, we are spared the shock. Monk, not Cromwell, is the military dictator that Milton has in view in the metonymy Sulla. He is thinking of his Letter to Monk only the other day, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... jade!" he cried—and the epithet sufficed to destroy every possible remnant of forbearance in the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... of Nero's expedition had caused the greatest excitement and alarm. All men felt the full audacity of the enterprise, but hesitated what epithet to apply to it. It was evident that Nero's conduct would be judged of by the event, that most unfair criterion, as the Roman historian truly terms it. People reasoned on the perilous state in which Nero had left the rest of his army, without a general, and deprived of the core of its strength, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... whose political opponents did not hesitate to rob the vocabulary of vulgarity and wickedness whenever they desired to vilify the Chief Magistrate, Lincoln was the most and "best" abused man who ever held office in the United States. During the first half of his initial term there was no epithet which was not ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... excuse or explanation, Waverley was silenced, if not satisfied; but he could not help testifying some displeasure against the Blessed Bear, which had given rise to the quarrel, nor refrain from hinting, that the sanctified epithet was hardly appropriate. The Baron observed, he could not deny that 'the Bear, though allowed by heralds as a most honourable ordinary, had, nevertheless, somewhat fierce, churlish, and morose in his disposition (as might be read in Archibald Simson, pastor of Dalkeith's ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... author speaks of the late King James, he calls him the abdicated King, and gives the same epithet even to his family. Though this weak, ill-advised, and ill-fated prince, in every sense of the word, with Romans and English, and to all intents and purposes, abdicated, yet can he, in no sense, be called abdicated; unless the people's asserting their rights, and defending themselves against ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... of idiots," said Jack angrily, unconsciously including the innocent Amir in the epithet. "We just saw something big and gray moving around, and took it for granted he was an elephant. We should have stuck ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... Charles, in the careless manner of a gentleman when he wishes to introduce familiarity with an inferior, by seeming to take an interest in the other's affairs. Julia felt indignant at the freedom of his manner, and particularly at the epithet of "Tony"—yet her lover did not in the least regard either—or rather his manner exhibited no symptoms of displeasure—he has made up his mind, thought Julia, to support his disguise, and it is best for us ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... great epic was called by him a comedy because its ending was not tragical, but "happy"; and admiration gave it the epithet "divine." It is in three parts—Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (paradise). It has been made accessible to English readers in the metrical translations of Carey, Longfellow, Norton, and others, and in the excellent prose version (Inferno) of John Aitken Carlyle, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... he had made a brief essay in the prize-ring, not without some success. He had been driven out, however, by an epithet spontaneously applied by the ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... dissensions and crush out the hydra of internal treason; at a time when the mother country has gone to every length short of open war to aid and assist those who are striving for our downfall, and her press is exhausting every epithet of vituperation and scurrilous abuse of us, who are battling so earnestly in our own defence, and who are entitled by every truth of human nature to her warmest sympathy—a press which, adopting the phraseology of its Secession friends ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... epics, or the Pilgrim's Progress the first of allegories. In execution it is almost perfect. Don Juan is in scope and magnitude a far wider work; but no considerable series of stanzas in Don Juan are so free from serious artistic flaw. From first to last, every epithet hits the white; every line that does not convulse with laughter stings or lashes. It rises to greatness by the fact that, underneath all its lambent buffoonery, it is aflame with righteous wrath. Nowhere in such space, save in some of the prose of Swift, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... an air of finality. It is a full-blooded judgment which, though it sounds a trifle exiguous to describe our manifold heroic efforts, is a sort of perpetual epithet. The children use it confidingly when they run to our men in the cafes. The peasants use it as a parenthetical verdict whenever they mention our name. The French fellows use it, and I have heard a German ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... not been there long, before his old and only enemy made his appearance, and opened upon him a volley of abuse in relation to the division-fence, bestowing upon his honor, among other expressive titles, the euphonious epithet of "jackass." A—— bore the attack until it came to this point—which, it would seem, was as far as a man's patience ought to extend—and, it is probable, that had he not been a legal functionary, a battle would have ensued "then and there." But it was beneath the dignity thus outraged, to ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... mouth to speak; he was about to ejaculate Woman! but his sense of propriety prevented this. He would not apply such an epithet to any one in the house of a friend. Wretch rose to his lips, but he would not use even that word; and he contented himself with: "You! You know just as well as you know you are standing there that I never had the least idea of marrying you. You know, too, that you have tried to make people ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... a question is something abhorrent to the genius of the Indian, and is in reality unknown. Dishonouring thus the custom, he can grandly repudiate the contemptuous epithet of "voting machine;" so unsparingly directed against, and pitilessly fastening upon, certain ignoble legislators among ourselves. The manner of proceeding that obtained with the Ojibways was somewhat different from the practice I have detailed, and I allude to it now, because the tribe ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... that the poet would not have made Scarus speak of Antony as the noble ruin of Cleopatra's magick, and of his manhood and honour, and in the same breath designate him as a ribald. He would be much more likely to apply the epithet lewd hag to such an enchantress as Cleopatra, than that of ribald-rid nag, which I feel convinced never entered ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... one of the finest mornings of the latter end of June; the sun had not risen, but the heavens were already painted with his ascending glories. I repeated in a kind of poetical rapture the inimitable metaphoric epithet of the Poet of Nature; an epithet preserved so faithfully, and therefore with so much genius, by his English translator, Pope. The rosy-fingered morn, indeed, appeared in all her plenitude of natural beauty; and the Sun, that he might not long lose the sight of ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... overbearingness and practical pusillanimity—reflections on life, action and simplicity, and complete absence of life, action and simplicity—literary and argumentative artisans and repulsive coquetry with them: 'Feuerbach is a bourgeois,' and the word 'bourgeois' grown into an epithet and repeated ad nauseum, but all of them themselves from head to foot, through and through, provincial bourgeois. With one word, lying and stupidity, stupidity and lying. In this society there is no possibility of drawing a free, full breath. I hold myself aloof from them, and have declared ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... what precisely is implied by the so-called healthy "clean-minded" unmarried Englishman of twenty-seven, or thereabouts. As a rule the epithet "clean-minded" sums up not merely a mental condition, but a method of life. It signifies that the young man to whom it may justly be applied is either a master, or at least a lover, of games, that his outlook is what is known as "breezy," that he observes the rules of cricket in every relation ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... captain in the army shook hands with a gallant lieut.-colonel (who had distinguished himself in the Peninsula) at one of the West End gaming houses, and Lieut. N—, who was present, upbraided the colonel with the epithet of "poltroon." On a fit opportunity the colonel inflicted summary justice upon the lieutenant with a cane or horse-whip. This produced a challenge; but the colonel was advised that he would degrade himself by combat with ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... she read it again to herself. None of the ordinary courtesies of epistle-craft had been preserved either in the beginning or in the end. It was worse even than if he had called her Madam without an epithet. "The Duke understands—" "The Duke thinks—" "The Duke feels—" feels that he should not be troubled with either letters or conversation; the upshot of it all being that the Duke declared her to have shown herself unworthy ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... an oath. "I know it doesn't matter to you. Nothing is of any consequence to you but this"—he ripped out an offensive epithet. "If he is so near and dear to you, it's a wonder you don't want to go over and bid ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... there is a power of precognition so startling that one can understand a sceptic of the twenty-first century raising serious doubts as to whether parts of it were not late interpolation." Mr. Gilbert Keith Chesterton in his "Crimes of England" applied to the "Anglo-German Problem" the epithet "almost magical." ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... laugh was musical; the blush was—what? Let any man, seated beside a girl like Cecilia at starry twilight, find the right epithet for that blush. I pass it by epithetless. But she answered, firmly ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the epithet 'firebug,'" he said, "but I must stick to my purpose of carrying you to ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... them food and shelter, and in whose veins yet flowed the generous blood of Spain. It was in vain that I pledged my life and swore by my poverty and my military honor. I succeeded only in being coldly listened to and roughly sent away with the epithet of chiflado." [31] ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... epithet she had used of herself. You never knew what crazy thing she might do. There was daintiness but no order in her life; the only law she knew was given to her ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... whisper that it was the maiden effort of a new preacher, helped to prolong the interruption. A heavy man of strong physical expression sprang to the rescue with a hysterical cry of "Glory!" and a tumultuous fluency of epithet and sacred adjuration. Still the meeting wavered. With one final paroxysmal cry, the powerful man threw his arms around his nearest neighbor and burst into silent tears. An anxious hush followed; the speaker still continued to ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... is a pretty go, is this here! An uncommon pretty go! Here have I been, a matter of how many weeks—hard upon six—a follering up this here blessed old dowager petty larcenerer,'—Mr Squeers delivered himself of this epithet with great difficulty and effort,—'and Dotheboys Hall a-running itself regularly to seed the while! That's the worst of ever being in with a owdacious chap like that old Nickleby. You never know when he's done with you, and if you're in for a penny, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... she was hustled by the mob, the surging masses roared her name and accompanied it with every species of insulting epithet; they thronged after the carriage, hooting, jeering, cursing, and even assailing the vehicle with missiles. A stone crushed through a blind, wounding Laura's forehead, and so stunning her that she hardly knew what further transpired during ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... however were not absolutely the same—I put something instead of "angel"; and in the sequel my epithet seemed the more apt, for when eventually we heard from our traveller it was merely, it was thoroughly to be tantalised. He was magnificent in his triumph, he described his discovery as stupendous; but his ecstasy only obscured it—there were to be no particulars till he should have submitted ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... high-sounding title "beautiful and good," in order to find out what conduct on their part justified their adoption of this title, I found my soul eager with desire for intercourse with one of them; and first of all, seeing that the epithet "beautiful" was conjoined with that of "good," every beautiful person I saw, I must needs approach in my endeavour to discover, [12] if haply I might somewhere see the quality of good adhering to the quality of beauty. But, after all, it was otherwise ordained. I soon enough seemed to discover ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... so termed from his complexion; his elder son, not being specially remarkable, was known merely as Romund Fitz-Manning; but the younger, in his boyhood of a somewhat impetuous temper, had conferred on him the epithet of Haimet Escorceueille, or Burntown. The elder brother of Manning was dubbed Gilbert Cuntrevent, or Against-the-Wind; and his two sons, of whom one was the head porter, and another a watchman, at the Castle, were called Osbert le ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... When the illustrated papers everywhere were caricaturing him, when no epithet seemed too harsh to heap upon him, when his methods were criticized by his own party, and the generals in the war were denouncing his "foolish" confidence in Grant, and delegations were waiting upon him to ask for that general's removal, the great President sat ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Dalgetty with a lift of sardonicism, "is an interesting example of semantic evolution. This being, on the whole, an easy-going tolerant period, the word 'fanatic' has come to be simply an epithet—a fellow on the ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... the naval and agricultural strength of the Athenians are expressed by this weapon, with which they had to hew out their fortune. And you must keep in mind this agriculturally laborious character of Hephaestus, even when he is most distinctly the god of serviceable fire; thus Horace's perfect epithet for him "avidus" expresses at once the devouring eagerness of fire, and the zeal of progressive labour, for Horace gives it to him when he is fighting against the giants. And this rude symbol of his cleaving the forehead ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Subject. Homer in that Passage, which Longinus has celebrated for its Sublimeness, and which Virgil and Ovid have copy'd after him, tells us, that the Giants threw Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa. He adds an Epithet to Pelion ([Greek: einosiphullon]) which very much swells the Idea, by bringing up to the Readers Imagination all the Woods that grew upon it. There is further a great Beauty in his singling out by Name these three remarkable ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... and the fate of Lieutenant Boyd and countless other victims called loudly for vengeance. The sins of the Butlers and their bloodthirsty followers were visited in robbery and insult upon unoffending men, who were like them in nothing but in being labelled with the epithet "Tory." During the seven years that the city of New York had been occupied by the British army, many of these loyalists had found shelter there. The Whig citizens, on the other hand, had been driven off the island, to shift as best they might in New Jersey, while their comfortable ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... [161:3] This same epithet 'foreign' ([Greek: allotrios]) is applied several times in the Ignatian Epistles to the Gnostic teaching which the writer is combating; Rom. inscr., Trall. ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the apparition seemed to take of them. "She hirples like a hen on a het girdle. I redd ye, Earnscliff" (this he added in a gentle whisper), "let us take a cast about, as if to draw the wind on a buck—the bog is no abune knee-deep, and better a saft road as bad company." [The Scots use the epithet soft, IN MALAM PARTEM, in two cases, at least. A SOFT road is a road through quagmire and bogs; and SOFT weather signifies that which is ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy book!"—said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give that appellation to John Buncle,—"did I catch rightly what you said? I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of a graceful female after ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... proclaimed a general amnesty to the planters who had fled during the revolutions, earnestly invited their return to the possession of their estates, and, with a delicate regard to their feelings, decreed that the epithet "emigrant" should not be applied to them. Many of the planters accepted the invitation, and returned to the peaceful possession ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... the epithet had lost its alluring softness. "You may as well tell me. Mr. Raymer had borrowed money at poppa's bank. What was the matter? Did he have to ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... When people talk loosely of founding an abbey for superstitious uses, they cannot surely be aware of the state of the countries in which those abbeys were founded; either primaeval forest, hardly-tilled common, or to be described by that terrible epithet of Domesday-book, 'wasta'—wasted by war. A knowledge of that fact would lead them to guess that there were almost certainly uses for the abbey which had nothing to do with superstition; which were as thoroughly practical as those of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... weakness wholly unworthy of him. The invention of a name is but a poor achievement for him who has discovered whole worlds. Why, for instance, do we hear him talking of the space-penetrating power of his instrument—a compound epithet and metaphor which he ought to have left to the poets, who, in some future age, shall acquire glory by celebrating his name. The other papers of Dr. HERSCHEL, in the late volumes of the Transactions, do not deserve such particular attention. His catalogue of 500 new nebulae, though ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... commander in the Irish wars' of the sixteenth century, and was conspicuous for his zeal and valour. Prince gives an odd little bit of gossip about an heiress of this family. He says she was 'a frolic lady,' and no unusual epithet could be more descriptive; for the lady 'married William Polglas, within three days after her father's death; and within two days after her husband Polglas's death, she was married ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... used upon the battlefields of science in that time with much effect. The Arabs had made many noble discoveries in science, and Averroes had, in the opinion of many, divided the honours with St. Thomas Aquinas; these facts gave the new missile—it was the epithet "Mohammedan"; this, too, was flung with ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... el Callao—though no one dared use that last epithet in his hearing—was getting on toward sixty, but was still a muscular and rather handsome man, with a weather-beaten face, blood-shot eyes, a gray mustache as stiff and long and prickly as a tom-cat's whiskers, and the general bullying air of an uneducated lout who had money enough to live on ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez |
