"Meanly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all her finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to the one she had dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a princess go out, and they replied they had seen nobody go out but a young girl, very meanly dressed, and who had more the air of a poor country girl than of ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... lines so at first but must go a-tinkering them afterwards. I do not pretend that I am 'lot flattered by your obliging proposal of printing these slight verses at the Strawberry press. YOU must do as you please, I believe. What business have I to think meanly of verses You have commended?" Memoirs, vol. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... with shaven crown, bare legs, sandaled feet, and a grizzly beard,—led us by a long passage first into the refectory. It was a hall of no great dimensions, meanly furnished with deal benches and tables, and surrounded on the walls, with some rude representations of the most loathsome and horrid martyrdoms. The tables were spread with wooden trenchers, each of which had a morsel of rye-bread beside it, and ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... a dissolution which may come at any moment. They therefore study political weather-wisdom, and in varying degrees adapt themselves to the indications of the sky. It will now be readily perceived how the popular sentiment in England, so far as it is awake, is not meanly provided with the ways of making itself respected, whether for the purpose of displacing and replacing a Ministry, or of constraining it (as sometimes happens) to alter or reverse its policy sufficiently, at least, to conjure down ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... sons and the various attendants of the shop were plying the profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter—when a man, meanly dressed, and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry face, entered timidly. He waited in patience by the crowded counter, elbowed by sharp-boned and eager spinsters—and how sharp the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... income for himself. But, while wanting money, he wanted also some of the good things which ought to accompany it. A superior intellect,—an intellect slightly superior to his own, of which he did not think meanly, a power of conversation which he might imitate, and that fineness of thought which, he flattered himself, he might be able to achieve while living with the daughter of a gentleman,—these were the treasures which Mr. Barry hoped to gain by his marriage ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... 'Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.' BOSWELL. 'Lord Mansfield does not.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, if Lord Mansfield were in a company of General Officers and Admirals who have been in service, he would shrink; he'd wish to creep under the table.' BOSWELL. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... there shall find To human view displayed, All meanly wrapped in swathing bands, And in a manger laid, And in ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... safely, did a great stroke of business with our wares, bought those of the country, and set forth on our return voyage. Just as we were ready to re-embark I met on the seashore a lady, not at all bad looking, but very meanly dressed. She approached me, kissed my hand, begged me to take her for my wife, and conduct her to my home across the sea. This may seem to our friend JACK MORLEY a somewhat hasty proceeding. JACK is a philosopher, but I am the Second Old Man, a mere child of nature. I took her into Bond ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... do," moaned Codfish. He had not forgotten how the Rover boys had sided with him on more than one perilous occasion, and it scared him half to death to think what they might do when they discovered how meanly ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... it disputed in conversation, whether it be more laudable or desirable, that a man should think too highly or too meanly of himself: it is on all hands agreed to be best, that he should think rightly; but since a fallible being will always make some deviations from exact rectitude, it is not wholly useless to inquire towards which side it is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... it was, I ever should love again, that I might leave you no room for hope; and since my story has been so unfortunate to alarm the whole world with a conduct so fatal, I made no scruple of telling you with what joy and pride I was undone; if this encourage you, if Octavio have sentiments so meanly poor of me, to think, because I yielded to Philander, his hopes should be advanced, I banish him for ever from my sight, and after that disdain the little service he can render the ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... are engaged is for no meanly ambitious or unworthy purpose. It was primarily, and is to this moment, for the preservation of our national existence. The first direct movement towards it was a civil request on the part of certain Southern persons, that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... cathedral—they were not entities, they were just collections of houses covering men and women. And men were either fools or crooks, and women were either ugly bores or pretty—bitches.... Men and women, they were born crudely, as a calf is born of a cow, they lived foolishly or meanly, and they died.... And they were hustled out of the house quickly.... They thought themselves so important, and they lacked the faithfulness of the dog, the cleanliness of wild animals, the strength of horses, the beauty of tropic birds, the mathematical science of the spider, the swiftness of fishes.... ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... the picture of dismay. He had meanly ignored the note, with the intention of cheating Mrs. Barclay. He had supposed it was lost, yet here, after some years, appeared a man who knew of it. As Mr. Barclay had been reticent about his business affairs, ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... your Conversation, of Your Elegant Taste in all the Polite Parts of Learning, of Your great Humanity and Complacency of Manners, and of the surprising Influence which is peculiar to You in making every one who Converses with your Lordship prefer You to himself, without thinking the less meanly of his own Talents. But if I should take notice of all that might be observed in your Lordship, I should have nothing new to say upon ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... had no successor of her own sex unless I count Mrs. Vredenburg, of New Brighton, where we spent the summer of 1854, when I had reached the age of eleven and found myself bewildered by recognition of the part that "attendance at school" was so meanly to play in the hitherto unclouded long vacation. This was true at least for myself and my next younger brother, Wilky, who, under the presumption now dawning of his "community of pursuits" with my own, was from that moment, off and on, for a few years, my extremely easy yokefellow ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... He'll wait as long as may be. He would sin, but he would not sin meanly. In his conception of himself a greatness, even in transgression, must clothe all that he does. He'll wait, gravely and decently, even though to wait is his heavy risk." He made a gesture with his hand. "Do I not know him, know ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... would satisfy Vitellius. He delighted in and commended the name and the life and all the practices of its former owner, yet he found fault with the structure itself, saying that it had been badly built and was scantily and meanly equipped. When he fell ill one time he looked about for a room to afford him an abode; so little did even Nero's surroundings satisfy him. His wife Galeria ridiculed the small amount of decoration found in the royal apartments. This pair, as they spent ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... Most of these had come aboard at New Orleans, probably. The brisk ones had been aboard already, from the North. Charley was wickedly pleased to see the long-nosed man stretched limp, and greenish in the face, while his two companions meanly teased him. And then, as Charley's father and Mr. Grigsby appeared, Charley began to ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... by the British government to take the place of the faineant negroes, when the apprenticeship system was abolished. Those that I saw were wandering about the streets, dressed rather tastefully, but always meanly, and usually carrying over their shoulder a sort of chiffonier's sack, in which they threw whatever refuse stuff they found in the streets or received as charity. Their figures are generally superb; and their Eastern costume, to which they adhere ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... whole, it is not good that human nature should have the road of life made too easy. Better to be under the necessity of working hard and faring meanly, than to have everything done ready to our hand and a pillow of down to repose upon. Indeed, to start in life with comparatively small means seems so necessary as a stimulus to work, that it may almost be set down as one of the conditions essential to success in life. Hence, an eminent ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... away with Mr. Weevil, I told Newall what I thought—that he had acted meanly in not speaking up. 'Why should I have spoken?' he burst out. 'I didn't want to speak. All I wanted was to get that blow back that Moncrief gave me; and I'll have it back, if I die ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to that she dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a princess go out. They said they had seen nobody go out but a young girl very meanly dressed, who had more the air of a poor country ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... she must be called according to the name engraved on her card—was a little meanly-dressed woman of about forty, with bright eyes and a hooked nose, a restless shuffling manner, and an ill-pitched voice. Her jargon was a mixture of bad ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Would know her strength, and, if not strong, forbear. The supple slave to regal pomp bows down, Prostrate to power, and cringing to a crown; The bolder villain spurns a decent awe, Tramples on rule, and breaks through every law; But he whose soul on honest truth relies, Nor meanly flatters power, nor madly flies. Thus timid authors bear an abject mind, And plead for mercy they but seldom find. Some, as the desperate, to the halter run, Boldly deride the fate they cannot shun; But such there are, whose minds, not taught to stoop, Yet hope ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... heart. She contrasted his generous confidence in her (the confidence of which she was unworthy) with her ungracious distrust of him. Not only had she wronged Grace Roseberry—she had wronged Julian Gray. Could she deceive him as she had deceived the others? Could she meanly accept that implicit trust, that devoted belief? Never had she felt the base submissions which her own imposture condemned her to undergo with a loathing of them so overwhelming as the loathing that she felt now. In horror of herself, she turned her ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... remember to have seen light, and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.' Piozzi Letters, i. 110. See also Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773. Spence published an Account of Blacklock, in which he meanly omitted any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and sound. 'He answered, that as he met so often ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... We have faults to weep over and to expiate, but no crimes; let us not blot out by the imprudence of our closing days the sweetness and purity of those we have passed together."[135] Think ill as we may of Rousseau's theories, and meanly as we may of some parts of his conduct, yet to those who can feel the pulsing of a human life apart from a man's formulae, and can be content to leave to sure circumstance the tragic retaliation for evil behaviour, this letter is like one of the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Sophia; "I think, at least, I shall never marry a man in whose understanding I see any defects before marriage; and I promise you I would rather give up my own than see any such afterwards." "Give up your understanding!" replied Mrs Fitzpatrick; "oh, fie, child! I will not believe so meanly of you. Everything else I might myself be brought to give up; but never this. Nature would not have allotted this superiority to the wife in so many instances, if she had intended we should all of us have surrendered it to the husband. This, indeed, men of sense never ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... our own despise; The ancients only, or the moderns prize. Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside. Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, And force that sun but on a part to shine, Which not alone the southern wit sublimes, 400 But ripens spirits in cold northern climes; Which from the first has shone on ages past, Enlights ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... been made of the Portland stone—a useful industry, enriching the district, and disfiguring the bay. Two hundred years ago these coasts were eaten away as a cliff; to-day, as a quarry. The pick bites meanly, the wave grandly; hence a diminution of beauty. To the magnificent ravages of the ocean have succeeded the measured strokes of men. These measured strokes have worked away the creek where the Biscay hooker was moored. To find any vestige of the little anchorage, now destroyed, the eastern side ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... I understand you, captain Willoughby," he said, at length, "though I think you don't understand me. I know you old country people think meanly of us new country people, but I suppose that's in the nature of things; then, I allow Joel Strides' conduct has been such as to give you reason to judge us harshly. But there is a difference among us, as well ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... may he not dissemble now? may he not recoil hereafter? have not others made as fair a show? yet we know what came of it." Thus do calumnious tongues pervert the judgments of men to think ill of the most innocent, and meanly of the worthiest actions. Even commendation itself is often used calumniously, with intent to breed dislike and ill-will towards a person commended in envious or jealous ears; or so as to give passage to dispraises, and render the accusations following ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... and most meanly furnished, but it was clean. The walls were dingy beyond the power of soap and water to change, but the floor had been scrubbed, and what glass there was in the windows had been washed. There were occasional holes in the ceiling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... free."—After a long, successful, and glorious struggle for liberty, during which they manifested the firmest attachment to the rights of mankind, can they so soon forget the principles that then governed their determinations? Can Americans, after the noble contempt they expressed for tyrants, meanly descend to take up the scourge? Blush, ye revolted colonies, for having ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... whole thing, the very air he breathed, was repulsive and mean. How different, he thought, from the atmosphere of beauty and repose of the house wherein Ruth dwelt. There it was all spiritual. Here it was all material, and meanly material. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... another side of the facts: on the hopelessness of the American cause but for the commanding genius of Washington and his moral authority, and for the command which France and Spain obtained of the seas; on the petty quarrelsomeness with which the rights of the Colonists were urged, and the meanly skilful agitation which forced on the final rupture; on the lack of sustained patriotic effort during the war; on the base cruelty and dishonesty with which the loyal minority were persecuted and the private rights guaranteed by the peace ignored. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... undistinguished self, all good things. Poor Francia was the very spirit of a deserted landlord. I imagined that he might have remembered prosperous days before the railway through Monte Cassino and Sparanise robbed Terracina of her robber's dues from south-bound travellers. His vast hotel, entered meanly by a little hall, was dimly lighted by candles. With another feeble creature, once a man, he preceded me, and speaking poor French said he had had my letter and had prepared me the best apartment in his house. We climbed stone staircases as ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... very generous amount of pecuniary assistance should be given to him; but yet he did not at the first glance perceive that one was to be the price of the other,—that if he took the one he would meanly have sold the other. It certainly would have been very pleasant to have all his debts paid for him, and the offer of five hundred pounds a year was very comfortable. Of the additional sum to be given when Sir Harry should die, he did not think so much. It might probably be a long time coming, ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... think so meanly of us, my lord," said Edith, with the generous burst of feeling which woman so often evinces, and which becomes her so well, her voice faltering through eagerness, and her brow colouring with the noble warmth which dictated ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... any communication with her, to assume all the appearances of indifferent acquaintanceship. At first, indeed, it was with an aching heart struggling in his breast, and an agony of wounded spirit tempting him to cast away all such studied pretences, and to throw himself upon her mercy, and meanly beg for even the slightest return of her former affection. But gradually, as he perceived how vain would be such self-abasement, and how its display would rather tend to add contempt to her indifference, his pride came to rescue him from such a course; and he began more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... young girl he had impudently approached, but the other one, a Frenchman, took advantage of the other sister, and after committing the dastardly outrage, he ran away with his companion. Marquis, shall I name you the man who acted so meanly? It was the then Vicomte ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... passed the closed and deserted store, but Marmaduke Simms was perched on the veranda, and Trooper meanly deserted his fair partner, and swung himself up beside his chum, there to wait until the sound of the first hymn would assure them they were in no danger of ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... for 3000 ducats. The first design I made for this work had twelve apostles in the lunettes, the remainder being a certain space filled in with ornamental details, according to the usual manner. After I had begun, it seemed to me that this would turn out rather meanly; and I told the Pope that the Apostles alone would yield a poor effect, in my opinion. He asked me why. I answered, 'Because they too were poor.' Then he gave me commission to do what I liked best, and promised to satisfy my claims for the work, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... convinced; but hope that it will never be able to overpower the legislature, who ought to enforce their laws, and invigorate their efforts in proportion to the atrociousness of the corruption which they are endeavouring to extirpate: nor do I think so meanly of government, as to believe it unable to repress drunkenness or luxury, or in danger of being subverted in a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... pondered, he called me boy, and must he be contradicted by such a novice! But when his heat was over, he said, had he not so judged to please the woman, she would have given him nothing, and he had a wife and family to provide for; upon this we never came together after. Being now very meanly introduced, I applied myself to study those books I had obtained, many times twelve, or fifteen, or eighteen hours day and night; I was curious to discover, whether there was any verity in the art or not. Astrology in this time, viz. in 1633, was very ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... 'and then you and George can take a turn at local-preaching when you're cut out. I'm off.' So without another word I jumped on to my horse and went off down the hill, across the creek, and over the boulders the other side, without much caring where I was going. The fact was, I felt I had acted meanly in sneering at a man who only said what he did for my good; and I wasn't at all sure that I hadn't made a breach between Gracey and myself, and, though I had such a temper when it was roused that all the world ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... have his attention attracted to the three friends. At first he looked uncomprehendingly, and then, as the features of the lads toward whom he had acted so meanly became plainer, ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... I, I do not desire to commend myself, but to think meanly of myself; yet when I do most despise myself, taking notice of that small measure of light which God hath given me, also that the people of the Lord, by their own saying, are edified thereby. Besides, when I see that the Lord, through grace, hath in some measure blessed my labour, I dare ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... had proposed the thing myself; she had silently consented to the stipulation. I had taken my kiss and much more, and, having now had my delirious, evanescent joy, I could not endure the thought of meanly skulking off ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... up his heart. Not much passed between them. The memories of the English lord were not such as he felt it fit to share with the dull old Scotchman beside him, who knew nothing of the world—knew neither how pitilessly selfish, nor how meanly clever a man of this world might be, and bate not a jot of his self admiration! Men who salute a neighbour as a man of the world, paying him the greatest compliment they know in acknowledging him of their kind, recoil with ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... poor child's head and heart with the vainest of hopes. He knew that he owed especial respect and consideration to the daughter of his tenant, a man who had dealt faithfully by him, and whose father and grandfather had held Ashendale under the Latimers. He felt that he was acting meanly even while he kissed little Lucy by the red wall where the apricots were ripening in the sun. And he had no overmastering passion for excuse: what did he care for little Lucy? He was doing wrong, and he was doing it because it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... against the consubstantiality and proper divinity of Christ as well as His co-eternity. He cannot be neutral. In condemning Arians he has condemned himself. Nay, he has gone further than the Arians. 'Sober Arians will rise up in judgment and condemn you for founding Christ's worship so meanly upon I know not what powers given after His resurrection. They founded it upon reasons antecedent to His incarnation, upon His being God before the world, and Creator of the world of ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... there shall find To human view displayed, All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... being connected with the rebels. The charge is utterly, totally and meanly false. Does the honorable gentleman rely on the report of the House of Lords for the foundation of his assertion? If he does, I can prove to the committee there was a physical impossibility of that report being ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... doom of man reversed on thee; Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes And pause awhile from letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail; See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, To buried merit raise the tardy bust. If dreams yet flatter, once again attend. Hear Lydiat's life and ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... that the man is a mechanic, to whom long nails would be troublesome, or that he gets his bread by fiddling; and if they are longer than his fingers ends, and encircled with a black rim, it foretells he has been laboriously and meanly employed, and too fatigued to clean himself: a good apology for want of cleanliness in a mechanic, but the greatest disgrace ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... willing to connect all her own fortunes with his, she had much reason to expect that she might encounter ruin in doing so. Her sin had been in this,—that she had been anxious to subject Alice to the same danger,—that she had intrigued, sometimes very meanly, to bring about the object which she had at heart,—that she had used all her craft to separate Alice from Mr Grey. Perhaps it may be alleged in her excuse that she had thought,—had hoped rather than thought,—that the marriage which she contemplated would change ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... well aware of the difficulty of being always accurate in a task which involves such interminable study and such an amount of details. He can only say, in the words of a Hebrew writer: "If I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... of life and thought: the idea of social expediency itself is becoming a dwarfed and pinched idea. Ours is the country where love of constant improvement ought to be greater than anywhere else, because fear of revolution is less. Yet the art of politics is growing to be as meanly conceived as all the rest At elections the national candidate has not often a chance against the local candidate, nor the man of a principle against the man of a class. In parliament we are admonished on high authority that 'the policy of a party ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... pounds in pieces of eight, silver and gold. Ah! simple vanity said I whom this world so much dotes on, where is now thy virtue, thy excellency to me? You cannot procure me one thing needful, nor remove me from this desolate island to a place of plenty. One of these knives, so meanly esteemed, is to me more preferable than all this heap. E'en therefore remain where thou art to sink in the deep as unregarded, even as a creature whose life is not worth preserving. Yet, after all this exclamation, I wrapt it up in ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... nobly wrong is more manly than to be meanly right, is an expression I once used on a former occasion, and it is equally applicable now. We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice, but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable: and amongst ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... you with any claim of my own," the indignant lips trembling. "You shall not think so meanly of me as that. I told you why my father needs the money—all that he told to Mr. Neckart. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... that sort of thing with a vengeance! When the speech-making set in, these very men who had been all expressing their profound contempt for the Lord Mayor behind his back, now flattered him to his face in such a shamelessly servile way, with such a meanly complete insensibility to their own baseness, that I did really and literally turn sick. I slipped out into the fresh air, and fumigated myself, after the company I had kept, with a cigar. No, no! it's useless ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... chief character of The Rehearsal, a farce by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham (1671). Bayes is represented as greedy of applause, impatient of censure, meanly obsequious, regardless of plot, and only anxious for claptrap. The character is meant ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Even at the railway station we should be very likely to meet and be recognised by some of our recent unpleasant naval acquaintances. Besides, I am going to see this thing through, and shall stand by you just as long as I can be of any service, for I hope you don't think so meanly of me as to imagine that I would desert in the time of his trouble the fellow who saved ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... meantime, the advantages of the present work are so great, and the virtuous reader has room for so much improvement, that we make no question the story, however meanly told, will find a passage to his best hours, and be read ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... alike with self-reproach and admiration. For he had succeeded in asserting himself beyond his intention. Had overcome, had worsted her; yet, as it occurred to him, won a but barren victory. That she was alienated and resentful he could hardly doubt, while the riddle he had rather meanly used to procure her discomfiture remained unanswered as ever, dipped indeed only deeper in mystery. He was hoist with his own petard, in short; and stood there nonplussed, vexed alike ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... you are right; for the rest I may thank my gracious king. During the course of this year he has presented me with three hundred Fredericks d'or; and now you know the source of my revenue and will not think so meanly of me as ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... anticipating the future for? That we might let our hopes run along the low levels, or that we might elevate them and twine them round the very pillars of God's Throne; which? I do not find fault with you because you hope, but because you hope so meanly, and about such trivial and transitory things. I remember I once saw a sea-bird kept in a garden, confined within high walls, and with clipped wings, set to pick up grubs and insects. It ought to have been away ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... you know how unkind you are," she says, with a suspicion of tears in her voice, whether feigned or real he hardly dares conjecture. Feeling herself in the wrong, she seeks meanly to free herself from the false position by placing him ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... that Mr. Hathaway, of all the guardians, could not have been always the help and counselor—in fact, the elder brother—of poor Yerba! Paul was conscious that he winced slightly, consistently and conscientiously, at the recollection of certain passages of his youth; inconsistently and meanly, at this suggestion of a joint relationship with ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... people, were those of surprise and indignation, that a vile Barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world: but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune; and their unmanly rage, instead of being directed against an enemy in arms, was meanly exercised on a defenceless and innocent victim. Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother, of the reigning emperor: but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho; and they listened ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... that Alexander was surly. Nor, if the weather was dark with him, that he tried to shake his darkness into others' skies. Nor that he meanly succumbed to the weight, whatever it was, that bore upon him. He did his work, and achieved at least the show of equanimity. Strickland wondered. What was it that had happened? It never occurred to him that it had ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... first period of their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sovereign power and high success Attained through wisdom and admired of men, What boundless jealousies environ you! When for this rule, which to my hand the State Committed unsolicited and free, Creon, my first of friends, trusted and sure, Would undermine and hurl me from my throne, Meanly suborning such a mendicant Botcher of lies, this crafty wizard rogue, Blind in his art, and seeing but for gain. Where are the proofs of thy prophetic power? How came it, when the minstrel-hound was here, This ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... is in the spirit of social democracy to offer no prizes. Office in it, being the reward of no great distinction, brings no great honour, and being meanly paid it brings no great profit, at least while honestly administered. All wealth in a true democracy would be the fruit of personal exertion and would come too late to be nobly enjoyed or to teach the art of liberal living. It would be either accumulated irrationally ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... most of King John's wise men thought little of the plan, King John himself thought that there was something in it. But instead of helping Columbus he meanly resolved to send out an expedition of his own. This he did, and when Columbus heard of it he was so angry that he left Portugal, which for more than ten years he had made his home. He was poor and in debt, so he left the country secretly, in fear of the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... me, heav'n, soft moving eloquence, To bend his stubborn soul to gentleness.— Where is thy virtue? Where thy princely lustre? Ah! wilt thou meanly stoop to do a wrong, And stain thy honour with so foul a blot? Thou who shouldst be a guard to innocence. Leave force to brutes—for pleasure is not found Where still the soul's averse; horror and guilt, Distraction, desperation ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... equal. He knew her, as she might be! Between them there was something deeper than the shallow kind greeting they gave the world,—recognition. She stood nearest to him,—she only! If sometimes she had grown meanly jealous of the thorough-bred, made women, down in the town yonder, his friends, in her secret soul she knew she was his peer,—she only! And he knew it. Not that she was not weak in mind or will beside ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... discovery and subsequent death of his patron. The "servile Pumblechook," who appears here uninvited, again changes his manner and conduct, becoming ostentatiously compassionate and forgiving, as he had been meanly servile in the time of Pip's new prosperity, thus:—"'Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low, but what else could be expected! what else could be expected! . . . This is him . . . as I have rode in my shay-cart; this is him ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... by the arm, and I found myself crossing the threshold of the Joy-Shop—I found myself in a meanly furnished room no more than twelve feet square and very low ceiled, smelling strongly of paraffin oil. The few items of furniture which it contained were but dimly discernible in the light of a common tin lamp which stood upon a packing-case ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... protect them from the white ant and mouse, as also from the jerboa, which is so pretty an object to look at as it jumps about the fields, but is an especial foe to the natives. The people came forth from the villages to offer cheese and Indian corn. They were black pagans and slaves, meanly and scantily dressed, but far more civilised in reality than the fanatical people among whom Barth and his companions ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the above necessaries of life, but conveys its various manufactures down to the ports of the Mediterranean sea expeditiously, and at little expence. The small boats, which ply upon the Soane as ours do upon the Thames, are flat bottomed, and very meanly built; they have, however, a tilt to shelter them from the heat, and to preserve the complexion, or hide the blushes of your female Patronne:—yes, my dear Sir, Female!—for they are all conducted by females; many of whom are young, handsome, and neatly dressed. ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... fable, when the island of AEgina was depopulated by sickness, at the instance of AEacus, Jupiter turned the ants into men, that is, as some think, he made men of the inhabitants who lived meanly like ants. This is perhaps the fullest history of those ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... these invalid ladies actually starve themselves, when they ought to be nourishing and strengthening their poor bodies; acting meanly at their hotels in order to save sufficient money to go to Monte Carlo, and in the end it is all lost! Then they return to their homes with mind, health, and nerves completely shattered, to the grief and astonishment of kind friends and ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... man between fifty and sixty years of age, with grey hair, rather short, and somewhat corpulent, but still gifted with that amount of personal comeliness which comfortable position and the respect of others will generally seem to give. A man rarely carries himself meanly, whom the world holds ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... to get the most out of ourselves, or out of life, is not to try to sell ourselves for the highest possible price but to give ourselves, not stingily, meanly, but royally, magnanimously, to our fellows. If the rosebud should try to retain all of its sweetness and beauty locked within its petals and refuse to give it out, it would be lost. It is only by flinging ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the I. W. W. and other labor organizations are having trouble with capital, is that their leaders are not inventors. They are tired conventional men governed by automatic preconceptions, merely doing over again more loudly and meanly against society, the things that capital has already tried and has had to give up because it could not make ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Belford after he left England, lays the whole Scene before us; to his own Condemnation, and Clarissa's eternal Honour: He owns her meek and gentle Spirit; confesses he repeatedly, from the first, poured cold Water on her rising Flame, by meanly and ingratefully turning upon her the Injunctions which Virgin Delicacy, and filial Duty induced her to lay him under before he got her into his Power; he quotes her own Words: That she could not be guilty of Affectation or Tyranny to the Man she intended to marry; that from the Time he had got ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... dream, in which the interest of each and that of all were identical. But, God in heaven! what wonder, under such a system as this about me—what wonder that the city was so shabby, and the people so meanly dressed, and so many of them ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... coalheavers for a husband! I have had their leavings for twenty-six years!—And now like the story in the Old Testament, the poor relation has one ewe-lamb which is all her joy, and the rich man who has flocks covets the ewe-lamb and steals it—without warning, without asking. Adeline has meanly robbed me of my happiness!—Adeline! Adeline! I will see you in the mire, and sunk lower than myself!—And Hortense—I loved her, and she has cheated me. The Baron.—No, it is impossible. Tell me again what is really true ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... days which the April of the other year meanly grudged us, a poet, flown with the acceptance of a quarter-page lyric by the real editor in the Study next door, came into the place where the Easy Chair sat rapt in the music of the elevated trains and the vision of the Brooklyn Bridge ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... spider, when it hath caught the fly that it hunted after, is not little proud, nor meanly conceited of herself: as he likewise that hath caught an hare, or hath taken a fish with his net: as another for the taking of a boar, and another of a bear: so may they be proud, and applaud themselves for their ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... their sale, a mixed crowd was gathered, some of them bidders, some idlers drawn thither by curiosity. Others were in the house behind examining the wares before they came to the hammer. Presently an old woman, meanly clad with her face veiled to the eyes, and bearing on her back a heavy basket such as was used to carry fruit to market, presented herself at the door of ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... was less favourable to the Chevalier than usual, although he suffered no loss of any consequence. Then a little thin old man, meanly clad, and almost repulsive to look at, approached the table, drew a card with a trembling hand, and placed a gold piece upon it. Several of the players looked up at the old man at first greatly astonished, but after that they treated him with provoking contempt. Nevertheless his face never ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... them that I knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have been to my advantage if I had adopted a disguise before setting out for Hampshire. But there was something so repellent to me in the idea—something so meanly like the common herd of spies and informers in the mere act of adopting a disguise—that I dismissed the question from consideration almost as soon as it had risen in my mind. Even as a mere matter of expediency the proceeding was doubtful in the extreme. If I tried the experiment at home the landlord ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... virtue to the former, and all the nation over, two better subjects for satire could not have been found, than lord Rochester, and the duchess of Portsmouth. As for Rochester, he had not genius enough to enter the lists with Dryden, so he fell upon another method of revenge; and meanly ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... there, in those uniforms. There, friends, lie towns and cities, towers and palace-halls, literature and national life—for there are the brains and arms which make these things. Those uniforms are not to be, at least, should not be, forever there. But manage meanly and weakly and stingily now, and you destroy the cities and fair castles, the uniform remains in the myriad ranks, war becomes interminable, the soldier becomes nothing but a soldier—God avert the day!—and you will find yourself some day telling your grand-children—if you have any, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... angry glitter in the man's dark eyes, his face was black with passion, and the bright object she had seen flashing in his hand was the twin brother of Huntington's six-shooter. He was roughly, even meanly, dressed. His coarse blue flannel shirt was unbuttoned at the throat; his soiled brown corduroy trousers were thrust unevenly into dusty and wrinkled boot tops; his old, gray hat was slouched over one side of his forehead, shading his eyes. But the face beneath that faded and disreputable ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... information; and others, after the most illiberal reflections on all contemporaries, have found it expedient entirely to abandon their own boasted performances, or to wait the completion of the very work which they have thus meanly and insidiously laboured to depreciate, before they could ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... he had formerly refused and next day clothed himself in another new suit which he had received from us in the autumn. Ever since his arrival at the fort he had dressed meanly and pleaded poverty but, perceiving that nothing more could be gained by such conduct, he thought proper to show some of his riches to the strangers who were daily arriving. In the afternoon however he made another though a covert attack upon us. He informed me that two ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... assistance, in consideration of the friendship and amity which had subsisted between his father and him. But Pompey's deputies having executed their commission, began to converse with less restraint with the king's troops, and to advise them to act with friendship to Pompey, and not to think meanly of his bad fortune. In Ptolemy's army were several of Pompey's soldiers, of whom Gabinius had received the command in Syria, and had brought them over to Alexandria, and at the conclusion of the war had left with Ptolemy the ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... tray away from Esther and carried it into her bedroom; when she came back there was a suspicion of tears in her eyes. Esther looked distressed. She felt that she was behaving meanly, and yet she meant to go ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... next she parted from him it was as his betrothed. Immediately after George's return from Europe, he had heard the story of Arabella's perfidy, and if no other circumstances had interposed to wean him from her entirely, this alone would have done it, for he could not respect a woman who would thus meanly stoop to deception. He had lingered in G— for the purpose of renewing his former acquaintance, with Mildred, the result of which we ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... to my hotel, I was a little surprised to find the streets of this gay city so meanly lighted. Lamps placed at gloomy distances from each other, suspended by cords, from lofty poles, furnish the only means of directing the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... she has it in her. You'll see, to-morrow," and with this Parthian shot Mrs Cowper quitted the room in tears, meanly leaving her mother to allay the tempest she had raised. On the morrow poor Lady Cinnamond was almost tempted to think as she did with regard to Honour, for Gerrard, putting his fortune to the touch without, as he assured himself, the slightest hope of success, met the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... England do not rate the commerce, the credit, the religion, the liberty, the independency of their country, and the succession of their crown, at a shilling in the pound land-tax! They never gave him reason to think so meanly of them. And, if I am rightly informed, when that measure was debated in Parliament, a very different reason was assigned by the author's great friend, as well as by others, for that reduction: one very different ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... absorbing period of oblation and self-examination, surveyed the young girl. The reflection of dark colors from the hangings and tapestries softened the pallor of her face; her hair hung about her in disorder; her figure, though meanly garbed, was replete with youth and grace. Silent she continued in ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... From meanly hating him she rose to compassion as she saw that his eyes begged every one to like him. She perceived how inaccurate her judgments could be. At the picnic she had fancied that Maud Dyer looked upon Erik too sentimentally, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... thought strange that one thinking so meanly of 'Essays and Reviews' should have produced a yet larger volume in reply to them, it must suffice to point out that the refutation of a fallacy is almost of necessity the ampler writing.—Or again, if it be remarked that by far the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... birth, he answered: "It hath been judged formerly, that the domestic servants of the King of Heaven should be one of the noblest families on earth. And though the iniquity of late times have made clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name of priest contemptible, yet I will labor to make it honorable. . . . And I will labor to be like my Saviour, by making humility lovely in the eyes of all men, and by following the merciful and meek example ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... ask for life!" he said, after a time. "Antonio Valdez met his death in the same fashion, like yourself meanly begging for mercy. You shall do as he did. I promised it when I met you at the hacienda Las Palmas, and I shall ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... vigorously, and Sam said: "Waal, you can't think more meanly of me over that business than I do of myself. I have never been able to make out why I did it, and you may bet it ain't often I tells the story. It war a dog-goned piece of foolishness, and, as Harry says, I didn't desarve to get out of it as ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... this world are to be found always among the thoroughly-upright, meanly-impeccable members of any and every church. They are the Scribes and Pharisees who contribute most to the building of fine houses of worship; they give most to its causes. They are the "right hands" of all the preachers from their youth up. They have never been truthful ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... Natural and Revealed Religion. Have you let that intention go? Or are you doing any thing towards it? Make to yourself other ten talents. My letter is full of nothingness. I talk of nothing. But I must talk. I love to write to you. I take a pride in it. It makes me think less meanly of myself. It makes me think myself not totally disconnected from the better part of Mankind. I know, I am too dissatisfied with the beings around me,—but I cannot help occasionally exclaiming "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshech, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... correspondence in the place from which it was dated. It came to pass that about three weeks after this retribution overtook the Bulletin, for it also published a review of an opera which was not sung, but I meanly passed the occurrence by without comment. When a man hits you, it is far more generous, manly, and fraternal to hit him back a good blow than to degrade ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... glare as they see her stand In majestic pride serenely, And gnash with the impotent rage of hate, Creeping up slowly, meanly; While she cries, "Come forth from your covered dens, All your hireling legions send me, I'll bare my breast to a million swords, Whilst God and my ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... wild While the heaven-born child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature, in awe to him, Had doffed her gaudy trim, With her great master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... to ridicule his neighbour: nations proverb each other; counties flout counties; obscure towns sharpen their wits on towns as obscure as themselves—the same evil principle lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always assume predominance, will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt. They expose some prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the natives have incurred. In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, Mieux vaut bon repas que bel habit; "Better a good dinner than a fine coat." These good people are great gormandizers, but ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... or fish put before them, sees that they are about half an inch bigger than those set before him; then, blowing out his belly with rage, he thinks, "What on earth can the host be about? Master Tarubei is a guest, but so am I: what does the fellow mean by helping me so meanly? There must be some malice or ill-will here." And so his mind is prejudiced against the host. Just be so good as to reflect upon this. Does a man show his spite by grudging a bit of roast fowl or meat? And yet even ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Rule (61), beginning with the third sentence, 'Ne parlez point, etc.') 63d. A Man ought not to value himself of his Atchievements or rare Qua[lities, his Riches, Tit]les Virtue or Kindred[; but he need not speak meanly ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... the British Museum. This volume was presented by Dr. Madden to Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, as appears from the following MS. note on a fly-leaf: "To his Excellency the Right Hon. Philip Earl of Chesterfield, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, these Tracts, writ (how meanly soever) with a real zeal for the service of that country, are most humbly presented by the author, his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... indicating Mr. Blake, who, with a thunderous brow, is making his way towards her. "The last was his. I forgot all about it. Take me away, Dicky; somewhere, anywhere; I know he's got a horrid temper, and he is going to say uncivil things. Where" (here she meanly tries to get behind Mr. Browne) "shall ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... and in the infamous treason you have all committed against your king and lord. Yes, I tell you, you are infamous rebels and traitors, and you think I, Captain Ulrich von Hohenberg, a soldier who took the oath of allegiance to his king, could act so dishonorably and meanly as to join the rebels! No, never! Never will the daughter of the rebel Anthony Wallner become my wife! Kill me now if you want to do so. You may take my life, but you cannot ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... have thought it over since. Yes, I think I acted meanly; it was a thing a woman would do. That is where a woman fails—in small things—ideas, mean ideas come to her mind, just like that one. A man would not think such things. Yes, I am ashamed by the smallness of it. You said 'ungenerous.' ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... ill words, twelve negroes dragged in a lovely woman, fettered on hands and feet and meanly dressed, and they set her down on the bare floor. She was extraordinarily beautiful, and shamed the glorious sun. The king ordered a hundred stripes to be laid on her tender body; she sighed a long sigh. ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... is the word. A trifle, a thing of mere weight, I have brought you From the Assyrian camp. My apron here Is loaded now more heavily, but as meanly As an old witch's skirt, when she comes home From seeking camel's-dung for kindling; yet My burden was, an hour ago, the world Where you were ground to tortures; it was the brain Inventing your destruction.—Look you ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... Shown pretend to ken aught of the Showman or the Show? "Why meanly bargain to believe, which only means ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... from the house: that is, after that horrible meeting and parting. But at night I would go and look at her window, and watch the lamp burning there; I would go to the Chartreux (where I knew another boy), and call for her brother, and gorge him with cakes and half-crowns. I would meanly have her elder brother to dine, and almost kiss him when he went away. I used to breakfast at a coffee-house in Whitehall, in order to see Lambert go to his office; and we would salute each other sadly, and pass on without speaking. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his comprehension, that her husband had already advanced him as far as was possible or fitting, and had otherwise provided for him in various ways as well as could reasonably be expected. The views of the centurion were of a far different nature. In giving his daughter to the patrician he had meanly intended thereby to rise high in life—had anticipated ready promotion beyond what his ignorance would have justified—had supposed that he would be admitted upon an equal social footing among the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... brothers, seeking e'er in vain The one dear gift that liesso near at hand; Hoping to barter gold we meanly gain For that the poorest beggar in the land Holds for his own, to hoard while yet he spends; Seeking fresh treasure in ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... &c. so common in his ears, would scarcely ever have been used had it not been for my influence. To be sure I have overheard him say, as we have been walking along, "There goes an old acquaintance of mine; but, bless me, how altered he is! he looks poor and meanly dressed, but I'm determined I'll speak to him, for fear he should think me so shabby as to shy him." Thus giving an instance in himself, certainly, of respect for the man and not the coat. My short history goes rather to prove that the reverse is almost every day's experience. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... realm; resorting to all the arts of a courtier to win the favor of his sovereign and of his minions and favorites; reckless as to honest debts; torturing on the rack an honest parson for a sermon he never preached; and, when obliged to confess his corruption, meanly supplicating mercy from the nation he had outraged, and favors from the monarch whose cause he had betrayed. The defects and delinquencies of this great man are bluntly and harshly put by Macaulay, without any attempt to soften or palliate them; as if he would consign his name and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... these works were meanly printed, and were usually found in a state of filth and rags, and would have perished in their own merited neglect, had they not been recently splendidly reprinted by Sir Walter Scott. Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionable epergne, and found quite to the taste of certain lovers ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... necessary supplement to it. This instinct is more or less futile in most women because they are more or less ignorant of the realities as to wise and foolish expenditure. But it is found in the most extravagant women no less than in the most absurdly and meanly stingy. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips |
