"Pompous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pompous titles, honourable charges, and profitable commissions, could have made this proud man happy, there would have ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... not as "old" as their own is oftentimes amusing, and subjects them to ridicule, which they bear with true Dutch stolidity. They improve in their peculiar qualities with each generation, and the present pompous Knickerbocker who drives in the Park in solemn state in his heavy chariot, and looks down with disdain upon all whose blood is not as Dutch as his own, is a very different personage from his great ancestor, the original Knickerbocker, who hawked fish about the streets of New Amsterdam, or tanned ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the bride, in her white dress and orange blossoms (for, be it known, such things are sometimes seen, even in this region of spruce and pine), looked as all brides do, bashful and beautiful. The "grave and pompous father," and busy-minded mother, had a look which, though concealed, told that at heart they rejoiced to see their "bairn respeckit like the lave," and "all indeed went merry as a marriage bell." We and some others left at midnight. The air ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... laughing fun, They pelt him with their leaves. And the gay green trees joke to the breeze, As the Swank struts proudly by; But every Glug, with reverence, Pays homage to his pride immense— A homage deep to lofty rank— The Swank! The Swank! The pompous Swank! But the wind-borne leaves await their chance And round ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... with cumbersome, though pompous show, Edwin would oft his flowery rhyme deface, Through ardour to adorn; but Nature now To his experienced eye a modest grace Presents, where Ornament the second place Holds, to intrinsic worth and just design Subservient still. Simplicity ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... evidently almost forgotten that I was present; and the alternate ridicule and disdain of his powerful physiognomy were assisted, in my comprehension, by notes from time to time—certainly the antipodes of flattery—"paltry knave"—"pompous fool"—"specious swindler." "Ambassador! ay, if we were to send one to a nation of baboons." "Here," said he, throwing, the bundle on the table, "if I did not despise mankind enough already, I have sufficient evidence to throng the pillory. I deal in gold; well, it is only such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... with decisively superior numbers, is the acme of military stupidity; nor is it the less stupid because in practice it has been frequently done. In it has often consisted the vaunted operation of "surrounding an enemy," "bringing him between two fires," and so forth; pompous and troublesome combinations by which a divided force, that could perfectly well move as a whole, starts from two or three widely separated points to converge upon a concentrated enemy, permitting ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... Davies was a man of good understanding and talents, with the advantage of a liberal education. Though somewhat pompous, he was an entertaining companion; and his literary performances have no inconsiderable share of merit. He was a friendly and very hospitable man. Both he and his wife (who has been celebrated for her beauty), though upon the stage for many years, maintained an uniform decency of character; ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... guarding the gangway variously called the North section and Tunnel Six, presently heard voices coming from the direction of the shaft, and the latter moved back a few paces in order to inspect the new-comers. In a moment he saw three rather pompous looking men approaching him, their footsteps being directed by a man clothed ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Rose Wynn, whose five feet five of feminine humanity, clad in bright red delaine, quite overshadowed the delicate figure beside him. But he obeyed the elder woman's command meekly, nevertheless, and went forward, asking in a pompous tone: ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... is the Sultan's private wharf, so royal and private that it is a prison offense to trespass on it without written permission. Because of his official call at the Residency, and of his card left on the Sultan, wires had been pulled, and a pompous individual whose black face sweated greasily, and whose palm itched for unearned increment, called on Monty very shortly after breakfast with intimation that the wharf had been placed at our disposal, since His Highness the Sultan desired ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... tendencies of any time, and of helping to get through with the unavoidable fighting-jobs which they organize, seems to inspire the same rhetoric in every age, and to reproduce the same set of conventional war-images. The range of feeling is narrow; the enthusiasm for great generals is expressed in pompous commonplaces; even the dramatic circumstances of a campaign full of the movement and suffering of great masses of men, in bivouac, upon the march, in the gloomy and perilous defile, during a retreat, and in the hours when wavering victory suddenly turns and lets her hot lips be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... thy lovely form; Charm our senses by the elegance of thy attitudes; Our hearts are transported by thy glances. The proud peacock, covered with confusion, Dares not display before thee the rich And pompous variety of his plumage. Thy ebon ringlets are chains, which hold Monarchs in captivity, and make Them slaves to the power ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... excited, but the pitch of excitement must be maintained, and, like the drunkard who, once stimulated, has recourse again to strong waters, one would say that they carefully try to expel the last remnants of calmness and common sense from their brains. They delight in pompous phrases, in high-sounding rhetoric, in declamatory sentimental strokes of eloquence: this is the style of nearly all their speeches, and so strong is their taste, they are not satisfied with the orations made amongst themselves. Lally ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... procession. We admire the preternatural solidity of the furniture and the plate. The hostess is a fine woman, "with neck and nostrils like a rocking-horse, hard features and majestic headdress." Her husband, large and pompous, with little light-colored wings "more like hairbrushes than hair" on the sides of his otherwise bald head, begins to discourse on the British Constitution. We now know as much of Mr. Podsnap as we shall know ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... a distant hymn rose on the air, and shortly after there appeared, advancing towards the square, a long and pompous retinue of mitred priests, with banners and crucifixes and gorgeous imagery, conducting a procession in which figures representing scenes concerning the death of our Saviour, were carried by on ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... upon him that even he, Sir John Ferringhall, carpet-merchant, hide-bound Englishman, slow-witted, pompous, deliberate, felt his heart beat to music. Perhaps the Parisian atmosphere had affected him. He leaned towards her, laid his hand tenderly ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... knives, as if they were so many trunk-makers. They are applauding a glee, which has just been executed by the three 'professional gentlemen' at the top of the centre table, one of whom is in the chair—the little pompous man with the bald head just emerging from the collar of his green coat. The others are seated on either side of him—the stout man with the small voice, and the thin-faced dark man in black. The little man in the chair is a most amusing personage,—such condescending ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... combination of letters, the marking sunflowers exist no more. We destroyed, we preempted; we are destroyed and we have been thrust out. Illinois admitted to the Union on suchandsuch a date, the Little Giant rubbed stubby fingers through pompous hair heavy with beargrease, the Honorable Abe in Springfield's most expensive broadcloth, necktie in the latest mode but pulled aside to free an eager adamsapple; the drunken tanner, punctual with the small ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... losing his life as long as his hat is not spoilt! His padded trousers were pulled down so as to leave his legs bare, and he was then made to lie flat on the pebbly ground, using his folded arms as a sort of rest for his head. The magistrate, with his pompous strides, having found a suitable spot, squatted down on his heels, a servant immediately handing to him his long-caned pipe. The soldiers, silent and grave, then formed a circle, and the flogger; with his board all ready in his hand, took up a ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... and practice of astronomy advance together, he had an observatory established from the year 1760, at one of the windows in the upper story of the south gallery. Perhaps I may occasion surprise by giving the pompous name of Observatory to the space occupied by a window, and the small number of instruments that it could contain. I admit this feeling, provided it be extended to the Royal Observatory of the epoch, to the old imposing and severe mass of stone that attracts the attention of the promenaders ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... with no pompous paradoxes, shines in no glittering tinsel of a fashionable phraseology; is neither fop nor sophist. He has none of the turbulence or froth of new-fangled opinions. His style runs pure and clear, though it may often take ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... examination Squire Rawson attended, solemn and pompous with a superfluity of white shirt-front. Brief as was the examination, it revealed to Keith an astonishing state of ignorance of the simplest things. It was incredible to him that, with so many hours of so-called study, so little progress had been ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... shutting the gates. Beaumont held a neglected stirrup cup, and laughed as he drained it himself. Zachary, stout and pompous, was mounting ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... and many facetious remarks were bandied about. Fragments of this found their way to the ear of Major Cragiemuir as he was taking his afternoon airing in the park, and filled him with wrath. The Major is a testy, pompous specimen of the retired army officer, and takes himself very seriously. His sense of dignity and propriety is never for a moment in abeyance, and covers himself and all his belongings like ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... Lorche, although willing to fight when necessary, was not a bloodthirsty man, therefore he swore upon his knightly honor, to wait for the prince's consent. He did it willingly, because having heard so many songs about tournaments and being fond of pompous feasts, he preferred to fight in the presence of the court, the dignitaries and the ladies; he believed that such a victory would bring greater renown, and he would win the golden spurs more easily. Then he was also anxious to become acquainted with the country and the people, therefore ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Somers and her father—who was a bit precious and pompous, in spite of his ironies—should gather about them a homogeneous group. The house was pleasant and comfortable—they were too sophisticated to be "periodic"—and there was always good talk going, if you happened to be the kind that could ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... pompous JOE, now JOE, M.P., Is doubtless pleased at growing raucous Through speaking, since he's proud to be The Member for a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... violence, was yet meaner than themselves; as also, that in case they were obliged to set some one over their public affairs, it was fitter they should give that privilege to any one rather than to him; they made an assault upon him in the temple; for he went up thither to worship in a pompous manner, and adorned with royal garments, and had his followers with him in their armor. But Eleazar and his party fell violently upon him, as did also the rest of the people; and taking up stones to attack him withal, they threw them at the sophister, and thought, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... city, after his inauguration, was limited to about two years. His deportment in life was not plain, nor was it at all pompous, for no man was more devoid of ostentation than himself, his style, however, gave universal satisfaction to all classes in the community, and, his historian has informed us, was not adopted for personal gratification, but from a devotion to his country's welfare. Possessing a desirable stature, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... preachers could gain no audience in Paris, where the University of the Sorbonne opposed their doctrines and declared that these were contrary to all the philosophy of ancient times. The capital of France constantly proclaimed loyalty to Rome by the pompous processions which filed out of its magnificent churches and paraded the streets to awe the mob, always swayed by the violence of fanatic priests. The Huguenots did not attempt to capture a stronghold, where it was boasted that "the novices of the convents and the ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... why he was here. Why shouldn't Paul be dining with a respectable married woman? Why had he lied to the clerk about being Paul's brother-in-law? He had acted like a child. He must be careful not to say foolish dramatic things to Paul. As he settled down he tried to look pompous and placid. Then the thought—Suicide. He'd been dreading that, without knowing it. Paul would be just the person to do something like that. He must be out of his head or he wouldn't be confiding in ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... their armaments and their wars, their rapacities and their mutual lies, but the intensity of the spirit of party? what question, what interest, what idea, what need of mankind, is involved in any of these things? Their big, pompous armies, drawn up in great silly rows, their gold lace, their salaams, their hierarchies, seem a pastime for children; there's a sense of humour and of reality over here that laughs at all that. Yes, we are nearer the reality—we are nearer what ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... by a feigned zeal; But to make up for't, in the name of reason, Why should you plunge into a worse mistake, And find no difference in character Between a worthless scamp, and all good people? What! Just because a rascal boldly duped you With pompous show of false austerity, Must you needs have it everybody's like him, And no one's truly pious nowadays? Leave such conclusions to mere infidels; Distinguish virtue from its counterfeit, Don't give ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... Finally, in our pompous festivals of commerce, do we ever assemble any of the skillful workmen who alone have woven those admirable stuffs, forged and damascened those shining weapons, chiselled those goblets of gold and silver, carved the wood and ivory ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... such a fixed moral fibre must always be some moral idea. When a man lives up to a real, not a pompous, dignity some ideal must inform it. Memba Sasa's ideal was that of ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... calm Bowers waited for the applause to cease, and submitted a slated list of officers for the meeting. It was straightway manifest that he had made good his promise to take care of Dr. Crandall. Speech-making was the breath of the worthy, if pompous, physician's nostrils, and Bowers had shrewdly judged that to offer him the chairmanship would clinch his wavering allegiance. The crowd which always relished his grandiloquence, voted him into office with a shout, and cheered his soaring periods to their peroration. A quartet ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... then struck Kutusoff with the palsy of inertness. To their infinite surprise, they saw this Russian Fabius running into extremes like all imitators, persisting in what he called his humanity and prudence, remaining upon his heights with his pompous virtues, without allowing himself, or daring to conquer, as if he was astonished at his own superiority. Seeing that Napoleon had been conquered by his rashness, he pushed his horror of that fault to the very ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Mr. Harley was pompous and patronizing the next evening when he met Richard at dinner; but Mr. Harley was no less kind. Richard submitted himself to Mr. Harley's patronage, for in it he recognized the inalienable right of a father-in-law. Mrs. Hanway-Harley on that dinner occasion did not ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... that," Terence said. "We were arrested by the Maire of Granville, and had to tie him and one of his officials up. He was a pompous little man; and no doubt, when he got free, went down to the port and persuaded the captain of the lugger to put out, at once, to endeavour to find us. I expect he told him that we were prisoners of importance, either English spies ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... his political debts with free and easy cessions of American lands, Clarendon, Albemarle, and Shaftesbury were among the first and luckiest in the scramble. When the representatives of themselves and their partners arrived in Carolina in 1670, bringing with them that pompous and preposterous anachronism, the "Fundamental Constitutions," contrived by the combined wisdom of Shaftesbury and John Locke to impose a feudal government upon an immense domain of wilderness, they found the ground already occupied with a scanty ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... musketry pouring down the banks, their horses and artillery swallowed in the mud, the wounded swept away by the current or buried alive in the quagmires. The air resounded with German, Spanish, Italian, and Flemish voices. Torches illuminated the great arquebuses, the pompous plumes, the strange, blanched faces. The battles seemed to be fantastic funerals. They were, in fact, the funerals of the great Spanish monarchy, which was slowly drowned in Dutch waters, smothered with mud and curses. One who is weak enough to feel an excessive tenderness for Spain ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... of the pompous ignorance sometimes exhibited by theatrical managers is afforded in the following anecdote, which has appeared in England, but which we are sure will be relished by our readers. It may seem extraordinary that a manager should be such an ignoramus; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... especially by the little clique of which Black Paul was the centre. But the sailing-master knew his business, and the Revenge was safely, though slowly, sailed among the coral-reefs and islands until she dropped anchor off Belize. Early in the morning the now dignified and pompous Captain Bonnet, of that terror of the seas, the pirate craft Revenge, again arrayed himself in a manner befitting his position, and stationed himself on the quarter-deck, where he might be seen by the eyes of all the crews of the other pirate vessels anchored about them and by the glasses ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... bowed his thick neck in pompous courtesy, she caught with a shiver the odour of pomade on his black half-kinked hair. He stopped on the lower step, looked back with smiling insolence, and gazed intently at her beauty. The girl shrank from the gleam of the jungle in his eyes and ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the door. Captain Elkanah Daniels, prosperous, pompous, and unbending, crossed the threshold. Richest man in the village, retired shipowner, pillar of the Regular church and leading member of its parish committee, Captain Elkanah looked the part. He removed his hat, cleared ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... day he was particularly bland and condescending in his manner to me, and particularly pompous and exacting in his manner to Jack, and this, more than anything else, convinced me the latter was ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Marmaduke de Chavasse," here interposed Endicott with much pompous dignity, "that your ... hem ... your young friend doth not desire to bring insinuations doubts, mayhap, against the honor of my house ... or ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... tragedy—no need to lengthen my face artificially. It feels all of a sudden quite a yard and a half long. Polly has stopped barking: he is now calling, "Barb'ra! Barb'ra!" in father's voice, and he hits off the pompous severity of his tone with such awful accuracy, that did not my eyes assure me to the contrary, I could swear that my parent was in ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... lords of the Albans, returned to Rome in triumph, their advent to the city being marked by the first of those pompous processions which in after-years became known as Roman Triumphs, and were celebrated with the utmost splendor and costliness ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... seldom seen in adults; and it is on this point that we wish to dwell. Very early in life people find out that a smile is a weapon, mighty to avail in all sorts of crises. Hence, we see the treacherous smile of the wily; the patronizing smile of the pompous; the obsequious smile of the flatterer; the cynical smile of the satirist. Very few of these have heard of Delsarte; but they outdo him on his own grounds. Their smile is four-fifths of their social stock in trade. All such smiles are hideous. ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of it—coarse, greasy and cold. The soup which had been waiting was of the variety known as tinned, an old acquaintance which X. had hoped to have left in the jungle until his return. This, and other messes, would not have mattered so greatly, had not the proprietor of the hotel, a pompous gentleman (X. afterwards learnt he was President of the Race Club), stood sentry over the door, whence issued the rows of servants with the dishes, narrowly watching what each guest partook of ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... for so many years been sounded by the pious preachers of the Gospel, the servants of the meek and lowly Jesus. On this occasion the Prince Regent went in state to St. Paul's. On the 21st he gave a superb fete to two thousand five hundred persons, and on the 1st of August there was a pompous celebration, on account of the peace, held in Hyde and St. James's Parks, in the latter of which there was a grand display of fireworks; while, still further to amuse the John and Jenny Gulls of the cities of London and Westminster, there ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... all, it might have been merely a city-spectacle, appertaining to the Lord Mayor; but the sight had its value in bringing vividly before me the grand old times when the sovereign and nobles were accustomed to use the Thames as the high street of the metropolis, and join in pompous processions upon it; whereas, the desuetude of such customs, nowadays, has caused the whole show of river-life to consist in a multitude of smoke-begrimed steamers. An analogous change has taken place in the streets, where cabs and the omnibus have crowded out a rich variety of vehicles; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... well knew this feeling, and smiled in his pompous and most sardonic manner when he learned who was his opponent. Having conquered an old and tried Republican warrior in the last campaign, he had no fears in regard to this mere boy, who could know little of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... turn, was not much more just to Dr. Johnson's genius. He uniformly spoke of him in terms which, had they been deserved, would have justified Churchill's 'immane Pomposo' as an appellation of scorn; since if his person was huge, and his manners pompous and violent, so were his talents vast and powerful, in a degree from which only prejudice and resentment ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... the competition engendered by them grew fiercer, it became increasingly difficult to attract attention by mere academic merit. So the painters began to search for sensationalism of subject, and the typical salon picture, no longer decorously pompous, began to deal in blood and horror and sensuality. It was Regnault who began this sensation hunt, but it has been carried much further since his day than he can have dreamed of, and the modern salon picture is ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... popular. Quevedo has his Visions of the World, of Death and her (sic) Empire, and of Hell; the same characters are delineated in both, the same classes satirized, the same punishments meted out. We read in both works of the catchpoles and wranglers, the pompous knights and lying knaves—in fine, we cannot possibly come to any other conclusion than that Ellis Wynne has "read, marked and inwardly digested" L'Estrange's translation of Quevedo's Dreams. But admitting so much, the Bardd Cwsc ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... Potentate of Foxville," said the captain, addressing the King in a pompous voice, "I humbly beg to report that I found these strangers on the road leading to your Foxy Majesty's dominions, and have therefore brought them before ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... is not far distant, when I shall stand in the first ranks in Fulton Academy. There are two teachers. Mr. Oswald, the head master, and Mr. Lawrence, who is quite a young man, is the assistant teacher. This same assistant is very pompous in his manner, and when Mr. Oswald is not present, he is disposed to act something of the tyrant. He has red hair, which I believe is a matter of much annoyance to him, for he is uncommonly vain regarding his personal appearance. Knowing this, some of the boys delight in playing off ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... sent all manner of absurd messages, to the Great Horatio; she told Christine to be sure, to give him her love; she kept up a running fire of chaff and banter till the train started away, and a pompous guard told her to "Stand back, there!" and presently the last glimpse of Christine's pale little face and Jimmy's worried eyes had been swallowed up ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... without any true steps in the artistic sense of the word, intended rather for display than for the exhibition of seductive grace; so we may readily conceive it must lose all its haughty importance, its pompous self-sufficiency, when the dancers are deprived of the accessories necessary to enable them to animate its simple form by dignified, yet vivid gestures, by appropriate and expressive pantomime, and ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... finger-tips. It amused Hadria to note the contrast between him and Mr. Gordon, who was a typical father of a family; limited in his interests to that circle; an amiable ruler of a tiny, somewhat absurd little world, pompous and important ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... burned off, or they would be lowered into a well and kept hanging between life and death until they had sung some foul song or uttered some blasphemy. Everybody knows the story of the notary who was allowed to enter in company with his four clerks, and whom they received with all the assiduity of pompous hospitality. My grandfather pretended to agree with a good grace to the execution of their warrant, and politely helped them to make an inventory of his furniture, of which the sale had been decreed. After this, when dinner was served and the king's men had taken their places ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... raised his eyes again to his wife's face. He saw it calm, her attitude reposeful. Till then his tone had been resentful, dull, without sarcasm. But now he became slightly pompous. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Beneath his absurd pompous manner beat a kindly heart, and the small boys divined this and were grateful. None the less the word "spirits" frightened them. Next day John happened to find himself alone with Caesar. Very nervously he ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... curious back-ground to the more prominent figures that occupied the present time, and Mr. Tooke worked out the minute details and touched in the evanescent traits with the pencil of a master. His conversation resembled a political camera obscura—as quaint as it was magical. To some pompous pretenders he might seem to narrate fabellas aniles (old wives' fables)—but not to those who study human nature, and wish to know the materials of which it is composed. Mr. Tooke's faculties might appear to have ripened and acquired a finer flavour with age. In a former ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... pompous wind-bag! What do you suppose I care about being unmasked by you?—Go to work! Leave off this silly drivelling!—Do something! Get ahead! I don't need to sponge on any one for ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... messages must have informed the Bishop that the hoped-for relapse had taken place. He set out himself accordingly, accompanied by the Vicar-Inquisitor and attended by eight of the familiar names so often quoted, triumphant, important, no doubt with much show of pompous solemnity, to find out for himself. The Castle was all in excitement, report and gossip already busy with the new event so trifling, so all-important. There was no idea now of turning back the visitors. The prison doors were eagerly thrown open, and there indeed ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... of burning shame rising to her cheeks as she passed the shop. She was about to turn back, when whom should she see standing in the doorway but the prosperous owner himself! He recognized her immediately, and called out to her in his full, pompous voice, ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... good many times at the Russell house, to accompany Nettie to parties or home from school, yet he had never had any conversation to speak of with Russell, who was a large and somewhat pompous man. He knew his place, as a Western father, and never interfered with his daughter's love affairs. He knew Bradley as a likely and creditable young fellow, and besides, his experience with his two older daughters had taught him the perfect uselessness of trying ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... man can stand such flattery as that without deteriorating, I warn you. I shall become consequential, and pompous, and altogether insupportable, and then you will leave me and never realize that it has been ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... not to know the most evident facts and to know the most hidden secrets. Furthermore he was not only general but his own assistant in every business equally, and was seen to be neither humble nor pompous, but in him obscurity of family and reputation for strength were so mingled that he seemed to be neither inferior nor superior to any one. And, in fine, he carried on the war not for the sake of personal gain or power nor through anger, but because of the ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... year 1816, a seventh well made its appearance in Clemens-street, which bears the pompous title of the imperial sulphuric medical font, and ladies' marble baths. There are here four baths, with a dressing-room to each, and ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... that you are temporarily suspended." And in the pompous language of headquarters he was further informed that the person appointed to take over control would arrive at Rodchurch Road Station by the eleven o'clock train; that he himself was to come to London on the morrow, and immediately call at the G.P.O.; where, on the afternoon ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Peignot, in his Dictionnaire de Bibliologie, vol. i. 50, has given a very pompous account of what ought to be the talents and duties of a Bibliographer. It would be difficult indeed to find such things united in one person! De Bure, in the eighth volume of his Bibliographie Instructive, has prefixed a "Discourse upon ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... nearing completion to accommodate the female prisoners, who are at present incarcerated in Cetinje. We visited the director that Easter Monday morning, and were received unofficially in his quarters. We always had great fun with that man—a pompous individual filled to overflowing with the importance of his position, and, not unlike men ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... my long standing in the service, Captain——," said a pompous general officer, whose back appeared to have been fished with the kitchen poker—"if I might venture to offer you advice," continued he, leading me paternally by the arm a little on one side, "it would be not again to attempt a defence of smuggling: I consider, sir, that ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... I went so far as to give him to understand that I would leave no stone unturned to get a clue to the business, and so deliver him here in this world into the hands of an earthly judge. I must confess that I was considerably disconcerted when, at the conclusion of my violent and pompous harangue, the Councillor, without answering so much as a single word, calmly fixed his eyes upon me as though expecting me to go on again. And this I did indeed attempt to do, but it sounded so ill-founded ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... though they endeavour to improve their Complexions with Washes and Paint. These of Quality wear such high-heeled Shoes, that they can scarce walk without having two people to support them. In matters of Religion (though their worship is as pompous as Gold and Jewels can make it) the Venetians are very Easy and Unconcerned; and neither Pope nor Inquisition is thought much of in the Dominions of the Seignory. For Music in their Churches they have a perfect Passion. The City is well furnished with Necessaries; but ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... were gone, and Joe felt that tingling sense of pride which never comes from the sensation of sharing in mere power or splendor or pompous might, but is so certain when ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... the sense to see that the real Michael was speaking. When people were being unreal, when they were pompous or adopting attitudes, she could attend to nothing but their absurdity, which engrossed her altogether. But she never laughed at real things; real things were not ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... was not the first person whom Helen's passion for clothes had driven into indiscretions. Her mother, for example, had done battle with that passion, and had been defeated with heavy loss. A head-mistress and a chairman of a School Board (a pompous coward) had also suffered severely. And though Helen had been the victor, she had not won without some injury to her nerves. Her campaigns and conquests had left her, on this matter, "touchy"—as the word is used in ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... recovering empire. Household managers like Agathe have a plain common-sense which enables them to perceive such political chicane: the poor woman saw the truth through the lines of her son's tale; for she had read, in the exile's interests, all the pompous editorials of the constitutional journals, and watched the management of the famous subscription, which produced barely one hundred and fifty thousand francs when it ought to have yielded five or six millions. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Barrie serious? Hardly! Yet they are all of this new movement in their very different ways, because they are sincere. The word "serious," in fact, has too narrow a significance and admits a deal of pompous stuff which is not sincere. While the word "sincere" certainly does not characterise all that is popularly included under the term "new drama," it as certainly does characterise (if taken in its true sense of fidelity to self) all that is really new in it, and ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... cuffs; it opened from the throat and in the middle, and showed an under vestment of embroidery, betwixt the folds of which, as if imperfectly concealed, peeped the close shirt of hair-cloth which the Prelate constantly wore under all his pompous attire. His mitre was placed beside him on an oaken table of the same workmanship with his throne, against which also rested his pastoral staff, representing a shepherd's crook of the simplest form, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... on their plastered walls and with dim, echoing arcades. And so into the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele—there is no more charming little square in Italy—with its fountain and its two stone giants and the pompous statue of an incredibly ugly King astride a prancing horse and a monument to Peace set up by Napoleon to commemorate a treaty which was the cause of many wars. At the back of the piazza, like the ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... into a splendid and spacious apartment, where three people sit at breakfast. Perhaps it is the garish sunshine, sparkling on so much cut glass and silver, that dazzles Edith's eyes, but for a minute she can see nothing. Then the mist clears away, the trio have risen—a pompous-looking old gentleman in a shining bald head and expansive white vest, a pallid, feeble-looking elderly lady in a lace cap, and a tall, stylish girl, with Charley's eyes and hair, in violet ribbons and white cashmere. The bald gentlemen shakes hands with her, and welcomes her in ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... pompous air, Dan'l stretched out his hand and made a clean sweep around him. Then he reached down for the package at his feet and commenced unwrapping from around it the newspapers in which it was hidden. As, with a flourish, he pulled away the ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... and hollowed by ambition, he was the very type of a second-rate personage on the lookout for something to turn up, and ready to do anything if so he might get on in the world, while keeping within the limitations of the possible and the forms of law. His pompous expression was an admirable indication of the time-serving eloquence to be expected of him. Chesnel's successor had discovered the young Count's hiding place to him, and he took great credit ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... very great pains with it; indeed, internal evidence would be sufficient to establish this if we had no positive external testimony whatsoever. He came at a fortunate time, when the stately yet not pompous or over-elaborated model of the latest Georgian prose, raised from early Georgian "drabness" by the efforts of Johnson, Gibbon, and Burke, but not proceeding to the extremes of any of the three, was still the academic standard; but when a certain freedom on the one side, and a ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... collaboration was not altogether happy, for although Jennens had considerable sense of the picturesque, and offered Handel opportunities for what may be called spectacular music on the grand scale, his literary style was pompous, rhetorical, and long-winded. Handel protested perpetually against the length of the work, for the Handelian style of composition naturally extended the prolixity of the words; Jennens greatly resented ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... universe at her command. For the various compositions and incantations in common use, it must be sufficient to refer to the pages of the Roman poets. The forms of incantation and horrid rites of the Horatian Sagana Canidia (Epod. v. and Sat. i. 8), or the scenes described by the pompous verses of the poet of the civil war (De Bello Civili, vi.), where all nature is subservient, are of a similar kind, but more familiar, in the dramatic writings of the Elizabethan age. The darker characteristics of the ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... the drawing-room when he went down, and the old gentleman asked him after his progress in study, and what profession he intended to adopt, in a pompous and condescending way; but it was only a few sentences, for there were other gentlemen there, who came up and button-holed him seriously, and with whom he seemed to hold portentous conversation, politics, ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... waiting for him, seated in his arm-chair. He was the local notary, a stout, solemn-faced man, given to pompous speeches. ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... sword, found at Lagny, and over her armour she wore a surcoat of cloth of gold.[2003] Such attire would have better beseemed a parade than a sortie; but in the simplicity of her rustic and religious soul she loved all the pompous show of chivalry. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... dramatist, who makes them fall into all the tragic attitudes. What is really curious and amusing is that the people of all others the most vivacious, gay, and intelligent, should have always understood the grand style in this pompous, pedantic ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Montrose, and wrote to the newspapers; but all in vain. The tragedy could not be performed. That the stage lost much it would be rash to assert. "Alasco" was published, and those who read it—they were not many—found it certainly harmless; but not less certainly pompous and wearisome. However, that Shee was furnished with a legitimate grievance was generally agreed, although in "Blackwood's Magazine," then very intense in its Toryism, it was hinted that the dramatist, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... through her duties as hostess with a pretty well-bred grace, and a childishness infinitely touching. Yet something more protects her; a certain common sense, which now and then very nearly achieves wit. For an instance—But yesterday a certain pompous lady lamented to her in my hearing (and with intention, as it seemed to me, who am grown suspicious), the rapid moral decay of Boston society. "Alas!" sighs my heroine; "but what a comfort, ma'am, to think that neither of us belongs ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... there was money in it. In fact, about a thousand scudi were found there, three hundred of which she ordered to be laid out upon her funeral, and the remainder to be appropriated to masses for her soul. This was accordingly done, and her squalid life ended in a pompous procession ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... dispose her for a complete cure, he exorcises the demon, and then anathematizes him, with all the eclat he possibly could: the bishops are assembled in the cathedral, the people repair thither in crowds; the circumstance is recounted in pompous terms; the evil spirit is threatened; the tapers are extinguished—all of them striking ceremonies: the woman is moved by them, and her imagination is restored to ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... reading-spectacles, two false teeth, and weak ankles. It had seemed to me that my life had been pretty full—I never had much imagination—what with being as good a wife as ever lived—although James was a pompous bore if there ever was one—bringing eight children into the world and not making a failure of one of them, never neglecting my charities or my social duties or my establishments. As I have grown older I have often reflected upon a life well-spent, and looked forward to dying ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... husband held towards her, and wiping her eyes, and putting on her spectacles, endeavoured, as fast as the dew which collected on her glasses would permit, to get at the meaning of the needful part of the epistle; while her husband, with pompous elevation, read an extract ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... for a Christmas-box. Poor fellows! they get little enough, and a couple of francs is well bestowed on them once a year. After mid-day breakfast or luncheon is over, rich and poor walk out and take the air, and a gaudy, pompous crowd they form as a rule. As regards presents at Christmas, the rule is, in primitive Spain, to send a present to the Cura (parish priest) and the doctor. Many Spaniards pay a fixed annual sum to their medical man, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson |
