"Flout" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Whidden had a passion For eating of his iron ration— A thing, you know, which isn't done (Except, just now and then, for fun), Because there is a rule about it And decent people rarely flout it. But Tom was greedy and each day He'd put a tin or two away, Though duty told him, clear and plain, To keep them safe as brewers' grain, For eating as a last resort When eatables were running short. His Corporal said, "My lad, don't do it!" His Sergeant groaned, "I'm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... too big a devil," they said, "to care a fig for any man. She would laugh in the face of the mightiest lady-killer in London, and flout him as if he were a mercer's apprentice or a plough-boy. He does not live who ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... phrase The "Common Sense" of things could settle, That with a stroke could slay a craze, And folly lash with flail of nettle. Who now will thunder in the Times Against the Socialistic Rad's tone? Who'll flout the cant and check the crimes Of him, ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... march, Footman standing stiff as starch; Savans, lorettes, deputies, Arch- Bishops, and there together range Sous-lieutenants and cent-gardes (strange Way these soldier-chaps make change), Mixed with black-eyed Polish dames, With unpronounceable awful names; Laces tremble and ribbons flout, Coachmen wrangle and gendarmes shout— Bless us! what is the row about? Ah! here comes Rosy's new turnout! Smart! You bet your life 'twas that! Nifty! (short for magnificat). Mulberry panels,—heraldic spread,— Ebony wheels picked out with red, And two gray mares that were thoroughbred: ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... and consecration, which would make our defense impregnable, our triumph assured. Then we should have little or no disorganization of our economic, industrial, and commercial systems at home, no staggering war debts, no swollen fortunes to flout the sacrifices of our soldiers, no excuse for sedition, no pitiable slackerism, no outrage of treason. Envy and jealousy would have no soil for their menacing development, and revolution would be without the passion which ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... and now, during the last three days, since the tale of my misfortune with the cocks has got wind, almost everybody has left off coming to the house, and the few who does, merely comes to insult and flout me. It was only last night that fellow, Hunter, called me an old fool in my own kitchen here. He wouldn't have called me a fool a fortnight ago; 'twas I called him fool then, and last night he called me old fool; what do you think of that? the man that beat Tom of Hopton, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... knots faster than they intend," said Henry. "When Roger Mortimer took Simon's doings in wrath, and vowed that his sister should never wed a Montfort, he knew not what he did. He and his proud wife could flout and scorn my Isabel—they might not break her faith to me. Thou knowst, perhaps, Richard, since thou art hand and glove with our foes, that like a raven to the slaughter, the Lady Mortimer came as near the battle-field as ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... port and its brooding solitude with religious veneration. Then he recalled the miraculous stories with which his mother used to lull him to sleep—the great miracle wrought upon these waters by a servant of God to flout the hardened sinners. Saint Raymond of Penafort, a virtuous and austere monk, became indignant with King Jaime of Majorca who was basely enamored of a certain lady, Dona Berenguela, and who remained deaf to holy counsels. The friar determined to abandon ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... drove about and he made some purchases of bric-a-brac for his house in Hartford, with a soul as far away from bric-a-brac as ever the soul of man was. He went home by an early train, and he lost no time in writing back to the three divine personalities which he had so involuntarily seemed to flout. They all wrote back to him, making it as light for him as they could. I have heard that Emerson was a good deal mystified, and in his sublime forgetfulness asked, Who was this gentleman who appeared ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... There is no disgrace attached to laying down a dollar here and there—we all do it. That is part of our amusement, in Benton." She halted. "You are game, sir? What is life but a series of chances? Are you disposed to win a little and flout the danger of losing?" ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... "Look for the truth in everything, and follow it, and you will then be living justly before God. Let nothing flout your sense of a Supreme Being, and be certain that your understanding wavers whenever you chance to doubt that He leads to good. We grow to good as surely as the plant grows to the light. Do not lose the habit of praying to the unseen Divinity. Prayer for worldly goods is worse than fruitless, ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... Vanderschoffeldt flout, And swear and rave for sour krout; Nay kick his frow with solemn phiz, To make her feel how goot it ish. Yet after he has gorg'd his maw With puttermilks and goot olt slaw, Let him remember times are such, The French have Holland, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... with horses was remarkable. No animal that man has broken to his use is keener to recognize a master and flout a coward than the horse. No coward has ever been able to do ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... show them," he thought proudly. "Them" was the town-folk, and what he would show them was what a big man he was. For, like most scorners of the world's opinion, Gourlay was its slave, and showed his subjection to the popular estimate by his anxiety to flout it. He was not great enough for the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... but what Hugo Ennis he's been mostly all right, fur's we know," acknowledged Phil Prouty of the section gang. "But then he warn't brought up in these here parts an' he can't be allowed to flout the morals o' this community in any sich way. If it's like we fears, the gal'll have ter pack off an' him promise ter behave or leave the country. Them's my ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... she come to him? How dared she, after what she had done? Was this fresh affrontery? Had she come again to flout him? To stand within the protection which her sex afforded and vivisect anew his tired soul? But, whatever her motives, this girl did the most daring things he had ever ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Nellie escaped so much better than many of her friends, that in time she seemed to forget it and didn't rebel at Malcolm's advent, or Elizabeth's, but by that time I had been practically ostracized from the nursery; governesses were empowered to flout and insult me; I scarcely saw my children, and what I did see made me furious, so I vetoed more orphans bearing my name, and gave up doing anything. Then came the tragedy of Elizabeth. Surely you understand 'just how' it was ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of Abrupt Transition, I think that Manet was notable—but that his approximation was held down by his intense relativity to the public—or that it is quite as impositive to flout and insult and defy as it is to crawl and placate. Of course, Manet began with continuity with Courbet and others, and then, between him and Manet there were mutual influences—but the spirit of abrupt difference is ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... dear, utterly; and nothing you give me would have that sense: I know you too well to think it. But in the face of the present fashion (and to flout it), which expects the lover to give in this sort, and the beloved to show herself a dazzling captive, let me cherish my ritual of opposition which would have no meaning if we were in a world of our own, and no place in my thoughts, dearest;—as it has not now, ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... no man flout, The wisest Kings have all some folly; Nor let his piety any doubt; Charles, like a Sov'reign, wise and holy, Makes young men judges of the bench, And bishops, those that love ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... smile Of cunning in her eyes. Then Thomas Rhodes, Who ruled the church and ruled the bank as well, Made known his disapproval of the maid; And all Spoon River whispered and the eyes Of all the church frowned on her, till she knew They feared her and condemned. But them to flout She gave a dance to viols and to flutes, Brought from Peoria, and many youths, But lately made regenerate through the prayers Of zealous preachers and of earnest souls, Danced merrily, and sought her in the dance, Who wore a dress so low of neck that eyes Down ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... matter of the Regency Bill as if the dearest wish of his heart were to flout the King's wishes and to wound his feelings. The King wished, lest he should again be stricken with illness while the heir-apparent was still an infant, to be given the right to name a regent by ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... then the hour of that people's decay and doom hast struck. On this anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let us remember and vow never to forget that when it becomes general or popular among us, as it has become common, to flout at the Declaration and its principles; whenever the nation commits itself to courses which for the sake of consistency and respectability invite and compel its disparagement; when our politics does not match our poetry and cannot be sung; when Washington and Jefferson ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... regions; Where, in the eighteen-penny gallery, Irish nymphs learn Irish raillery. But thy merit is thy failing, And thy raillery is railing. Thus with talents well endued To be scurrilous and rude; When you pertly raise your snout, Fleer and gibe, and laugh and flout; This among Hibernian asses For sheer wit and humour passes. Thus indulgent Chloe, bit, Swears you have a world ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... in their graves. As it did not appear till 1621, the men of his own time were not able to enjoy the shout of laughter over his discomfiture which would surely have gone up from Paris and Strasburg and Basel and Zurich. Estienne and Gessner would hardly have felt acute sorrow at a flout put upon Julius Caesar Scaliger. Crooked-tempered as he was, Cardan, compared with Scaliger, was as a rose to a thistle, but there were reasons altogether unconnected with the personalities of the disputants which swayed the balance to Cardan's advantage. The greater part of Scaliger's criticism ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... "For God's sake, don't flout the Almighty in that wicked manner! If you would only be baptized and take refuge in prayer, as every Christian should, you would find peace ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... my attitude? Nay, not a bit of it! Like JOAN'S true DARBY I'm "always the same." Parties may flout, but I can't see the wit of it; Surely they ought to be fly to my game. Such "disquisitions" are strangely unfortunate, Pain us extremely, delighting our foes; Worry one too, like a busy, importunate ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... shook the bog. Amongst the reeds the tremblers fled: Till one more bold advanc'd his head, And saw the monarch of the flood Lying half smothered in the mud. He calls the croaking race around: "A wooden king!" the banks resound. Fear once remov'd they swim about him, And gibe and jeer and mock and flout him; And messengers to Jove depute, Effectively to grant their suit. A hungry stork he sent them then, Who soon had swallow'd half the fen. Their woes scarce daring to reveal, To Mercury by night they steal, And beg him to entreat of Jove The ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... our stores were full as usual, I asked the Lord, that He would be pleased to put it into their hearts to put money into the boxes: and this sum I found in them this evening.—Yesterday it was necessary to purchase ten sacks of flout, which, being just now twice as dear as darning the last years, cost 27l. 10s.; and this day it was needful to spend 8l. 1s. 2d. for smith's work. How kind, therefore, of the Lord to have sent me today, yesterday, and the afternoon of the day ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... was dumfoundered by this obstinacy. It was unheard of—absolutely without parallel in his domestic annals—that one of his children should actually flout him! yes! actually flout him with such ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... and ostrich feather. Neighbour Foster and I felt as two crows might do who have wandered among the peacocks. Yet we bare in mind in whose image we were fashioned, and we carried ourselves, I trust, as independent English burghers. His Grace of Buckingham had his flout at us, and Rochester sneered, and the women simpered; but we stood four square, my friend and I, discussing, as I well remember, the most precious doctrines of election and reprobation, without giving much heed either to those who mocked us, or to the gamesters upon our left, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that shut me out Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win, We drew a circle that took ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... Modest in speech but nowise slack in deed, Actor, his brother of whom last I spake, Who will not let a tongue without an arm Within our gates rave to our overthrow, Nor entrance give the foe, who on his shield To flout us bears the hated effigy. His Sphynx, midst rattling darts, will hardly thank Him that advanced her to our battlements.— Heaven grant that as I say the event ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... week; she cultivated grand passions for actors, authors, musicians, and even for professors. Sometimes she played to select audiences with all her old ravishing skill, but this happened more and more rarely, until at last she utterly declined, and even went so far as to flout H.S.H. the Duke of KALBSKOPF, who had been specially invited to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... not let me rouse your phlegmatic blood, my Britons; sit down, with your thumbs in your mouths, my masters, and allow a coterie to flout you at will, whilst the Frenchmen, the Germans, the Russians alternately laugh at and pity you. Pity you, the sons of the men who chased their fathers half over Europe at the point of the blood-red bayonet! Have you ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... surely die! But thy mother, with her tears, has made my vengeance fly I thought of my own, Pascal, who died so long ago. Care thou for thine! And now fear nought from me, I trow, Eden is coming down to earth for thee, no doubt, But I, whom henceforth men can only hate and flout, Will to the wars away! For in me something saith I may recover from my rout, Better than by a crime! Ay! by a soldier's death!" Thus saying, Marcel vanished, loudly cheered on every side; And then with deepening blushes the twain each other eyed, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... sung sometime my thoughts and fancy's pleasure, Where I did list, or time served best and leisure; While Daphne did invite me To supper once, and drank to me to spite me. I smiled, but yet did doubt her, And drank where she had drunk before, to flout her; But, O! while I did eye her, Mine eyes drank love, my lips ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... captures; and they were good landlords, good masters blithely followed to the wars. Sing an old battle of Normandy, Picardy, Gascony, and you celebrate deeds of theirs. At home they were vexatious neighbours to a town of burghers claiming privileges: nor was it unreasonable that the Earl should flout the pretensions of the town to read things for themselves, documents, titleships, rights, and the rest. As well might the flat plain boast of seeing as far as the pillar. Earl and town fought the fight of Barons and Commons in epitome. The Earl gave way; the Barons gave way. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... foolish myself, and one whom Democritus may not only laugh at but flout, if I go one foot further in the discovery of the follies and madnesses of the common people. I'll betake me to them that carry the reputation of wise men and hunt after that golden bough, as says the proverb. Among whom the grammarians hold the first place, a generation of ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... offer sacrifice; Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high; Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies; The shouts ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... not only material and external, but psychological not only touching what others might do or what might happen to them, but raising also speculation as to what he might do, or what might happen to him at his own hands; for example, how far he would flout authority, defy the usual, and deny the accepted. The love of rebellion, of making foolish the wisdom of the wise, of hampering the orderly and inexorable treatment of people just as, according to the best modern lights, they ought to be treated, this lawless ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... wouldst view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight: For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild but to flout the ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... come near thee if he didn't," answered Dickon. "Birds is rare choosers an' a robin can flout a body worse than a man. See, he's making up to thee now. 'Cannot tha' see a chap?' ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... throng Breasted the pulsing air with mocking song. "Alas," she said, "could ye not give one kiss— One tender clasp of hands! And must I miss Your throbbing hearts from my cold, barren breast, Ye soulless ones, that flout my lonely rest?" ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... vogue of its own in the public prints. Furthermore, Lady Diantha Mainwaring was moderately the talk of the town, in those prim, remotely ante-bellum days—thanks to high spirits and a whimsical tendency to flout the late Victorian proprieties; something which, however, had yet to lead her into any prank perilous ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... think this performance sufficiently binding, and binding no doubt it was from a moral point of view, so long as there was reasonably good behaviour on either side, or so long as neither Silius nor Marcia's father was prepared wantonly to flout general opinion or to offend a whole connection by simply changing his mind. On the other hand, there was no legal compulsion whatever to carry out the contract. The Roman world knew nothing of actions for breach of promise. If either party chose to repudiate the ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... of that power which ordains life and all its privileges and abolishes all the noisesomeness of death. Alive, he nourishes, comforts, consoles, corrects us. Dead, all that is mortal he transforms into ethereal and vital gases. Obey him, and he blesses; flout ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... lady-smocks In silver frocks Do flout the sonsy clover; The humble bee Consorts wi' me And hails me for ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... always is, of course. Against every kind of authority, but particularly against bishops. He's always got his knife into them, and I dare say he's glad of the chance of flouting them. High Church parsons are, aren't they? I expect if you were a bit higher you'd flout them too. And if you were a bit lower, the C.G.'d take you as a padre. You're just the wrong height, old thing, that's what's ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull Is as empty of brains as a ladle; While F is F sharp, and will cry with a carp, That he's known your best joke from his cradle! When your humour they flout, You can't let yourself go; And it does put you out When a person says, "Oh! I have known that old joke ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... than they should and would like to swill more than they do, they spoil the wine with unwelcome and untimely disquisitions, and they cannot carry their liquor. The ordinary people who are present naturally flout them, and are revolted by the philosophy which breeds ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... be a barer America. In spite of our brood of special magazines for the literati and the advanced, which Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer praises so warmly, we are not so well provided with the distributive machinery for a national culture as to flout a recognized agency with a gesture and a sneer. But the family magazine has undeniably lost its vigorous appeal, and must be reinvigorated. The malady is due to no slackening of literary virility in the country; indeed there has probably not been so much literary energy in the country ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... not their words, but would frown and flout, and go back to his companions, and lead them. And his companions followed him, for he was fair, and fleet of foot, and could dance, and pipe, and make music. And wherever the Star-Child led them they followed, and whatever the Star-Child bade them do, ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... have pressed it openly and been repulsed," she replied in a low voice. "But if he could have carried me to some far fortress, how should I flout him there, that is, if I still lived? There, with no price to pay in gold or lands or power, he would have been my master, and I should have been his slave till such time as he wearied of me. That is the fate from which you have saved ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... those who misname themselves "evangelical" and flout their new-found liberty: Have you put down the tyranny of the Pope and obtained liberty in Christ through the Anabaptists and other fanatics? Or have you obtained your freedom from us who preach faith in Christ Jesus? If there is any honesty left in them they will have to confess that ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... for Interpreter's fee is but a trifle; and I can tell thee, that if by mischance thou shouldst come to lose thy way in the Fair, thou mayst chance to be very roughly handled. There is always a scum of villains there on the outlook to decoy strangers, and, if they will not consent to be cheated, to flout and mock them with gibes and scurril jests. 'Twas but the other day they put Truepenny into the STOCKS, and kept him there till he thought he should never get out again; and he only did get out by parting with all the ready money he had. I pray thee, neighbour, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... husband came, And moaned, "Why did you flout her? Well could I do without her! For both our burdens ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... came forward from the town to flout us with an address of welcome in which he used not our incognitos ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... knew, though I was then but a lad, that she would never give over fretting herself at the thought that I was to be lord of all the broad acres and wide moors of Beechcot, and that Jasper would be but a landless man. And so, though she never dare flout or oppress me in any way, for fear of Sir Thurstan's displeasure, she, without being openly unfavorable, wasted no love on me, and no doubt often wished me ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... not involving sums of more than twenty thousand livres, as well as all criminal cases of the third order (estate). The representations of the provincial assembly of Dauphiny severely criticised the impropriety of this measure. "The ministers," they said, "have not been afraid to flout the third estate, whose life, honor, and property no longer appear to be objects worthy of the sovereign courts, for which are reserved only the causes of the rich and the crimes of the privileged." The number of members of the Parliament ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... butterfly child of the city, All blind to the glory of earth and of skies? Is it fate, or ill fortune, hath woven about you Strong meshes which ye are too helpless to break? Shall we scornfully wonder, or angrily flout you, Or strive from their ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... knight. Nay, stay not gazing thus: it is Garcia, Whose name hath reach'd thee long ere now, I trow; Whom thou hast met in deadly fight full oft, When France and Spain join'd in the battle field. Beyond the Pyrenean boundary That guards thy land, are forty thousand men: Their unfurl'd pennons flout fair France's sun, And wanton in the breezes of her sky: Impatient halt they there; their foaming steeds, Pawing the huge and rock-built barrier, That bars their further course—they wait for thee: For thee whom France hath injur'd and cast off; For thee, whose blood it pays with shameful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... spring at once from schoolroom's form. Instead of all this angry storm, Another might have thanked you well For saving prey from that grim cell, That hollowed den 'neath journals great, Where editors who poets flout With their demoniac laughter shout. And I have scolded you! What fate For charming dwarfs who never meant To anger Hercules! And I Have frightened you!—My chair I sent Back to the wall, and then let fly ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... you to flout me?— Was he not my betrothed, that noble Irish knight? For his sword a blessing I sought; for me only he fought. When he was murdered no honor fell. In that heartfelt misery my vow was framed; if no man remained to right it, I, a maid, must needs requite it.— Weak and maimed, when ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... extolled by every lip. Perhaps she, like many others, had misread the essay 'Of Love,' and felt herself bound in honor to bring the philosopher to his knees at her feet. It is credible that from the outset of their sentimental intercourse, she intended to win and then to flout him. But coquetry cannot conquer the first laws of human feeling. To be a good flirt, a woman must have nerve and a sympathetic nature; and doubtless the flirt in this instance paid for her triumph with the smart of a lasting wound. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... said she; "you would be finely put to shame, and so would I be, if you took a goose-girl for your wife! Go and ask one of the great ladies you will see to-night at the King's ball, and do not flout ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... consider'd which was better, To send it back, or burn the letter. But guessing that it might import, 355 Though nothing else, at least her sport, She open'd it, and read it out, With many a smile and leering flout: Resolv'd to answer it in kind, And thus ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... two of the clan went to raise Hunter, and get him to fight, but it was no go; though he was not killed, he had had enough for that evening. Oh, I wish you had seen my customers; those who did not belong to the clan, but who had taken part with them, and helped to jeer and flout me, now came and shook me by the hand, wishing me joy, and saying as, how 'I was a brave fellow, and had served the bully right!' As for the clan, they all said Hunter was bound to do me justice; so they made him pay ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... see you lost to the good cause of your country, and to the altars of her gods; for who can love his country, and deny the gods who made and preserve it? But then who am I to condemn? When I see the gods to hurl thunderbolts upon those who flout them, it will be time enough for us mortals to assume the robes of judgment. I will hope that farther thought will reclaim you from ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... chorus ended, but you hear an occasional "Katy-did" and finally as late as Indian Summer, which is Hallowe'en, I have heard the last of the fiddlers rasp out "she did"; and do it in daytime, too, as though to flout the followers of Cicada. And, if the last word be truth, as they say, we may consider it settled, that Katy really and truly did. And yet I believe next year the same dispute will arise, and we shall have the ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... vanquished it. Mandarins are wont to assert that the dramatist is also handicapped by the necessity for rigid economy in the use of material. This is not so. Rigid economy in the use of material is equally advisable in every form of art. If it is a necessity, it is a necessity which all artists flout from time to time, and occasionally with gorgeous results, and the successful dramatist has hitherto not been less guilty of flouting it than the novelist or any ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... discourse ought to be as a field, without coming home to any man. I knew two noblemen, of the west part of England, whereof the one was given to scoff, but kept ever royal cheer in his house; the other would ask of those that had been at the other's table, "Tell truly, was there never a flout or dry blow given?" To which the guest would answer, "Such and such a thing passed." The lord would say, "I thought he would mar a good dinner." Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... not what restraint it took To mind my etiquette, nor flout it By telling you I know that book, And asking what you thought ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... Liberals! though now you scorn and flout us, Full soon within St Stephen's walls you'll fare but ill without us; No more to us for succour come, for when you most would have it, It will not be forthcoming from ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... old Gascon suggests that it is the part of wisdom to give your affection to one who is both plain and elderly—one who is not suffering from a surfeit of love, and one whose head has not been turned by flattery. "Young women," says the philosopher, "demand attention as their right and often flout the giver; whereas ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... thy dart! come, death, when I bid thee! Mors, veni: veni, mors! and from this misery rid me; She whom I lov'd—whom I lov'd, even she—my sweet pretty Mary, Doth but flout and mock, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Who knew how many more there were on their voyage here? From that hour France, on the one hand, and England on the other, receded, and the American Government regained its position and its power. . . . Now, shall we flout the Russian Government in every court in Europe for her friendship? Whoever of the representatives of the American people in this House, on this question, turns his back, not only upon his duty, but upon the friends of his country, upon the Constitution of his Government, and the honor ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the dreamy rush Of the rain: Touch not the marring doubt Words bring, to the certainty Of its soft refrain, But let the flying fringes flout Their gouts against the pane, And the gurgling throat of the water-spout Groan in the ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... should remain," he said; "the girls flout and laugh at my 'sea-saw ways,' as they call them; and though Barbara is a trim craft, well-built and rigged too, yet her quiet smile is worse to me than the grinning of the others. I'll stay nowhere to be both frightened and scouted: the Captain engaged ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... has such a kind heart that she can't bear to see any one suffer without trying to help and comfort them," said the specious Jeanne. "Now I am of quite a different mind—nothing I would like better than to flout a sentimental suitor; fine words would not gain any favour with me—I should ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... laws of privacy," said Farrow simply. "Which neither side can afford to flout overtly. Furthermore, since neither side really knew where you were, they've been busily prowling one another's camps and locking up the prowlers from one another's camps, and playing spy and counterspy and counter-counterspy, and ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... the circle - they will square it Some fine day; Then the little pigs they're teaching For to fly; And the niggers they'll be bleaching By-and-by! Each newly joined aspirant To the clan Must repudiate the tyrant Known as Man; They mock at him and flout him, For they do not care about him, And they're "going to do ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... here her birth doe disdaine, Her father is ready, with might and with maine, To proove shee is come of noble degree: Therfore never flout att prettye Bessee." ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... Jove, shall he escape me? Shall he mock My queenship? He, an alien, flout my sway? Will no one arm and chase them, or undock The ships? Bring fire; get weapons, quick! Away! Swing out the oars! Ah me! what do I say? Where am I? O, what madness turns my brain? Poor Dido, hath thy ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... know you flout this 'gold materialism,' For what you call the 'gold of evening skies:' But let me tell you, boy, for you 'tis well My lands are broad and bankers true, or else Your maiden, she, poor girl, I often think, Would want a crust to eat and shoes ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... That these shall seem but their attendants both; For nature's forces with obedient zeal Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel, And turn mad Pucks to flout and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... "I'd marry 'most any girl you wanted me to. But if Columbine were to flout me as she used to—why, I'd buck sure enough.... Dad, are you sure she knows nothing, suspects nothing of ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey. When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruin'd central tower; When buttress and buttress, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... one would think, into the politics of the age—he hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, and even of doubtful military capacity: he speaks of Walpole as a contemptible boor, and scarcely mentions, except to flout it, the great intrigue of the Queen's latter days, which was to have ended in bringing back the Pretender. Again, I read Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon, who has the command of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... self-importance which is the almost inevitable result of possessing wealth. But one of the penalties of property is that it cultivates whatever egotism and sensitiveness to its prerogative its owner is capable of. That one of the common laborers employed upon her estate should thus openly flout her made ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... voice of this queer, kindly, satiric personality. London generally falls into the arms of those who flout her; and Mariette, with his militant Catholicism, and his contempt for our governing ideals, became the fashion. As for Anderson, the contact with English Ministers and men of affairs had but carried on the generous process of development that Nature had designed for a strong ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... asked Yorke. "In what have I so deeply offended that I can scarce gain speech of you! Why do you flout one who longs ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... irritably flout the possibility that she could do aught to materially avert disaster she was wont to protest: "You jes' watch me. I'll find out some way. I be ez knowin' ez any ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Sometimes when I listen to him speak, hear the almost piquant sadness of his words, watch the spirit of isolation which, by design or otherwise, shows in him, for the moment I am conscious of a pity or an interest which I flout in wiser hours. This is his art, the potent danger ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... alleged to be the size of another. But all disappear like will-o'-the-wisps when the search-party arrives on the scene, and none but ordinary specimens, that have no reputation to maintain, are there to flout the ardour ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... this I know: there is a Charm about The quiet State of Golf, tho' fools may flout, That with its magic has unlock'd the Door Of ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... Sir John, and before Barbara was aware of his intention, he had seized her wrist and commenced to drag her towards the door, "Curse your impudence! We will see who is master at Aylingford. I shall have what guests I choose, and, by heaven, you shall treat them as I demand! You may flout Lord Rosmore, but I will see to it that you ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... great sum of money, which money doth never come again into England." "We are daily scorned," he says, "by these Hollanders, for being so negligent of our Profit, and careless of our Fishing; and they do daily flout us that be the poor Fishermen of England, to our Faces at Sea, calling to us, and saying, 'Ya English, ya sall or oud scoue dragien;' which, in English, is this, 'You English, we will make you glad to ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... so," said he. "I will make no words about it. Neither will I shun her sight. I will face it out, and shame them who think to flout me thus." ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... can always flout your father, too—he's dead, but never mind; He and all who dream as he did are much better in their graves. And you cross the sea to Osborne, and, if Grandmamma be kind, You become a British Admiral, and help to rule the waves; With Jack Tars to say "Ay, Ay, Sir!" To this nautical young Kaiser, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... that you advised me to flout the law; to do just the things I have been doing, roving the world, shooting and plundering! There's a policeman at the other end of the platform; call him and turn me ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... 4. 'Frump,' to mock, flout, scoff. 'You must learn to mock; to frump your own father on occason.' Ironically ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he, "if this isn't a little the all-firedest muss a feller ever got into, Josh ain't no judge. Of course the papers have nothing to do but flout it all over the country. For myself I don't care a copper, but 'twill be mighty mortifyin' to you, though I think you desarve some mortifyin', for how in thunder a chap of your sense ever come to be made such a precious fool of ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... (printed 1560), of which the title is a sufficient clue to its purpose, permits a boy to refuse to go to school, and, as a young man, to flout his father's advice in regard to matrimony, only to bring him to the bottom rung of miserable drudgery and servitude under a scolding wife. Of some interest is the lad's report of a schoolboy's life, voicing, as it possibly does, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... act—reckless, heroic—and the recipients of the dough were not lacking in gratitude. But, alas! the Commissariat were; they bristled with anger! How dare a baker be generous in the teeth of the penalties attached to kindness and such weaknesses. How dare he flout so outrageously the canons of Martial Law. Who was Czar! Was Kekewich king! Was Caesar (Imperial Caesar) dead and turned to—flour! The offence was unprecedented in its heinousness. Threats of prosecution followed; but the offending baker apologised; ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... Do I need any proof of your cleverness? Keep for me the flowers of your wit. Show to others no fine surface to call forth flattery, compliments, or praise. Come to me, laden with hatred or scorn, the butt of calumny, come to me with the news that women flout you and ignore you, and not one loves you; then, ah! then you will know the treasures of Louise's heart ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Venaissin, still belonging at that time to the pope and being governed by a vice-legate, was considered as foreign territory. There he found his daughter, Madame d'Urban, who did all she could to induce him to stay with her; but to do so would have been to flout Louis XIV's orders too publicly, and the marquis was afraid to remain so much in evidence lest evil should befall him; he accordingly retired to the little village of l'Isle, built in a charming spot near the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... helmet bright with steel and gold, And plumes that flout the sky, I 'll wear a soul of hardier mould, And thoughts that sweep as high. For scarf athwart my corslet cast, With her fair name y-wove; I 'll have her pictured in my breast, The ladye that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... accomplished, half his battle is won. If he can get the people to despise the priest in any capacity as a social man, a politician, &c., he knows that time rubs out fine-drawn distinctions; they will cease to respect at the altar the man they are accustomed to flout on the street; and if they once come to despise the priest, they will soon despise the sacraments he administers, and challenge the Gospel which he preaches. Let us forestall him, and bind the people to our hearts with hoops of steel. For their sakes ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... in and out, Along the crowded pavement, While here and there the mockers flout My ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... "Ye flout me! Ye who will have for a husband, one whom thou canst not name!" She laughed derisively. That hurt Elsa very much because it was true. Ortrud had remained with her through the night, and had continued to say so many things which had aroused her curiosity and fear, that she was ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... is this that rises to my touch, So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage? It is, it is that deeply injured flower, Which boys do flout us with;—but yet I love thee, Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air; But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, Stripped of his gaudy hues and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... clearer," said he imperturbably. "This lad is your betrothed. He is at heart a good lad, an honourable and honest lad—at times haply over-honest and over-honourable; but let that be. To please a whim, a caprice, you set yourself to flout him, as is the way of your sex when you behold a man your utter slave. From this—being all unversed in the obliquity of woman—he conceives, poor boy, that he no longer finds favour in your eyes, and to win back this, the only thing that in the world he values, ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... urbane to Urquhart when they met, and himself opened the topic of the Norwegian jaunt. Urquhart took up the ball. "I think you might come. Your wife and boy will love it, and you'll kindle at their joy. 'They for life only, you for life in them,' to flout the bard. Besides, you are not a fogey, if I'm not. I believe our ages tally. You shall climb mountains with me, Macartney, and improve the muscles of your calves. You don't fish, I think. Nor do I. I thought I should catch your brother-in-law with that bait—but no. As ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... he make a sound or lift a finger against her life, never more would he contradict her or flout her; never more would he come peeping through that papered panel between his room and hers, never more could hateful and humiliating demands be made upon her as his right; no more strange distresses of the body ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... was condemned at a Council at Soissons presided over by the papal legate (1121). It was twenty years before he was again subjected to the censures of the Church. But, meanwhile, he had more than once fallen foul of Bernard, and had not hesitated to flout with his gibes the one man before whom the whole of Catholic Europe bent in awestruck reverence. But the time came when Bernard, noting the spread of the Petrobrusian heresy, determined to strike at the source of these errors. He appealed for assistance to the friends of orthodoxy from the Pope downwards. ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... looked him deeply in the eyes, caught him by the ear, and with a twist made him wince, pushed him on the shoulders and made his knees bend. Then he released him with a flout of contempt. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... hill-fowk wander yeer by yeer, An' they toss their heeads an' flout me, when they see ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... jeer and flout, and say "the platform stinketh loud enough, but the smell thereof is not the smell uv the Afrikin—it is of the rotten material uv wich it is composed, and the corrupshun they hev placed upon it"—and New York ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... for I have sworn To keep my heart hard and my knees unworn. Enough you have of jester, player, priest: I as the skeleton attend your feast, In the mad revelry to make a lull With shaken finger and with bobbing skull. However you my services may flout, Philosophy disdain and reason doubt, I mean to hold in customary state, My dismal revelry and celebrate My yearly rite until the crack o' doom, Ignore the cheerful season's warmth and bloom And cultivate an oasis ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... rage Asad watched his departure. On the point of commanding him to return, he checked, fearing lest in his present mood Sakr-el-Bahr should flout his authority and under the eyes of all refuse him the obedience due. He knew that it is not good to command where we are not sure of being obeyed or of being able to enforce obedience, that an authority once successfully flouted is ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... rose the cloud of strife, Two proud, strong nations battling for the prize: Which swarming host should mould a nation's life; Which royal banner flout the western skies. ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... stares, with naked knife in hand, This buccaneer in fairyland! Dancing in a saraband The red ferns reel about him! Dancing in a morrice-ring The green ferns curtsey, kiss and cling! Their Marians flirt, their Robins fling Their feathery heels to flout him! ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... shouted, thumping the table with his fist: "You are the limit!... The take-the-cake limit!... You flout me! You practise on my credulity!... Now you would steal a march on me! Try it on—will you?... Ah! You are not Corporal Vinson!... No?... You are a journalist!... You have got to prove that!... Even if you do prove it, you have got yourself into a pretty ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... solicited, Have no fixed heart of law within his breast; Or with some different rhythm doth e'er contest, Nature in the East? Why, 'tis but three weeks fled I saw my Judas needle shake his head And flout the Pole that, East, he lord confessed! God! if this West should own some other Pole, And with his tangled ways perplex my soul Until the maze grow mortal, and I die Where distraught Nature clean hath gone astray, On earth some other wit than Time's at play, Some other God ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... rich burghers in holiday garments joining in the long train, and if they have no land they have money, good store, and as for their churches, they are eclipsing us all. Their invasion of our territory is a dreadful scandal, and they sneer at us and at all other religious men and women and they flout the parish priests and call them humdrums, and schism is at work horribly, and the people are running away from the old guides, and there is no end to them. Actually in the year of grace 1257,' he says, 'a new ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... for a man to assert his own independence, and to show his bride at the outset on whose feet the highest-heeled boots would be, but quite another to flout the customs of the countryside ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... shirk taxes, some jury duty. You shirk fatherhood, and all its happy and sacred obligations! You deny posterity! You strike a blow at it! You flout it! You menace the future of this Republic! Your inertia is a crime against the people! Instead of pro bono publico your motto is pro bono tempo—for a good time! And, dog Latin or not, it's the truth, ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... words my son, come easily, when he That speaks is wise, and speaks but for the right. Else come they never! Swift are thine, and bright As though with thought, yet have no thought at all Lo this new God, whom thou dost flout withal, I cannot speak the greatness wherewith He In Hellas shall be great! Two spirits there be, Young Prince, that in man's world are first of worth. Demeter one is named; she is the Earth— Call her which name thou will!—who feeds man's ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... me amends in public for the foul words that knave uttered. That they should both sue to me for pardon: that it should be showed to the world what manner of man it is that they have dared to flout.' ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... We advise you to take care. He lodges with us, so we know him well, And can tell You all about him, And we strongly advise you not to flout him." ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to Lucina that Jerome might mean to slight her, and might stay away because he wished to do so. She had been so petted and held precious and desirable during her whole sweet life, that she could scarcely imagine any one would flout her, though so timid and fearful of hurting and being hurt was she by nature, that without so much love and admiration she would have been ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to suppress his past; it was so inseparable from Father Lasse that he was obsessed by a sense of unfaithfulness. But there was no alternative; if he wanted to get on he must adapt himself in everything, in prejudices and opinions alike. But he promised himself to flout the lot of them so soon as he felt ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... does a man who loves as I do, care for the conventions of the sham world you and I have left so far behind. I adore you. And you flout me." ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... lips of their mothers, Thou shalt hear little children with scorning Learn to follow and flout at the brothers Whose blood they shall go forth to shed; Thou shalt see wives and maidens adorning Their bosoms and hair with the splendor Of gems but now torn from the tender, Hapless daughters ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... respect for the Upper House, and used revolutionary threats against it as a relic of mediaevalism which should no longer be tolerated in a free state. But the time had passed when the peers could flout an aroused nation. When the Third Reform Bill was ready for passage, the ministers secured the King's promise to frustrate the opposition of the Lords by filling up the House with new peers created ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... to whom his work is principally addressed, translations of their names; several of which would require to be retranslated for the benefit of the modern reader, as for example the three following, all figures of derision:—"The fleering frump;"—"The broad flout;"—"The privy nip." At the present day, however, the work of Puttenham is most of all to be valued for the remarks on language and on manners, and the contemporary anecdotes with which it abounds, and of which some examples may be quoted. After observing that "as it hath been always reputed ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... not: The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience; and so I ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... man that drinks it a villain. Eastern tales are founded on some plain matter of fact. This spring may be some distillery or dram-shop; for this is the natural effect of alcohol. It breaks down the conscience, quickens the circulation, increases the courage, makes man flout at law and right, and hurries him to the perpetration of every abomination and crime. Excite a man by this fluid, and he is bad enough for any thing. He can lie, and steal, and fight, and swear, and plunge the dagger into the bosom of his ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low: — "I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go. Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place, My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face; They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host, And — I would not anger my gentlemen for the sake of a shiftless ghost." The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame, And he thought of Holy Charity, but ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... the ardent desire to draw near to God, sometimes takes the form of an unhappy perversion of reason and common sense. The popular soul knows no hesitation when laying its offerings upon the Altar of the Good. It dares not only to flout the principles of patriotism, of family love, and of respect for the power and the dogmas of the established church, but, taking a step further, will even trample underfoot man's deepest organic needs, and actually seek to ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... my wife, why dost thou flout? Now is now, and then was then: Seek now all the world throughout, Thou ken'st not clowns from gentlemen. They are clad in black, green, yellow, or gray, So far above their own degree: Once in my life I'll do as they, For I'll have a new ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... teach decency to a barnyard brood! I dusted my fingers free from the soil of him. "I will marry her to you, if only to see her flout you," I promised vengefully. "Now to the canoes, and have your paddles ready." I had no smile for him, though he sought ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... confidentially consulted the Warden when a cousin had blundered into the hands of the police, embarrassing that flustered official with torrents of half intelligible speech, the purport of which generally was to flout the proceedings with evidence of indubitable alibi? All this he translated to his countrymen as proof of personal influence with court authorities, and, what was more to the point, made them pay ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... bite? You hardly know perhaps; but Chloe knows, And pours you out the necessary dose, Meticulously measuring to scale, The cup of Circe or the Holy Grail— An actress she at home in every role, Can flout or flatter, bully or cajole, And on occasion by a stretch of art Can even speak the language of the heart, Can lisp and sigh and make confused replies, With baby lips and complicated eyes, Indifferently apt to weep or wink, Primly pursue, provocatively shrink, Brazen or bashful, as the ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... any one here her birth doe disdaine, Her father is ready, with might and with maine, To prove shee is come of noble degree— Therefore, ever flout ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... in their ignorance until it leads them to place the evening star within the arc of the crescent moon, when they are annoyed to be told that the moon does not grow from this shape to the full orb once a month. But ofttimes, though the artist may not flout the universe, he shows his carelessness of natural fact and needs the snubbing. It is in this range that the little critic walks triumphantly posing as a shrewd and a discerning one. He holds up inconsistencies ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... table set With all supplies myself, and then retired. But such their confidence; their talk so loud And free, I could not help but hear some words That raised suspicion; then I listened close And heard, 'mid gibe and jest, the enterprise That was to flout us; make the Loyalist A cringing slave to sneering rebels; make The British lion gnash his teeth with rage;— The Yankee, hand-on-hip, guffawing loud The while. At once, my British blood was up, Nor had I borne their hated presence more, But for the deeper ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... cause of laughter as now, never so many fools and madmen. 'Tis not one [257]Democritus will serve turn to laugh in these days; we have now need of a "Democritus to laugh at Democritus;" one jester to flout at another, one fool to fleer at another: a great stentorian Democritus, as big as that Rhodian Colossus, For now, as [258]Salisburiensis said in his time, totus mundus histrionem agit, the whole world plays the fool; we have a new ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... first who was the father of Lagus." This was a jeer at the obscure birth of the king, and all his courtiers were indignant at it as an unpardonable liberty; but Ptolemy said, "If it is not kingly to take a flout, neither is it kingly to give one." And Alexander was more savage than usual in his behaviour to Callisthenes and Clitus. So Porus, when he was taken captive, begged Alexander to use him as a king. And on his inquiring, "What, nothing more?" he replied "No. For everything is included ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... worn on head! * Though a stranger among you fro' home I fled: Make use of wine in my company * And flout at Time who in languish sped. E'en so cloth camphor my hue attest, * O my lords, as I stand in my present stead. So gar me your gladness when dawneth day, * And to highmost seat in your homes be I led: And quaff your cups in all ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... ready to live up to these conspicuous charms. In fact, she had lived up to them pretty furiously, until time began to take a ruthless toll of her contrasting points. From the concert-platform she still seemed to discount, almost to flout, the years, but in secret she yielded unmistakably ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... be, of course," he said, after a pause. "Human nature is weak, engagingly weak, Guildea. And you're inclined to flout it. I could understand a certain class of lady—the lion-hunting, the intellectual lady, seeking you. Your reputation, your ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... horrible unreality; voluble people issuing from a cafe, the queue at theatre doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate pleasure-seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show in the jewellers' windows—all the familiar sights contributing to flout his own unhappiness, want, and isolation. At the same time, if he be at all after my pattern, he is perhaps supported by a childish satisfaction: this is life at last, he may tell himself, this is the real thing; the bladders on which I was set swimming ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... We know there's neither flout nor frown That we now for him bear, But will add to our heavenly crown, When ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... for its heat, Its hate—its absence of the Light and Sweet, So jays might flout the vulture. Partisan bitterness and purblind haste? Come, view the haunts of dilettante Taste, The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... businesslike precision about the American soldier that stood San Francisco in good stead. The San Francisco water rat thug and "Barbary Coast" pirate might flout a policeman, but he discovered that he could not disobey a man who wears Uncle Sam's uniform without imminent risk of being counted in that abstract mortuary list usually designated ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum |
