"Flatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English side of the Border, where he was playing the spy for Cecil. Often he played the double spy, for England and for Rome. Lennox may well have been puzzled, he may have said so, but the report rests on the evidence of one who did not hear his words, who wished to flatter the scepticism of James's English enemies, and whose character (though on one point he is ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... to the closet where hung the brass keys, and opened the door a-crack. He saw the hide of the crocodile leaning against it, and the overturned cups. "Just as that boy Hubert packed them," he thought to himself in satisfaction; "no one has been prying here. I flatter myself upon a skilful morning's work. I have knocked the legend out of the Baron's head. He'll see to it the girl keeps away. And as for yon impudent witling in the cage, we shall transport him beyond the seas, if convenient; ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... the homage of this persevering suitor. He, at least, was true to her; he, at least, believed in her perfection. The stout country squires, who could have given her houses and lands, had never stooped to flatter her foibles; had shown themselves heartlessly indifferent to her dragooning of the model villagers; had even hinted their pity for the villagers under that martial rule. Tillott alone could sympathise with her, trudging patiently from cottage to cottage ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... snare indeed, Though by no mother's clever management. Young, beautiful, accomplished, she, my Fate, Met me with smiles, and doomed me while she smiled Nimble as light, fluent as molten lead To take the offered mould,—apt to affect Each preference of taste or sentiment That best might flatter,—affable and kind, Or seeming so,—and generous to a fault,— But that was when she had a part to play,— Affectionate—ah! there too she was feigning— As I look calmly back, to me she seems The simple incarnation of a mind Possessed of all the ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... of eighteen was really amazing. Not a trace in her manner of timidity or tremor. In spite of her flight from him he could not flatter himself that he had made any impression on her nerves. Whereas her beauty and her provocative way were beginning to tell ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... twenty-four years! More than that, if I wished for active glory, he would give either the local Premiership, or undertake to combine the French parties at Ottawa, and put me at their head, with a surety of being Premier of the whole country. And this again for a youth of twenty-four years!—He tried to flatter me that I was a Pitt or a Napoleon. And I answered, that no man guilty of such a compact could ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... papers. "Another cup, won't you?" says Miss Gladys Cooper; "No, thank you," says Mr. Dennis Eadie—dash it, it's exactly what we do at home ourselves. And when, to clinch matters, the dramatist makes Mr. Gerald du Maurier light a real cigarette in the Third Act, then he can flatter himself that he has indeed achieved the ambition of every stage writer, and "brought the actual scent of ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... a merchant, and, by some mercantile adventures in which he had successfully engaged, began to flatter himself with being able, in no long time, to support a family. Meanwhile, a tender and constant correspondence was maintained between him and his beloved Susan. This girl was a soft enthusiast, in whose bosom ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... afterwards he had done what he could so long as he could. It was inevitable that she must be hurt, even if he had married, not giving her what he had given this dompteuse. After all, was it so terrible? It could not affect her much in the eyes of the world. And her heart? He did not flatter himself. Yet he knew that it would be the thing—the fallen idol—that would grieve her more than thought of the man. He wished that he could have spared her in the circumstances. But it had all come too suddenly: it was impossible. He had spared, he could spare, nobody. There ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... report was received from aloft that all was clear ahead, and the explorers began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the polar sea. Several headlands were passed, and wide openings to the north and south. With a strong breeze from the eastward, running on until midnight, they found themselves in latitude 83 degrees 12 minutes, nearly one hundred and fifty miles ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Look up, my dear Matilda! let who will sneer at you, I am proud of you; and there is not one person present who would not honour themselves, if they could secure your friendship. I was the first to correct you, nor will I ever flatter you; but I will always protect and defend you, so long as you continue to merit the high regard I now ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... recreation pure and simple—she would not insist too much, but——" I shrugged my shoulders. I flatter myself on being able to do it with perfect French expressiveness. I caught, to my satisfaction, an angry gleam in ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... as she is, free from the exaggerations of praise or scandal, since I have been associated with her in so many things that have provoked hostile criticism; and the judgment that the world may pass upon her, I flatter myself, will present my own actions ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... Perceiving that she was but half disdained, Began to break her sports with graver fits, Turn red or pale, would often when they met Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him With such a fixt devotion, that the old man, Though doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times Would flatter his own wish in age for love, And half believe her true: for thus at times He wavered; but that other clung to him, Fixt in her will, and so the ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... that fashion, unsympathetic persons would have pardoned me if I had indulged in injudicious language, or had even thrown the cat violently from my otherwise peaceful couch. But conscience has not to upbraid me with any of these things. I flatter myself that I bear even this patiently; I remember to have often made sleepy but pleasant remarks to the faithful little friend whose affection for me and whose desire to behold my countenance was too great to permit her to wait till ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... she laughed, pushing me away. "It is no good your talking nonsense to me now, don't flatter yourself!" ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... Whether this is true would appear doubtful; servility was not one of the author's failings, though vanity was. By Spontini's ministering to his vanity Hoffmann may have been provoked to return him the compliment in his own coin, but it is hardly likely that he went so far as to flatter against his own conviction or against his better judgment. Of his longer and more ambitious works the one which he ranked highest in merit was Lebensansichten des Katers Murr, nebst Biographie des Kapellmeisters ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... P'raps if you address the lady Most politely, most politely— Flatter and impress the lady, Most politely, most politely,— Humbly beg and humbly sue— She may deign to look on you, But your doing you must do Most politely, most ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... next degree; the chief peculiarity in them was the lifting of nearly the whole thickness of the skull at the distal margin of the entry, and the proximal edge of the exit, openings; the flatter the area of skull under which the bullet travelled the more extensive was the comminution. In some cases nearly the whole length of the bone superficial to the track would be raised; in fact, the bullet having ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... with me, you must conform to my wishes. Mr. Keith is not responsible for you. Mr. Keith is like other men—ready to flatter a ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... but I feel it is for the best. You are a youth of great promise. I do not mean to flatter you, I am speaking the truth, and it is in your interest that I so warmly advocate your return to the East. I desire that you become an educated man, a graduate of college; I wish you to secure your degree. ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... had fastened against him,—indignation, yet also a smile. From the moment when Geoff's little voice had broken upon his angry reverie, Dick had begun to recover himself. "Chatty wants you so." It was only a child that spoke. But a child does not flatter or deceive, and this was true. What Eustace Thynne thought, what anybody thought, was of little consequence. Chatty! The simple name brought a softening glow to Dick's eye. Would she come and open to him? Would she reverse ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... 'Now, I flatter myself I've got just the thing for Nan, neat but not gaudy, a sort of sign you see, and very appropriate for a doctor,' said Emil, proudly displaying a pair of lava ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... all the good humour I can command on my wife. I flatter her and take care of her as if she were a bride in her honeymoon. My reward is that I see her thrive; her bad illness is visibly getting better. She is recovering and will, I hope, become a little rational in her old ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... mean to flatter myself; but I have done all that I possibly could to touch the heart of the Princess Eriphyle. I have neglected none of the tender means that a lover should adopt. I have offered her the humble homage of my great love, I have been assiduous ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... with Arnold Jacks was not quite certain. At moments she fancied so; she saw her position as wholly reasonable, void of anxiety; she was about to marry the man she liked and respected—safest of all forms of marriage. But there came troublesome moods of misgiving. It did not flatter her self-esteem to think of herself as excluded from the number of those who are capable of love; even in Helen Borisoff's view, the elect, the fortunate. Of love, she had thought more in this last week or two than in all her years gone by. Assuredly, she knew ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... there is," she rejoined, briskly; "I have been to see the librarian himself, and I flatter myself I made a favorable impression. In fact, the old gentleman ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... open rupture with the Papacy. Ferdinand, as we have just seen, had expressed himself contented with the situation of affairs at Trent. But the French prelates still remained in opposition, and the French Court was undecided. Cardinal Morone, upon his arrival at Trent, began to flatter the Cardinal of Lorraine, affecting to take no measures of importance without consulting him. This conduct, together with timely compliments to several Frenchmen of importance, smoothed the way for future agreement; while the couriers who arrived from France, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... "I flatter myself I am. It is true that, in order to make the transformation complete, I chose the very oldest coat that displayed its rags ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... enabled us to do. We have laid snares for the innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to extend, as occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we had before injured in their dearest relations. But yet, I flatter myself, sometimes, that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or Mowbray; for I, by taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou hast freed me, (and who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon my own head some of the evils I had brought upon others,) ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... of Kent, and to him also a little daughter was born, who, had she lived, would have finally succeeded to the throne instead of Victoria. But the poor little Princess stayed but a little while to flatter or disappoint royal hopes. She looked timidly out upon life, with all its regal possibilities, and went away untempted. Still the Duchess of Clarence (afterwards Queen Adelaide) might yet be the happy mother of a Prince, or Princess Royal, and there were so many probabilities against the accession ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... exception is something very pleasant that you have heard about A. or more especially A.'s child, which having already told A. you can then tell B., and later C. in A.'s presence. Never do this as a habit, however, and never drag the incident into the conversation merely to flatter A., since if A. is a person of taste, he will be far more apt to resent than be pleased by flattery that borders on ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and gliding one foot towards him, after our manner, "I flatter myself that my honest curiosity will not displease you, and that you will be willing to do me the honour of instructing me as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... bored by her own bad temper, and was nearer to making him the 'only exception' than she had often been of late. She said to herself that he always amused her, but in her heart she was conscious that he was the only man in the world who knew how to flatter her back into a good temper, and would take the trouble to do so. It was better than nothing to look forward to a pleasant evening, and she went back to her novel and her cup of tea already half reconciled ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... —Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... political economist, he had found a way of turning aside the distrust of the Catholics and their enmity against himself and his doctrines. He had won the indulgence and sympathy of some of them, and had managed to make himself agreeable to the clergy and to flatter the church by linking together material progress and spiritual progress, the religion of political economy and that of Catholicism: Quesnay and Saint Augustin, Bastiat and the Gospel, statistics and God. Then besides ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... as we have described Greece, and we flatter ourselves our description will bear examination on the part of travellers and diplomatic gentlemen, we ask if there can be any doubt of the ultimate success of popular institutions? For our own part, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... and sixth verses present serious difficulties of construction which I do not flatter ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... monosyllable there went a raising of the brows, a sidelong glance of the eyes, a slowly wreathing smile that curved the fresh lips just enough to unmask two perfect teeth, all of which lent to the voice a meaning, a familiarity, a pliant possibility of favourable interpretation, fit rather to flatter a hope than to chill ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... "Perhaps.—But do not flatter yourself too much on that account!—As to my listening. . . . Well, yes; I was standing at the window. Inside the room I could only half hear, and who does not want to hear what great men have to say to each other? And, excepting your father, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... (homo) connected with a natural one by the matrimonial covenant, intends nothing else but amendment of life; which he effects by judicious and elegant conversation, and by favors which soothe and flatter the temper of the other; but in case these things prove ineffectual, he intends accommodation, for the preservation of order in domestic affairs, for mutual aid, and for the sake of the infants and children, and other ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... allegories, symbolic actions, and direct addresses, a series of vivid descriptions of the sins of Jerusalem and the judgments of heaven that are about to fall upon her. With these are interspersed denunciations of the false prophets that flatter the people in their sins, and fervent addresses to his fellow-captives remarkable for their plainness and evangelical spirit. The second part opens with a series of prophecies against seven foreign nations, in which the order of time is not observed—first, short prophecies against ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... Scotia, beg leave to congratulate Your Honour on your appointment by His Majesty to the chief command of this Province and in your safe arrival therein. Although remote from the Capital, and perhaps last in our addresses, yet we flatter ourselves not the least sincere in assuring Your Honour of the happiness we feel in finding ourselves ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... it, with soft soap and water, or oil, or thin pipe-clay and water; or, if the mould has been baked dry, soaking it in water alone will be sufficient to prevent the copy sticking. Recollect that the flatter the tablet—surrounding the cavity left by the fish—is made, the better will ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... housekeeper, to whom he "did the amiable," as Frank had the knack of doing to anything with a petticoat. Cousin John handed off a stately damsel, whom I afterwards recognized as the upper housemaid, and I was claimed by a dapper little second-horse rider, of whom I flatter myself I made a complete conquest by the interest I took in his profession and the thorough knowledge I displayed of its details. I had to make most of the conversation myself, certainly, for his replies, though couched in terms of the deepest respect, and accompanied by a chivalrous deference ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... adequate to the maintenance of all her interests. In discharging the responsible trust confided to the Executive in this respect it is my settled purpose to ask nothing that is not clearly right and to submit to nothing that is wrong; and I flatter myself that, supported by the other branches of the Government and by the intelligence and patriotism of the people, we shall be able, under the protection of Providence, to cause all our just rights ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... moment, your high origin," cried poor Gregory, addressing the young captain as though he had been a colonel, "Vache Vousso Korodie," in order to flatter him. "I believe that the lady Vaninka's window is about ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he, Which in the worlds huge deluge did suruiue, O let thy wings of magnanimitie, Not vainlie flatter, Honour to acchiue, Gainst all conceit impossibilitie, By which thou murderst Vertue, keepe aliue, Nor in thy seeking of diuinitie, Kill not heauens ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... not in moments of tender feeling, or at his prayers, or by Abel's grave, that Jan recalled his foster-brother's dying charge; but as he emptied slops, cleaned grates, or fastened Mrs. Lake's black dress behind. Nor did gratitude flatter his zeal. "Boys do be so ackered with hooks and eyes," the poor woman grumbled in her fretfulness, and then she sat down to bemoan herself that she had not a daughter left. She had got a trick of stopping short half way ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... your Representatives' library up there at the State House. I have to tumble them over and over, and open them in a hundred places, and sometimes cut the leaves here and there, to find what I think about this and that. And a good many people who flatter themselves they are talking wisdom to me, are only helping me to get at the shelf and the book and the page where I shall find my own opinion ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and of pursuing and avoiding, and is a word the power of dealing with the things of sense. And if thou neglect not this, but place all that thou hast therein, thou shalt never be let or hindered; thou shalt never lament; thou shalt not blame or flatter any. What then? Seemth this to thee a little thing?"—God forbid!—"Be ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... manner of detecting them, and the justice of punishing them, in his dialogues of Daemonologie, written in the Scottish dialect, and published at Edinburgh. This book was, soon after his accession, reprinted at London, and as the ready way to gain king James's favour was to flatter his speculations, the system of Daemonologie was immediately adopted by all who desired either to gain preferment or not to lose it. Thus the doctrine of witchcraft was very powerfully inculcated; and as the greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... at me and smiled. "You are really rather extraordinary, Godfrey; if any one tries to flatter you, you shut up like a hedgehog. I am sure you have improved immensely and I am beginning to like you very much," ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... feel assured that, as you have five other children, you will in time make up your mind to let me keep Johnnie entirely as mine. It puts a new value into life,—this chance of having an immortal intelligence placed in my hands to train. It will be a real delight to do so, and I flatter myself the result will surprise ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... am still quite unwell, and all my pursuits and propensities have a tendency to make my head worse. It is but a bad head,—as bad as if I were a great man! I am not entitled to so bad a head by anything I have done; but I flatter myself it is very interesting to suffer so much, and a fair excuse for not writing pretty letters, and saying to my friends the good ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... remain?' Could I have replied in the affirmative, or could I have said that we should continue to exercise sufficient control over the Government of the country to prevent their being punished for helping us, they would have served us willingly. Not that I could flatter myself they altogether liked us, but they would have felt it wise in their own interests to meet our requirements; and, besides, the great mass of the people were heartily sick and tired of a long ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... its bathos! And if we must grant that there is some mischievous supreme Farceur who, safely shrouded in invisibility, continues to perpetrate so poor and purposeless a joke for his own amusement and our torture, we need not, for that matter, admire his wit or flatter his ingenuity! For life is nothing but vexation and suffering; are we dogs that we should lick the hand ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... deep or spoon-shaped attached valve, and a flat or flatter free valve. This form, or a modification of it, we find to be characteristic of all pelecypods which are attached to a foreign object of support by the cementation of one valve. All are highly modified, and are strikingly ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... and weep too, till my faith return. Do, flatter me out of my Senses again— a harmless Virgin with a Pox, as much one as t'other, adsheartlikins. Why, what the Devil can I not be safe in my House for you? not in my Chamber? nay, even being naked too cannot secure me. This ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... courage, and a firmness and constancy in virtue, which no fear of worldly powers is ever able to shake, (in Ps. xiv. p. 66.) St. Hilary laments, that even several pastors of the church thought it a part of piety to flatter princes. But true religion teaches us (Matt. x. 28) only to fear things which are justly to be feared, that is, to fear God, to fear sin, or what can hurt our souls: for what threatens only our bodies, this is to be despised, when the interest of God and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... dispute with Spain were amicably settled, of which circumstance I was unacquainted when I left England. I am now compleating my water, and have taken on board full 3 months wine for my compliment, with some fruit and vegetables, and purpose and flatter myself that I shall be able to sail from hence this evening. Inclosed I send the state and condition of His Majesty's Ship Pandora for their Lordships' information, and I have ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... knife into his cursed body, and would, too, if we had been alone in the bush; but I had to smile, and smooth him and flatter, for I feared that he might have me ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... tiger had come to be great friends with the younger wolves of the Pack, who followed him for scraps, a thing Akela would never have allowed if he had dared to push his authority to the proper bounds. Then Shere Khan would flatter them and wonder that such fine young hunters were content to be led by a dying wolf and a man's cub. 'They tell me,' Shere Khan would say, 'that at Council ye dare not look him between the eyes'; and the young wolves would growl ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... and stones!' I says. 'You come inside,' I says, 'and I'll punch your blooming head.' There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came, Bible in hand, after the manner of them—a little sandy chap in specks and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in calico?' for I ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... to refuse. I know well—and I by no means count upon compelling you, my dear monsieur. I will say more, I even understand all the delicacy you feel in taking up with M. Fouquet's idea; you dread appearing to flatter the king. A noble spirit, M. Percerin, a noble spirit!" The tailor stammered. "It would indeed be a very pretty compliment to pay the young prince," continued Aramis; "but as the surintendant told me, 'If Percerin refuse, tell him that it will not at all lower him in my opinion, and I shall ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... a Coffee-House daily bestows! To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd and kiss'd ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and patrons to the seculars. The origin of this partiality must be found in the old-time fight between the bishops and the regular curas—who defend their rights with tenacity; while the natives are submissive and most humble to the prelates and flatter them. Notwithstanding the protection of the bishops, the seculars have generally had a very bad reputation; and many private persons, of every class and in every epoch, have openly declared ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... and to strengthen the southwestern powers of Europe against the infidelity and barbarism of Prussia and Russia. In spite of all that is taking place at Neisse, Austria and Prussia are, and ever will be, enemies. The king and the emperor may flatter and smile, but neither believes what the other says. Frederick will never lose an opportunity of robbing. He ogles Russia, and would gladly see her our 'neighbor,' if by so doing he were to gain an insignificant ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Nat!" laughed the Doctor, "if you flatter me so I shall have to hide my head in a bush like an Ostrich. Birds are people, though of another race from ours, and I am happy if I can make you think so. Ah! we must be near a Redwing's nest—what a commotion the colony ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... did he? He is deeper than I thought would not risk your fortune. Why, Mary, I did not think a girl of your sense could be so taken in! It is transparent, I tell you. They get you there, flatter you up with their attentions, but when they find you too wise for them the first time, off goes this youth to Miss Conway, finds her a bad speculation, no heiress at all, and disposes of her to his cousin. I wonder ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I proposed to represent to her in the most respectful manner; but you will do it infinitely better than I can in this present distraction of mind; and I flatter myself that the mutual esteem and friendship which has continued so many years between Mr. Collins and you, will make you readily embrace whatever tends to honour ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... possible praise of a worthless ingenuity of concealment. If I ever appear to behave thus, it is merely that I follow the course of my own knowledge of myself and my affairs, without any desire to give either the pain or the pleasure of suspense, if indeed I may flatter myself with the hope of interesting her to such a degree that suspense ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... Hermione on their first meeting, is one in which Talma displays very great power: with his heart full of the passion from which he had suffered so much, he begins the declaration of his constancy in the most ardent and impressive manner, and for a time seems to flatter himself, that resentment at the neglect which she had met with from Pyrrhus might have awakened some affection for himself in the breast of Hermione. At first she is anxious to secure Orestes in case that Pyrrhus should ultimately slight her, and ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... respectability of Nyack. Nyack was such a dull, sleepy place when—when we first honored it with our company. See what it now is. My dear husband worked up these low Dutch people so; yes, and he improved their morals. And I flatter myself I have ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... hog, as being mocked by the Mahometans for touching so great an abomination, he had for shame thrown it away. On this the king observed, "By your Christian law there is no difference of meats. Are you ashamed of your law, or do you outwardly forsake it to flatter the Mahometans? I now see that you are neither a good Christian nor a good Mahometan, but a knave dissembling with both. When I believed you sincere, I gave you a pension, which I now take from you for your dissimulation, and I farther ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... her?" cried Hortebise. "Had she not all his letters, and taunted him with the production of them? Ah, my dear friends, do not let us flatter ourselves that we have the sole monopoly of blackmailing. The high-born Countess plunged her hand into the Duke's coffers just as if she had been a mere adventuress. It is only ten days ago that she borrowed—you will observe the entry of it as a loan—a large sum ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... say a word about the money; you are to go on living there without hinting at the money—without showing any desire to discuss the subject—perhaps for months, until there can't be the shadow of a doubt that you are the old woman's cousin. You are to make much of her, flatter her, cocker her up, find out all the family secrets, and get the length of her foot; but you are not to say one single word about the money. As for your manners, I'm not afraid of them, because when you like, you can look and ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... if it can turn its back upon you and ignore you, its back, and nothing else, you will surely see. And this on account of your merits. You really have thoughts. You make combinations of your own. You have freighted your words out of your own mental experience. You do not flatter any of the sects by using their cant. Now, then, be sure that you have got to do finished work, finished in every minutest particular, for years, before your ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... would have persuaded himself, indeed, that he was only humouring the pride of the old Baronet for the purpose of turning it to his own advantage, but his feelings were of a mingled nature, and he felt the influence of those very prejudices which he pretended to flatter. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the highest aim in life; so what can be more admirable or important than a successful exponent of that aim? They don't perceive that they, as a rule, are the dullest of society, though most people court and flatter them on account of their money. They never guess why it's almost impossible for a man to be a money-grinder and good company at ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... life of the American metropolis, sober second thought may have revealed to him what was doubtless a higher wisdom. "Business, public and private, devours my time," he writes in March, 1764. "I must return to England for repose. With such thoughts I flatter myself, and need some kind friend to put me often in mind THAT OLD TREES CANNOT SAFELY BE TRANSPLANTED." Perhaps, after all, Dear Debby was this kind friend; in which case Americans must all, to this day, be much indebted to the ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... Parliamt, and if we will implicitly acknowledge its Right to make Laws binding upon us in all Cases whatever, that is, its absolute Sovereignty over us the Acts we shall them complain of as burdensome to us, shall be repeald, all Grievances redressd, and Administration will flatter us that the right shall never be exercisd but in a Case of absolute necessity which shall be apparent to every judicious man in the Empire. To induce us to be thus submissive beyond the bounds of reason & Safety their Lordships will condescend to be familiar with us and treat us with Cakes ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... she reminded him lightly. "I have a genius for minute and trivial things. The others flatter you by burning incense to your music—and I remember that you take two lumps of sugar in your coffee and one slice of lemon in your tea and that you must have your ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... day of the year, as the emperor was mounting the steps of the temple of the Genius, one of the priests, the eldest of all, fell without any one striking him and suddenly expired; an event which the bystanders, either out of ignorance or a desire to flatter, affirmed was an omen affecting Sallustius, as the elder consul; but it was soon seen that the death it portended was not to the elder man, but to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... appear to flatter humanity its effect is of that character. He would make his readers believe that they are pure, great, and capable beings like those deified by him. The adulation being too great for many who peruse his pages, large ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... forcibly felt by the slave-holding religious professors of Woolman's day, and that it may still be entertained by a class of persons who, like the Cabalists, attach a certain mystical significance to words, names, and titles, and who in consequence question the piety which hesitates to flatter the Divine ear by "vain repetitions" and formal enumeration of sacred attributes, dignities, and offices. Every instinct of his tenderly sensitive nature shrank from the wordy irreverence of noisy profession. His very silence is significant: the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... We cannot flatter ourselves that this is a danger which belongs entirely to the past. There will always be a demand for smooth things, and an appropriate reward for him who is willing to supply them in the name of God. Popularity is a thing which will always be coveted; and under certain ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... "Really," he said, "you flatter me. Will you not try these cigarettes? They are the best; they are made from tobacco grown especially for the Sultan's household, and it is death to export them. I understand that the cigarette habit has grown very much of recent years ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... as you started to address me, as if there existed no common ground of serious thought between them. They condescend, they flatter, they indulge in fulsome compliment, they whisper soft nonsense which they would be sincerely ashamed to utter in the presence of their own sex, they act as if they were amusing babies, rather than conversing with intelligent human beings. Their own notion ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... perhaps be astonished to find, that the Doctor as supposed to flatter himself with the hope that his attentions were not altogether unacceptable to a young lady of singular elegance and personal accomplishments, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... troop commanders, like Snaffle, saved themselves many a deserved wigging by judicious use of blarney. Sterling, straightforward men like Major Stannard, like Sumter, Raymond, and Truscott, of his captains—men who could not fawn and would not flatter—were never Button's intimates. He admired them; he respected them; but down in his heart he did not like them, because they were, in a ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... know the true candid opinion of a man who has travelled about the world, and has been at the diamond-fields. It isn't everybody who has been at the diamond-fields," continued he, thinking that he might thereby flatter his friend. ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... be able to flatter my female soul that at least he forgot the seasoning that night in ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... and a helmet with a tail just like the Jews on the Monument. It was you, Don Sebastian, who had come to Toledo to visit your uncle the beneficiary, and who would not leave without visiting your friend Tomasita. How handsome and smart you were. I do not say it to flatter you, it is truth. You looked like being a rogue with the girls! And I still remember you said something to me about how pretty and fresh you thought me after so many years absence. You don't mind my reminding you of this? Really? It was only a soldier's gallant jests. ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean to flatter them. I hope not;—if I do, set it down as a weakness. But there is so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, draw a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glare of their candelabra, but which have a real respectability ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... encouraging; the whole surface of the sea was completely free from ice, no land was seen in the direction of their course, and no bottom could be reached with one hundred and seventy fathoms of line, so that "we began," observes Captain Parry, "to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of Icy Cape, as a matter of no very difficult or improbable accomplishment. This pleasing prospect ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... "But don't flatter yourself I care, or am jealous, because this scene has humiliated and angered me. You're not worth a moment's jealousy, you ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... bishop. "I think she is happy in these matters. I do flatter myself that she is so. Of course, Miss Dunstable, you are accustomed to things on a ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... you must either speak what is agreeable to their humor, or what is consistent with truth and good morals. Make it a general rule of conduct neither to flatter virtue nor exasperate folly: by flattering virtue, you can not confirm it; by exasperating folly, you can not reform it. Submit, however, to no compromise with truth, but, when it allows, accommodate yourself with honest courtesy ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... age is that it has read itself torpid in the writings which you have written. Why are you, nevertheless, so continually solicitous to amuse this idle people, despite the fact that you know that they have learned nothing and wish to learn nothing? Why do you call them "the Public," flatter them as your judge, stir them up against your rivals, and seek by every means to win this blind and confused mob over to your side? Finally, in your literary reviews and in your magazines, why do you yourselves furnish them with material and example for rash ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... slavery, except when in Ireland. There I heard the same wailing notes, and was much affected by them. It was during the famine of 1845-6. In all the songs of the slaves, there was ever some expression in praise of the great house farm; something which would flatter the pride of the owner, and, possibly, draw ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... men," he rushed in gaily, "get hold of a vast amount of information that people flatter themselves ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... some exiled goddess travelling incognito? If we lived in the 'piping days of Pan' I should flatter myself that 'Ox-eyed Juno' had honored me with a call, as a reward for my care of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... to flatter," said Wendell Phillips, "than how to praise." To flatter is easy, to condemn is easy, but to praise judiciously and discriminatingly is not easy. Extravagant praise defeats itself, as does extravagant blame. A man is rarely overpraised during his own time ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... gives life, but as parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. A teacher is expected to teach truth, and may perhaps flatter himself that he does so, if he stops with the alphabet or the multiplication table, as a mother teaches truth by making her child eat with a spoon; but morals are quite another truth and philosophy is more complex still. A teacher must either treat history as a catalogue, a record, a romance, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... other things are more or less equal. Civilian historians are fond of explaining military results in many other ways, particularly in terms of moral values that will flatter the reader. But a military history, however elementary, is compelled to recognize the truth that normally modern war in Europe has followed the course ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... Europe, His Majesty will receive him again with pleasure, and presumes that Congress will oppose nothing that may be judged expedient to secure the success of his enterprizes. My personal esteem for him induces me to recommend him very particularly to you, Sir, and I dare flatter myself that the reception he will receive from Congress and you, will warrant the sentiments with which ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... "I don't flatter myself that my achievements in the law can be responsible for it," said Austen. "The favour must be due to my relationship ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... like it. Flatter the peasant and you will be almost sure to move him. Say, 'Ah, what a time that was when you had the old wine in your cellars!' He will say, 'Nest-ce pas, monsieur?' and brighten up at the thought of it. Then you will continue: 'Yes, indeed, that was a ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... of somebody else. A newspaper proprietor is a contractor, we are the bricklayers. The more mediocre the man, the better his chance of getting on among mediocrities; he can play the toad-eater, put up with any treatment, and flatter all the little base passions of the sultans of literature. There is Hector Merlin, who came from Limoges a short time ago; he is writing political articles already for a Right Centre daily, and he is at work on our little paper as well. I have seen an editor drop his hat and Merlin ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... came to the throne of these kingdoms with more advantages than any of his predecessors since the Revolution. Fourth in descent, and third in succession of his Royal family, even the zealots of hereditary right, in him, saw something to flatter their favourite prejudices; and to justify a transfer of their attachments, without a change in their principles. The person and cause of the Pretender were become contemptible; his title disowned ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... they may care for you. 'Wriggle yourself into power' he says more than once. That is especially true of women, of whom he always speaks with the true aristocratic contempt. A man of sense will humour them and flatter them; he will never consult them seriously, nor really trust them, but he will make them believe that he does both. They are invaluable as tools, though contemptible in themselves. This, of course, represents the tone too characteristic of the epicurean British nobleman. ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... is true, in their natural language, but the language is subservient to the character; he does not bow the man to the phrase, but the phrase to the man. Neither does he flatter on the one hand, as he does not slight on the other. Unlike the maudlin pastoralists of France he contents himself with the simple truth—he contrasts the dark shadows of Meg Merrilies, or of Edie Ochiltree, with the holy and pure lights that redeem ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... the people in anarchy. The laws we establish will not perhaps be in force at once, but at any rate, having given back the power to the people, they will resist for the sake of their liberty which they will believe they are preserving. We must caress their vanity, flatter their hopes, promise them happiness after our work has been in operation; we must elude their caprices and their systems at will, for the people as legislators are very dangerous, they only establish laws which ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... object are no more than seeming, are still but the same stealthy creeping up under cover of frequent compliances with the breeze that happens to thwart me, towards the one eternal pole of my own self-interest; that is the pole-star which only never sets, and I flatter myself that amidst vast apparent wanderings or multiplied divergences there will be detected by the eye of the philosopher a consistency in family objects which is absolute, a divine ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... to the relative position of clauses, or members; for a weaker assertion should not follow a stronger; and, when the sentence consists of two members, the longer should be the concluding one. Example: "We flatter ourselves with the belief that we have forsaken our passions, when they have forsaken us." Better: "When our passions have forsaken us, we flatter ourselves with the belief that we have forsaken them."—See Blair's Rhet., p. 117; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... when he said, 'Pell,' he said, 'no false delicacy, Pell. You're a man of talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, Pell; and your country should be proud of you.' Those were his very words. 'My lord,' I said, 'you flatter me.' 'Pell,' he said, 'if I ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... excitement and fatigue, at four o'clock in the morning retired to his chamber for a few hours of sleep. He was so far deceived as to flatter himself that, through the measures which had been adopted, all serious trouble was at an end. He slept soundly, and did not rise until eleven o'clock, when he came down to the breakfast-room in morning-gown and slippers, and with a smiling countenance. Here appalling tidings met ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... a part of our being; therefore when you are behaving yourself like a true man, do not flatter yourself that you are doing any superhuman feat. And do not, as some do, have a sort of stupid contempt for people who respect truth, honesty, and purity, people who work hard at school, never insult their ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... "I began to flatter myself she was getting strength. But the change to frost has told upon her; she suffers more of late. Still her illness has none of the fearful rapid symptoms which appalled in Emily's case. Could she only get over the spring, I hope summer may do much for her, and then ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... like the hen, only her legs are shorter and her body flatter. Her feathers are very thick, and next her skin she has a coat of soft down, which helps to keep ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... a cloak and there was a man's hat on her head, but Wiley knew her—it was Virginia Huff. The moon had mounted high and the chill of the morning was in the air, so he could hardly flatter himself that she had come to see him. Perhaps it was just to see the mine. But if, beneath that cloak, she carried some instrument of destruction—he stepped out and watched her covertly. She tiptoed up the ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... Helen, trying to be calm. "In a way, I don't care for Bob; that is, I'm glad I didn't marry him. But I don't see why I should stop him coming here when Sadie wants to bring him. She's my friend, and she knows it does Bob good. I'm too angry to flatter you, Stephen, ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... his soul never come into hell. And yet was he to me the moste shrew;* *cruel, ill-tempered That feel I on my ribbes all *by rew,* *in a row And ever shall, until mine ending day. But in our bed he was so fresh and gay, And therewithal so well he could me glose,* *flatter When that he woulde have my belle chose, Though he had beaten me on every bone, Yet could he win again my love anon. I trow, I lov'd him better, for that he Was of his love so dangerous* to me. *sparing, difficult We women ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... were successively placed on his head by the most eminent of the Roman clergy; they represented the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost; and he still professed to imitate the example of the ancient tribunes. [401] These extraordinary spectacles might deceive or flatter the people; and their own vanity was gratified in the vanity of their leader. But in his private life he soon deviated from the strict rule of frugality and abstinence; and the plebeians, who were awed by the splendor of the nobles, were ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Constantinople, could be taken at last, probably never left the minds of the leading Goths after the battle of Adrianople. The altered policy of the Caesars was enough of itself to keep that idea alive. So far from expelling them from the country which they had seized, the new Emperor began to flatter and to ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... the constable. He was then thirty years old; Louise of Savoy was forty-five, but she was still beautiful, attractive, and puissant; she had given the constable unmistakable proofs of her inclination for him and of the influence which his inclinations exercised over her: she might well flatter herself that he would be attracted by the prospect of becoming the king's step-father and almost a sharer in the kingly power, whilst retaining that of the great feudal lord. The chancellor, Duprat, full ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... if not heard outside of Italy than in its native country. It was only where it could be purely conventional as well as ideal that it could achieve its greatest triumphs. It had to make a hard fight for its primacy among the amusements that flatter the pride as well as charm the sense. You remember how the correspondents of Mr. Spectator wrote to him in scorn of the affected taste of 'the town' when the town in London first began to forsake the theatre and ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... the shelf, I find I cannot read half a page connectedly; otherwise I am perfectly content that it should be so. Impersonal things—Nature, Music—have perhaps strengthened their hold on me; because they flatter my selfishness, so to speak, they are always in tune with my heart. Gabriel more than makes up for my degeneracy; of course that should be, seeing that he has taken unto ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... the kind. But there's no use denying the existence of social classes in this city, and that, though I flatter myself you and I are trying to make the most of our lives in accordance with the talents and means at our disposal, we are not and are not likely to become, for the present at any rate, socially prominent. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Reformation,[20]I desire to know whether the conduct of the clergy was anyways altered for the better, &c." Monstrous misrepresentation. Does this man's spirit of declaiming let him forget all truth of fact, as here, &c.? Shew it. Or doth he flatter himself, a time will come in future ages, that men will believe it on his word? In short, between declaiming, between misrepresenting, and falseness, and charging Popish things, and independency huddled together, his whole book ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... in the European. The arch of the instep, the perfect conformation of which is essential to steadiness and ease of gait, is less elevated in the former than in the latter. The foot is thereby rendered flatter as well as longer, more nearly resembling the monkey's, between which and the European there is a marked difference in this particular."—From "A Treatise on the Human Skeleton" by Dr. Humphry, Lecturer on Surgery and Anatomy in the Cambridge University ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... just the tint of your skin," he said, "that gives these pearls their beautiful lustre. They ought not to flatter themselves that it ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... other popular assemblies; it was critical, exacting, intellectual, in a still higher degree. No audience has been more swayed by passion; none has been less swayed by the pretence of it. Always accessible to flattery, Athens counts as her two greatest orators the two men who never stooped to flatter her. The regal tones of Pericles, the prophetic earnestness of Demosthenes, in the response which each met, bear witness to the greatness of those who heard them. Even Cleon owed his greatest triumphs to the plainness ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... "You flatter my Castilian accent. I have the honour to be Irish. You were thinking that a miracle had happened. So it has—a miracle wrought by my ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... measure of most importance in effecting this, would be to take care that she did not marry. In his first passion, after his father's death, he had been rough and cruel to her; but he soon changed his conduct, and endeavoured to flatter her into docility at one moment, and to frighten her into obedience in ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... The old she-wolf is always moving; she never tires; she tramps along all the hollows in the Black Forest. We must not flatter ourselves with vain hopes. If, perhaps, she has stopped on her journey, so much the better for us; and if she still keeps going, we won't let that discourage us. Come on at ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... the generals and addressed them: "Xenias and 8 Pasion," he said, "have taken leave of us; but they need not flatter themselves that in so doing they have stolen into hiding. I know where they are gone; nor will they owe their escape to speed; I have men-of-war to capture their craft, if I like. But heaven help me! if I mean to pursue them: never shall it be said of me, that I turn people to account ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... to know every man's thumbscrew." I suppose you know that a thumbscrew was an instrument of torture used in old times to force confessions from criminals. This advice means nothing less than that we should learn how to be be able to hurt other men's feelings, or to flatter other men's weaknesses. "First guess every man's ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of will." The term "give checkmate" is taken from the game of chess, and must here be understood ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... on its way, And her wing the wagtail dippeth, Running by the brink at play; When the poplar leaves atremble Turn their edges to the light, And the far-up clouds resemble Veils of gauze most clear and white; And the sunbeams fall and flatter Woodland moss and branches brown. And the glossy finches chatter Up and down, up and down: Though the heart be not attending, Having music of her own, On the grass, through meadows wending, It ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... drunkard on Division street, and said that if he should happen to get drunk Monday night and Hatch should happen to arrest him, he would give the drunkard five dollars if the drunkard would mash Frank's new hat. The fellow said he would flatten it flatter than flatness itself. Just after dark Mr. Hatch was walking down Third street, "Whoop, hurrah for Tilden, (hic) 'endrix." The remark seemed so out of place that Frank went down there. The man was lying on the sidewalk, and telling the barrel to roll over and not take up all the bed. Mr. Hatch ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... tell him he hates flatter{ers}, He says he does, being then most flattered." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... exclaimed, in an angry voice, pointing with his outstretched arm to the easy-chair, "do not flatter me in this room. I wish I had known Frederick the Great, for I believe we should have ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... church, to which we paid a second visit early in the forenoon. We found it where we left it the night before, lifting its tower from the brink of the Witham, and looking far out over the flat land to a sea no flatter. The land seems indeed, like so much English coast, merely the sea come ashore, and turned into fens for the greater convenience of the fishermen, whom, with the deeper sea sailors, we saw about the town, lounging through the crooked streets, ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... abuse his brother, and to flatter Cais with expressions of admiration all the way, until in the evening they arrived at the tribe of Fazarah. Hadifah, who at the moment was surrounded by many powerful chiefs, upon whose aid he depended in ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... dying of hunger? I suppose I should have listened to opinions as much to the purpose as the tinkle of broken glass or the interpretation of dreams. By Hercules, you are much more deserving of censure than I, you who will flatter a poet so as to get an invitation to dinner!" Then we laughed ourselves out of a most disgraceful quarrel, and approached more peaceably whatever remained to be done. But the remembrance of that injury recurred to my mind and, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... enough," he said impatiently, "though you will never look pretty nor lady-like in anything. So don't flatter yourself, nor aspire to imitate others who can. I suppose now, Miss Graystone," turning to Clemence, "you think I don't want my wife to dress as well as others on account of the expense; but, although I commenced poor, and have been obliged to save ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Rights-of-labour-knot of vagabonds who meet at Geneva. Your boy is not too wise to keep himself out of these scrapes, and he is just, by name and station, of consequence enough to make these fellows make up to and flatter him. Give him a sound fright, then, and when he is thoroughly alarmed about his failure, send him abroad for a short tour, let him go study at Halle or Heidelberg—anything, in short, that will take him away from Ireland, and break ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... "I don't want him to flatter himself over having run the whole fiesta, no! Let me speak! Let ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... already. In a frontier democracy, military and civil officers are directly dependent upon popular approval, not only for their offices, but for what they are able to accomplish while filling them. They are therefore generally extremely sensitive to either praise or blame. Ambitious men flatter and bow to popular prejudice or opinion, and only those of genuine power and self-reliance dare to withstand it. Williamson was physically a fairly brave officer and not naturally cruel; but he was weak and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... is only a British man-of-war, which takes us for a slaver, or perhaps for an enemy's cruiser; for the 'Arrow,' I flatter myself, doesn't look like an ordinary trader," ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... and sister know nothing of what you have undergone. Had they, their suffering and alarm would have been great. But do not flatter yourself that the arrest of Count Monte-Leone is unknown to them. One of the Neapolitan papers informed them yesterday of that fact; and I do not hide from you, that in my presence, your mother deplored your unfortunate intimacy with ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... to be allowed to sell what isn't his own. He thinks that when he has thrown half an eye over a country he can improve it by altering all the wisdom of ages. A man talks and talks, and others listen to him till they flatter him that another God Almighty has been sent upon earth." It was thus that Tom Daly expressed himself as to the Prime Minister of the day; but Tom was a benighted Tory, and had thought nothing of these subjects till they were driven into his mind by the strange ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... she cried, checking with a gesture his flow of unexpected eloquence. "I declare! you are not so slow as you seem. I will tell you just how much of a sorceress I am. I thought to flatter you by saying a great lady had given you the ring, and lo, I was right unless you are adroitly leading me to believe in my own sorcery. Is she a great lady? Come, tell me ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... "I flatter myself I made her squeal and run!" smirked Prissie. "It just serves her right! I was longing for a chance to get ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... in this respected audience whose mind is in such voluntary slavery as to induce the adoption of such a course. I see before me minds which sparkle in every look, and thoughts which are ever active, to acquire what is true, and adopt what is useful. And I flatter myself that the time spent in the investigation of the science of language will not ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... ladder, shifting it here and there across the vast white background of canvas, drawing great meaningless lines in distant expanses of the texture, then, always consulting her with his keen, impersonal gaze, he pushed back his ladder, mounted, wiped the big brushes, selected others smaller and flatter, considering her in penetrating silence between ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... same time I do not wish, in paying my homage to the other sex, and in glorifying its possible power over ours, to be confounded with those thoughtless and trivial rhetoricians who flatter woman with a false lip worship; and, like Lord Byron's buccaneers, hold out to them a picture of their own empire, built only upon sensual or upon shadowy excellences. We find continually a false enthusiasm, a mere bacchanalian inebriation, on behalf of woman, put forth by ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... because in greatnesse and partly in shape they are like to the beanes in England, sauing that they are flatter, of more diuers colours, and some pide. The leafe also of the stemme is much different. In taste they are altogether as good as ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... accoutrements, particularly the arms—curious in themselves, and to which the friendship of the donors gave additional value. Lady Emily undertook to find some suitable token of remembrance, likely to flatter the vanity and please the taste of Mrs. Williams; and the Colonel, who was a kind of farmer, promised to send the Ullswater patriarch an excellent team of horses for cart ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... proceedings until, say, eleven o'clock. Also, he meant to present his conduct to his father in the light of an enterprising and fearless action showing a marked aptitude for affairs. Mr Enoch Peake, whom his father was anxious to flatter, had desired his father's company at the Dragon, and, to save the situation, Edwin had courageously gone instead: that ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the first good living that falls to my disposal, had he stopped to have taken care of me I would never have given him any thing:" his grace being delighted with an ardour similar to his own, or with a spirit that would not stoop to flatter. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... danger of our overrating or overstating the important part which we are now acting in human affairs. It should not flatter our personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues, and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense, both of our privileges and of our duties. We cannot wish better for our country, nor for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may influence all ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... service, madame," returned her companion, with a low bow. "As for my returning from the unknown shore, why, you flatter me in imagining that I have so much power, though I have been known to do some miraculous things before now. I am sorry that so many of my friends believe the ridiculous story that was set afloat regarding my supposed ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey |
