"Ridicule" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the glass in his hand. Suddenly he began speaking Welsh to the people; before, however, he had uttered two sentences the woman lifted her hand with an alarmed air, crying "Hush! he understands." The fellow was turning me to ridicule. I flung my head back, closed my eyes, opened my mouth and laughed aloud. The fellow stood aghast; his hand trembled, and he spilt the greater part of the whiskey upon the ground. At the end of about half a minute I got up, asked what I had to pay, and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... Judgment was opened. Those Greenlanders who had quarrelled stepped forward, and the offended person chanted forth the faults of his adversary in an extempore song, turning them sharply into ridicule, to the sound of the pipe and the measure of the dance. The defendant replied with satire as keen, while the audience laughed, and gave their verdict. The rocks heaved, the glaciers melted, and great masses of ice and snow came crashing down, shivering ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Travels of Baron Munchausen were written to ridicule Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, whose adventures were at the time deemed fictitious. Bruce was a most upright, honest man, and recorded nothing but what he had seen; nevertheless, as is always the case, a host of detractors buzzed about him, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... clear up the nature of each of these three methods, and determine which of them deserves the preference, it will be expedient (conformably to a favorite maxim of Lord Chancellor Eldon, to which, though it has often incurred philosophical ridicule, a deeper philosophy will not refuse its sanction) to "clothe them in circumstances." We shall select for this purpose a case which as yet furnishes no very brilliant example of the success of any of the three methods, but which is all the more suited to illustrate the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... of them is that of a friend to me now. We'll shake again. Good-by;" and I went home feeling as if I had solid ground under my feet. At supper I went over the whole scene, taking off the man in humorous pantomime, not ridicule, and even my wife grew hilarious over her disappointed hopes of the "new-fangled truck." I managed, however, that the children should not lose the lesson that a rough diamond is better than a smooth paste stone, and that people often do ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... "Est-il assez ridicule, lui? with his cap over his nose, and his knees knocking at everyone's door? Bah! ca pue! " the group of lads following him went on, shouting about the poor sot, as they pelted him with their rain ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... amongst others, by William Penn, and by the author himself in The Duke of Buckingham's Letter to the unknown author of a short answer to the Duke of Buckingham's Paper (1685). In hopes of converting him to Roman Catholicism James sent him a priest, but Buckingham turned his arguments into ridicule. He died on the 16th of April 1687, from a chill caught while hunting, in the house of a tenant at Kirkby Moorside in Yorkshire, expressing great repentance and feeling himself "despised by my country and I fear forsaken by my God."[3] ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... trowsers, a pink vest, and a red and white turban; who, after having shaken my companion by the ears, according to the custom of the country among intimate friends, expressed his delight at seeing him again in Morosofia. He then went on, in a lively, humorous strain, to ridicule the nail-smith, and told us several stories of his singular attachment to his nails. In the midst of these sallies, however, a harsh looking personage in brown came up, upon which the countenance of our lively acquaintance suddenly ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... quibbles of the understanding with which persons of intelligence, imbued with affected culture, sometimes amuse themselves; and in defence of the truth Pepe Rey employed at times, and not always with moderation, the weapon of ridicule. This was almost a defect in the eyes of many people who esteemed him, for our hero thus appeared wanting in respect for a multitude of things commonly accepted and believed. It must be acknowledged, although it may lessen him in the opinion of many, that Rey did not share the mild toleration ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... representation, and such like measures, all of which he indefatigably promoted. Whatever subject he undertook, he worked at with all his might. He was not a good speaker, but what he said was believed to proceed from the lips of an honest, single-minded, accurate man. If ridicule, as Shaftesbury says, be the test of truth, Joseph Hume stood the test well. No man was more laughed at, but there he stood perpetually, and literally, "at his post." He was usually beaten on a division, but the influence which he exercised was nevertheless ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... measure forgotten; the Nibelungen Lied and the Heldenbuch were despised by the learned as relics of barbarian life; classical studies engaged the attention of all who loved elegant literature, and while Horace was admired, the title of German poet was generally applied as a badge of ridicule. A propensity to satire of the most violent and personal description seems to have been almost universal in these excited times. Hutten (1488-1523) shared the general excitement of the age, and warmly defended the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... on the subject of old Welsh literature is "Taliesin; or, The Bards and Druids of Britain." The author, D. W. Nash, is obviously familiar with his theme, and he throws much light on many points of it. His ridicule of the arbitrary tenets and absurdities which Davies, Pughe, and others have taught in all good faith as Druidic lore and practice is richly deserved. But, despite the learning and acumen displayed in his able and valuable volume, we must think Mr. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... such a tenet been advanced as a tenet of revelation I am very sure that all the enemies of religion, and probably Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet among the rest, would have exhausted the whole force of their ridicule upon it, as the most puerile, the most absurd, the poorest, the most pitiful, the most iniquitously unjust, and, consequently, the most unworthy of the Deity that the superstitious ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... will be the story at every camp fire this winter— yes, and for long years to come. We all know that wolverines are cunning animals, but when the fact is known that there were so many of us in the camp at the time that five beavers were stolen from our sleds—why, great will be their ridicule and contempt for us." ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... Commission, when Mr. Roosevelt became a member, had been established by Congress, but it was hated and opposed by Congress and the Commission was still fought, secretly or openly. Congressmen tried to ridicule it, to hamper it by denials of money, and to overrule it in every possible way. A powerful Republican Congressman and a powerful Democratic Senator tried to browbeat Roosevelt, and were both caught by him in particularly mean lies. Naturally they ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... understand as you would do their botanical arrangement. With some few I have made myself acquainted, but have hardly confidence in my scanty stock of knowledge to venture on scientific descriptions, when I feel conscious that a blunder would be easily detected, and expose me to ridicule and contempt, for an assumption of knowledge that I did not possess. The only botanical work I have at my command is Pursh's North American Flora, from which I have obtained some information; but must confess it is tiresome blundering out Latin descriptions ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... on a certain evening, an abundant rain. When the dawn of the next day appears, the deluge will begin, which will cover the earth and drown all living things.'" Shamashnapishtim repeated the warning to the people, but the people refused to believe it, and turned him into ridicule. The work went rapidly forward: the hull was a hundred and forty cubits long, the deck one hundred and forty broad; all the joints were caulked with pitch and bitumen. A solemn festival was observed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... old-fashioned as to dress and habits. They felt perfectly at home in my shop, and would rather work for me and be underpaid than be employed in an up-to-date factory where a tailor was expected to wear a starched collar and necktie and was made the butt of ridicule if he covered his head every time he took a drink of water. These, however, were minor advantages. The important thing, the insurmountable obstacle which kept these three skilled tailors away from the big cloak-shops, was the fact that one had to work on Saturdays there, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... in penitential fires, You'll rue the ribaldry that from you falls! To-morrow afternoon the law expires. And then—look out for squalls! [Exit RUDOLPH, amid general ridicule. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... quite well aware that the improved breeding of men is a very different matter from the improved breeding of animals, requiring a different knowledge and a different method, so that the ridicule which has sometimes been ignorantly flung at Eugenics failed to touch him. It would be clearly undesirable to breed men, as animals are bred, for single points at the sacrifice of other points, even if ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... to be married. I would have laughed at her if she had not been so tragic. But there is something about Alice, in spite of her romantic folly, (which she has adapted from the French to suit her American needs,) which forbids ridicule. Nevertheless I felt, with one of those sudden flashes of intuition, that this choice of hers was a hideous mistake. The situation repelled me. But the very strangeness of it seemed to attract the morbid Alice. And ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... hearts, they would have to leave the dinner-tables where filthy jokes are bandied about, there being no women present. And in some workshops and mills, men and women would have to speak out at the cost of ridicule and scorn. Yes, speak out, when they hear that which is opposed to truth and purity made the ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... in this, as in most of the dialogues of Plato, allowance has to be made for the character of Socrates. For the theory of language can only be propounded by him in a manner which is consistent with his own profession of ignorance. Hence his ridicule of the new school of etymology is interspersed with many declarations 'that he knows nothing,' 'that he has learned from Euthyphro,' and the like. Even the truest things which he says are depreciated by himself. He professes to be guessing, but the guesses ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... Crane with more ridicule, abuse and unkind comment than was bestowed on any other writer of his time. Possibly the vagueness, and the loose, unsleeked quality of his work invited the gibes, jeers, and the loud laughter that tokens the vacant mind; yet as half-apology for the critics we might ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Minister, together with the Prefect of Police, is opposed to making any too minute inquiries capable of opening up a scandal which the authorities are anxious to avoid. Bring Arsene Lupin back to life? Recommence the struggle with that accursed scoundrel? Risk a fresh defeat and fresh ridicule? ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... Urban's to Simplicio—you know well How composite are all characters in books, How authors find their colours here and there, And paint both saints and villains from themselves. No matter. This was Urban. Make it clear. Simplicio means a simpleton. The saints Are aroused by ridicule to most human wrath. Urban was once his friend. This hint of ours Kills all of that. And so we mortals close The doors of Love and Knowledge on the world. And so, for many an age, the name of Christ Has been misused by man to mask man's hate. How should the Church escape, then? I ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... (so-called) philosophy still meets at Concord in July—the last survival of the speculative ignorance of the dark ages, and the worship of Greek literature. The copious ridicule of the press has no effect upon this serious gathering. Its verbose platitudes and pretentious inanities continue to be repeated, furnishing almost as good an antithesis to science and philosophy as Mrs. Eddy and her disciples. There is no lack of fluency and ingenuity ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... untidiness. But these will be but transient flashes in a general flow of harmonious graciousness; dress will have scarcely any of that effect of disorderly conflict, of self-assertion qualified by the fear of ridicule, that it has in the crudely ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... dormant, still living on the stores of the fall and not yet driven afield by spring hunger. In camp was no food. The hunters halted the march, and came in Christmas Eve of 1633 with not so much as a pound of flesh for nearly fifty people. From the first the Indian medicine man had heaped ridicule on the white priest, and Pierre had refused to interpret as much as a single prayer; but now the whole camp was starving. Pierre happened to tell the other Indians that Christmas was the day on which the white man's God had come to earth. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... point at which infamy becomes fatal to a society. Penguin society is being strangled by its infamy, and you are requested to save it, to give it air that it can breathe. This is simply turning you into ridicule. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... accordance with our usual habits, and I was kept back from fear of what my companions would say. How miserable and contemptible is such a feeling! We are not afraid of displeasing our all-beneficent Creator, or appearing ungrateful for His mercies, and we are afraid of the ridicule of our fellow-men, or even of a sneer from the lips of those we despise the most. I dare say, if the truth were known, that McAllister, Bambrick, and others felt exactly as I did, and yet we were positively afraid of showing our feelings to each other. What a contrast did our ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... appearance; and then indeed they ran back to their entrenchments, in all the hurry of trepidation, as if frenzied or thunderstruck; and then when the consul, and lieutenant-generals, and tribunes began to ridicule and chide them for being frightened like children at mere sights, shame suddenly changed their minds; and they rushed, as if blindfold, on those very objects from which they had fled. Having, therefore, dissipated the idle contrivance ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the other considerations which operate upon them the feeling that they are embarking in an Administration under a head totally incapable to carry it on and which must of course soon be an object of ridicule is uppermost in their minds. Add to this that, though they will not certainly enter into faction and opposition, all the aristocracy of the country at present cordially connected with Government, and part of it under you, feel a degradation in the first Minister of the Country being selected ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... haste, fearing a rescue of the prisoners, and while waiting at the tolbooth till the magistrates came to receive them, one John Nisbet, the arch-bishop's rector, said to Mr. Cargil in ridicule, three times over, Will you give us one word more, (alluding to an expression he used sometime when preaching) to whom Mr. Cargil said with regret, "Mock not, lest your hands be made strong. The day is coming, when you will not have one word to say though ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... with ridicule and vicious denunciation, not just by the official communist party press, but by internationalists in the Congress, by spokesmen for the executive branch of government, and by big respected publishing and broadcasting firms which are a part of the ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... York and Clarence—the pleasure-loving, he, too, had his foibles; he was not an anchorite by any means. His stern, Spartan idea of discipline may have been overstretched, and blind adherence to routine in his daily habits may have justly invited the lash of ridicule. What is pretended here, and that, without fear of contradiction, is that his faults, which were those of a man, were loudly proclaimed, while his spirit of justice, of benevolence and generosity was unknown, unrecognized, except by a few. No stronger record can be opposed ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... beg of him as a favour to take the direction of public affairs, and he would have desired the whole of the Dutch party to come down in corpore to Groote Schuur, to implore him to become their leader and to fight not only for them but also for the rights of President Kruger, whom he professed to ridicule and despise, but to whom he had caused assurances of sympathy ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... supposed to be derived from the same source, and which at any rate has cast Zeus down from his throne. All this we must ignore, as it is only conditioned partly by technical reasons—Aristophanes had to have a chorus and chose the clouds for the purpose—and partially by the desire to ridicule Ionic naturalism. But enough is left over. In the beginning of the play Socrates expressly declares that no gods exist. Similar statements are repeated in several places. Zeus is sometimes substituted for the gods, but it comes to the same thing. And at the ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... readers may fancy that I have exaggerated my state of mind: far from it, I have purposely softened down the more distressing particulars, apprehensive, if not of being discredited, at least of incurring ridicule. Towards the close of the third day my fever began to abate, I became more sobered in my turn of thought, could contrive to answer questions, and listen with tolerable composure to my landlord's details of my miraculous preservation. The storm ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... be asked in ridicule, whether I suppose that the megatherium and other allied huge monsters have left behind them in South America, the sloth, armadillo, and anteater, as their degenerate descendants. This cannot for an instant be admitted. These huge animals have become wholly extinct, and ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... the cardinal virtues of a thinker, courage and candour. No fear of ridicule deterred him from pushing his premises to their last conclusion; no false shame restrained him in a controversy from recanting an error. He discarded the wilder developments of his theory of "universal benevolence," and gave it in the ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... was not of a nature to make her popular. The few who really understood her loved her, but the majority of her pleasure-seeking subjects regarded her either with ridicule or dread. She is said to have taken no part in politics, and to have exerted no influence in public affairs, but her sympathies were well known, and "the very word liberty made her shudder;" like Madame Roland, she had seen "so many ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, removes all ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... in literary history, versatile, laborious, brilliant in style,—poet, satirist, historian, and essayist,—seemed to Carlyle to be superficial, irreligious, and egotistical. The critic ascribes his power to ridicule,—a Lucian, who destroyed but did not reconstruct; worldly, material, sceptical, defiant, utterly lacking that earnestness without which nothing permanently great can be ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... mythological plan, which had lately been produced with but little success, might prove an obstacle to the reception of theirs. At Drury Lane, too, they had little hopes of a favorable hearing, as Dibdin was one of the principal butts of their ridicule. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... light of investigation will not forsake you when you have heard all I have to say and you sit in judgment thereon. Sufficient time has now elapsed since the first promulgation of the subject for the shafts of ridicule to be well nigh spent (which is the common logic used to crush out all new ideas), and it is to be expected that gentlemen will look upon it with all the charity of a learned body, and not be too hasty to condemn what they have had but little chance to investigate; and, of course, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... household would smile as they used it! What a piece of senile presumption it would seem to them! How often Abram himself would be tempted to think his new name a farce rather than a sign! But he took it humbly from God, and he wore it, whether it brought ridicule from others or assurance in his own heart. It takes some courage for any of us to call ourselves by names which rest on God's promise and seem to have little vindication in present facts. The world is fond of laughing at 'saints,' but Christians should familiarise themselves ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... with him, and then, if he was in the mood, there was a feast of the body and flow of the soul; went to every ball, danced with everybody, visited the ladies; was learned or frivolous, as suited the ladies' capacities or attainments; appeared fond of their society, and always spoke of them with ridicule or contempt; married, and separated from his wife, no one knew for what cause, yet still claimed and supported her. She was the widow of Governor Claiborne, and a magnificent woman; she was a Spaniard by blood, aristocratic in her feelings, eccentric, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... damp woodland paths on this most unhealthy morning. 'I advise you as a physician, mind you,' said I, to give weight to the opinion which might be denied it in my cousinly capacity; but she received it with utter contempt and ridicule of my pretensions, gladly joined by Mr. Hayes, whose white teeth gleamed wolfishly behind a long black mustache, at my expense. We had shaken hands with great cordiality; I had inquired after his clients, he had professed interest in my ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the failure of the expedition. Ridicule is the most powerful of weapons. Man is not half so humorous as the dog or the elephant. With the latter it is an instinct. With the former it is an acquirement. Still, the perception of humor is fairly general. Don't argue with your opponent, ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... magnetism. It had occurred to me as just conceivable that you might be in a trance, and that the secret of your bodily integrity after so long a time was not the craft of an embalmer, but life. So extremely fanciful did this idea seem, even to me, that I did not risk the ridicule of my fellow physicians by mentioning it, but gave some other reason for postponing their experiments. No sooner, however, had they left me, than I set on foot a systematic attempt at resuscitation, of ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... 'Room amongst yourselves: all that wins me this homage I would lay at the feet of Beauty. I enter the lists of love,' and straightway his power vanishes, the poorest booby of twenty-four can jostle him aside; before, the object of reverence, he is now the butt of ridicule. The instant he asks right to win the heart of a woman, a boy whom in all else he could rule as a lackey cries, 'Off, Graybeard, that ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was by no means so easy to deal. Alden perceived at once that ridicule would be worse than useless. The man was far too much in earnest. A jest about a marquis with holes in his hat! Yes, Jean would laugh at that very merrily; for he was a true VOYAGEUR. But a jest about the reality of the marquis! ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... But their ridicule soon turned into delight as they gazed at the wondrous display of tints, beautifully blended, so that no two colours jarred. But it was not only in its hues that there was so much fascination to the eye, for all three gazed in wonder at the peculiar appendages which added to the strangeness ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... your height. What is there so very ridiculous—with such a resemblance as that—in a poor blind girl like me mistaking you one for the other? I wish to preserve a good opinion of you, for Oscar's sake. Don't turn me into ridicule again—or I shall be forced to think that your brother's good heart is ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... have it. There are eight translations into English alone; but it is always impossible for the translator to render its true spirit or to give it full justice. With all its vivacity and drollery, its delicate satire and keen ridicule, it has a mournful tinge of melancholy running through, and here and there peeping out, only to have been gathered from such experience as his. He wrote with neither bitterness nor a diseased imagination, always realizing what is due to himself and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... errors, I should be no more ashamed, than of my change of body, natural to increase of age; but in that first edition, there was inserted (without my consent!) a Sonnet to Lord Stanhope, in direct contradiction, equally, to my then, as to my present principles. A Sonnet written by me in ridicule and mockery of the bloated style of French Jacobinical declamation, and inserted by Biggs, (the fool of a printer,) in order forsooth, that he might send the book, and a letter to Earl Stanhope; who, to prove that he was not mad in all things, treated both book and letter with silent contempt.[27] ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... since sent out more line-of-battle ships and heavier frigates. Surely we must now mean to smother the American navy. A very short time before the capture of the Guerriere an American frigate was an object of ridicule to our honest tars. Now the prejudice is actually setting the other way and great pains seems to be taken by the friends of ministers to prepare the public for the surrender of a British seventy-four to an opponent lately so ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... most magnificent splendor of its ideas. The government is AFRAID of the mind; hence it desires to kill IT. A government, however, may commit many mistakes, but it never ought to show that it is afraid, fear exposing it to ridicule. And if we ought not to weep over the persecutions which the apprehensions of the government have caused to be instituted against literature, we ought to laugh at them. Whole volumes of the most sublime works of Gibbon, Robertson, Hume, and other great historians have been prohibited; and there ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... born. Dick was in a higher grade and made the fact known to Pan. He had grown into a large boy, handsomer, bolder, with a mop of red hair that shone like a flame. He called Pan "the little skunk tamer," and incited other boys to ridicule. So the buried resentment in Pan's depths smoldered and burst into blaze again, and found fuel to burn it into hate. He told his mother what Dick had got the boys to call him. Then he was indeed surprised to see his sweet soft-eyed mother give way to quick-flashing passion. Somehow ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... delusion it were, clung to her, haunted her, pursued her, week after week. To rid her of it, or to silence her, was impossible. She added no new facts to her first statement, but insisted that the long-lost dead was yet alive, with a quiet pertinacity that it was simply impossible to ridicule, frighten, threaten, or cross-question out of her, Clara was so thoroughly alarmed that she would not have slept alone for any mortal—perhaps not for any immortal—considerations. Winthrop and I talked the matter over often and gravely when we were alone and in quiet places. Mother's lips ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... merits of their forefathers than upon their own. They are extremely exclusive, and rarely associate with any but those who can "show as pure a pedigree." Their disdain of those whose families are 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 ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... and tintypes, of which I had a most remarkable collection, and of what I chose to tell her about them. I was a good deal annoyed to find that the stories which appealed to me as best illustrating the character of each of my friends, only seemed to furnish Beatrice with fresh material for ridicule, and the girls of whom I said the least were the ones of whom she approved. The only girls of my acquaintance who also were friends of hers, were two sisters who lived at Dobbs Ferry, and whose father owned the greater part of it, and a yacht, in which he went down to his office every morning. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... prevailing opinion, as to the legality of such a proceeding, the ridicule attaching to it would effectually have prevented any remedy—most men being willing to forgive a little irregularity, for the sake of substantial justice and "a good joke." But the summary course, adopted ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... a lesson in paddling it to and fro, with such a masterly hand, that, had there been time for a change of dress, the part of Charon would have been unanimously transferred to him; but the delay could not be suffered, and poor Mericour, in fear of a ducking, or worse, of ridicule, balanced himself, pole in hand, in the midst of the river. To the right of the river was Elysium—a circular island revolving on a wheel which was an absolute orrery, representing in concentric circles the skies, with the sun, moon, the seven planets, twelve signs, and the fixed stars, all ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... {This disturbed my mind but} what exercised me most was the fear that Eumolpus would find out what was going on and, being a very sarcastic individual, might revenge my supposed injury in some poetic lampoon, (in which event his ardent zeal would without doubt expose me to ridicule, and I greatly dreaded that. But while I was debating with myself as to the best means of preventing him from getting at the facts, who should suddenly come in but the man himself; and he was not uninformed as to ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Blois—Hope! Hope made him see his son in dreams. He hoarded his income for him, and guarded carefully the portion of inheritance which fell to him from the family of the late Mme. de l'Estorade, no one venturing to ridicule the ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... who was the leader of the band fixed on his breast the hump she had taken from Friedel. Immediately the clock struck one, and all disappeared. The poor man's rage was boundless, for he found himself now saddled with two humps. He became an object of ridicule to the townsfolk, but Friedel pitied him, and ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... as the principal in the whole list of crimes of which slavery was the synonym. Each one seemed to stand before me, his innermost soul laid bare, and his idiosyncrasy I was sure to strike with sarcasm, ridicule solemn denunciations, old truths from Bible and history and the opinions of good men. I had a reckless abandon, for had I not thrown myself into the breach to die there, and would I not sell my life at ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... both originality and power, were received with a contemptuous disdain, as cold and repulsive as the penury and neglect which blighted the budding of his youth. The unjust ridicule in the review of his first poems, excited in his spirit a discontent as inveterate as the feeling which sprung from his deformity: it affected, more or less, all his conceptions to such a degree that he may be said to have hated the age which had joined in the derision, as ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... Proudie always expressed a warm friendship for Mrs Thorne, and on this occasion loudly regretted her absence. "You must tell her, Dr Thorne, how exceedingly much we miss her." Dr Thorne, who was accustomed to hear his wife speak of her dear friend Mrs Proudie with almost unmeasured ridicule, promised that he would do so. "We are sorry the Lufton's couldn't come to us," said Mrs Proudie,—not alluding to the dowager, of whom it was well known that no earthly inducement would have sufficed to make her put her foot within Mrs Proudie's room;—"but one of the children ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... a victim to love; and could she only save her daughter from a similar error she might yet by her means retrieve her fallen fortune. To implant principles of religion and virtue in her mind was not within the compass of her own; but she could scoff at every pure and generous affection; she could ridicule every disinterested attachment; and she could expatiate on the never-fading joys that attend on wealth and titles, jewels and equipages; and all this she did in the belief that she was acting the part of a most wise and tender parent! The seed, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... multitude that invincible detestation of the system by which they were governed, that has since ended in assassination and treason. His subordinate agents, who in the folly and venom of their hearts at one time charged the great body of the Catholics with disaffection, at another held up to ridicule and odium the names of individuals of the most respectable and unsullied characters—at one time sneering at the merchant, at another insulting the tradesman, them I charge with having irritated the people of Ireland wantonly ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... are generally more roughly handled than any one else. The Admiral, who had previously amused himself by giving an alarming description of this ceremony, now very courteously exempted his guests from the inconvenience and ridicule attending it. Napoleon was scrupulously respected through the whole of this Saturnalian festivity. On being informed of the decorum which had been observed with regard to him he ordered a hundred Napoleons to be presented ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... silence was broken by Mrs. Draper, who was informed, presumably by Jermain himself, of the circumstances, and encountering Sylvia in the street waited for no invitation to confidence by the girl, but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidiously friendly ridicule. Sylvia, helpless before the graceful assurance of her friend, heard that she was a silly little unawakened schoolgirl who was throwing away a brilliantly happy and successful life for the queerest and funniest of ignorant notions. "What did you suppose, you baby? ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... of our grand private balls and assemblies. But, however I may be amused by the waltzing of the Parisian belles, I feel too much regard for my fair country-women to wish to see them adopt a dance, which, by throwing them off their guard, lays them completely open to the shafts of ridicule and malice. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... kashim or assembly house. The other people thought he was foolish, and he was despised and ill-treated by everyone. After the shamans had tried very hard to bring back the sun and moon and had failed, the boy began to ridicule them. ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... and endless stream. It is difficult, from the sources of Scandinavian opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of Wergeland. The critics of Norway as persistently overrate his talents as those of Denmark neglect and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians still speak of him as himmelstraevende sublim ("sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster. Neither view commends itself to a foreign ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... cowards, because their active, lively imagination often causes them to see danger where there is none. These people do not pass such peaceable lives as the first; but there is this to be remembered: the same nature which is so alive to fear will also be easily touched by praise, or blame, or ridicule, and eager therefore to do its very best. It is what we call a 'sensitive' nature, and it is of such stuff very often, that great men and ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... comic operas composed by him, in which the reader will find nothing but foolish buffooneries badly put together. In one of these comic operas he makes use of slander against King Theodore and the Venetian Republic, which he turns into ridicule ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... their faith for a few pieces of silver; a subsidized press,—"The Canadian Farmer" and "The Ranok"—was ever at work, playing on their patriotism and exploiting their racial feelings, to cover with ridicule their faith and pious traditions. The public school became in the hands of the enemy the most powerful weapon. Government itself, through its various officials, often went out of its way to thwart ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... and but one of these received any benefit from the tutor; and this benefit came, according to the scholar, from the master's supplying an excellent object for ridicule. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... attendant, and saying that now he was Jarl. At this, and all similar sallies, Samoa was sure to roar louder than any; though mirth was no constitutional thing with him. But he seemed rejoiced at the opportunity of turning upon us the ridicule, which as a barbarian among whites, he himself had ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... of this torrent of general ridicule, the Highlander instinctively griped beneath ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... in some ways hypersensitive. Among my other weaknesses I have a wholesome dread of ridicule, and this is probably why I failed to press my theory on the captain when he appeared, and even forbore to mention the various small matters which had so attracted my attention. If he and the experienced men who came with him saw suicide and nothing ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... management furnished his enemies with a new argument against him of which they afterwards made great use. The costly military expedition that had no fighting to do was continually held up to public ridicule. That the expense was trifling in comparison with the objects achieved must deeply impress any one who examines the records of the times. A mistake might have been fatal to the existence of the Government. It has become so powerful and massive since that time, that we can ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... the ridicule heaped upon the hopeful, trustful ones, who declared and repeatedly asseverated to the contrary. This is indeed, then, a scientific demonstration. It has proved, in most striking manner, the oft-repeated ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... will be required, while if they are absent, material compensations will be of no avail. Recognition, even if it takes the form of money, can bring a certain pleasure in old age to the man of science who has battled all his life against academic prejudice, or to the artist who has endured years of ridicule for not painting in the manner of his predecessors; but it is not by the remote hope of such pleasures that their work has been inspired. All the most important work springs from an uncalculating impulse, and is best promoted, not by rewards after the event, but by circumstances which keep the impulse ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... impossibility," said I, "I shall leave Soleure in three or four days; but I will first turn the three ugly companions of my charmer into ridicule. They might have had sense enough to guess that the waiter's apron was only a disguise. They can only pretend to be ignorant of the fact in the hope of getting some advantage over me, and injuring their friend, who was ill advised to let them into ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... more mirthful, because they felt that obscenity and vulgarity were alike jarring on his ear, although he had never more than tacitly shown that they were so. A precisian would have been covered with their contumely and ridicule; a saint would have been driven out from their midst with every missile merciless tongues and merciless hands could pelt with; a martinet would have been cursed aloud, and cheated, flouted, rebelled against, on every possible ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... my dear. I am speaking very seriously now. I mean, do not let Master Pawson think that you ridicule his love of music. It would be very weak and foolish, and ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... America the woman suffrage movement in New York was a subject of more or less ridicule; a few wealthy women had begun to identify themselves with it, but they were called "faddists" and their efforts were not taken seriously. It was apparent now that the suffrage cause had been given the impetus of the world-wide ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... Spanish Tragedy [by Thomas Kyd], so called from the scene of the story, and not from its being borrowed from a Spanish writer. It kept possession of the stage for a tolerable length of time, though it was often the subject of the ridicule and the parodies of succeeding poets. It usually happens that the public do not easily give up a predilection formed in their first warm susceptibility for the impressions of an art yet unknown to them, even after they have long been acquainted with better, nay, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... girl said roguishly, "you are a 'tenderfoot.' It is always the privilege of 'old hands' to ridicule newcomers. In your world there is little for you to learn. In ours you must be ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... which he presented to the public, met at first with indifference, then with ridicule and opposition. But as a bold worker in the streets of New York, by a relentless activity in carrying cases of ill-treatment of animals to the courts, and an eloquent advocacy of his cause on the floor of the legislature, he soon won friends and support, as every great ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... however, was sometimes rather troublesome; he had an inveterate habit of pilfering provisions at all times of the day. He set ridicule at utter defiance; and being without a particle of self-respect, he would never have given over his tricks, even if they had drawn upon him the scorn of the whole party. Now and then, indeed, something worse than laughter fell to his share; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... would be the worse for him. By far his best chance of a peaceful life was to be a bishop and not to live in Scotland. This was a great deal worse than Lalage's way of treating him. She merely sported, pursuing him with gay ridicule, mangling his pet quotations, smiling at his swelling rotundities. Dodds would have sent him to the stake without ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... opponent, Mr. Freeman. He complains that the Jaw is dull—that it is trash—a bugbear, and heaps other similar epithets upon it, and yet he appears to make considerable noise about it, and why should he attempt to ridicule me, in connection with the law. Every man in this state knows that Mr. Green himself could not pass the law without the aid of the legislature. He (Mr. Freeman) goes on to take many other positions which he (the speaker) could not understand, and therefore would not ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... very silly of me to be sensitive about being laughed at," Margaret concluded. "I've lived all my life surrounded by people suffering from an acute sense of humor, but I never, never, never shall get used to being held up to ridicule for things that are not ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... has left the marks of his teaching upon every poet who has written verses worth reading for the last twenty years. The idea by which he conquered was, as Coleridge well sets forth, the very one which, in its practical results on his own poetry, procured him loud and deserved ridicule. This, which will be the root idea of the whole poetry of this generation, was the dignity of nature in all her manifestations, and not merely in those which may happen to suit the fastidiousness or Manichaeism of any particular age. He may have been at times fanatical on his idea, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... had the courage even to wink at her since the Duke had first called her his own. Nor was she a spendthrift, or a gambler. She was not fast in her tastes, or given to any pursuit that was objectionable. She was simply a fool, and as a fool was ever fearing that she was the mark of ridicule. In all such miseries she would complain sorrowfully, piteously, and occasionally very angrily, to her dear Duke and protector; till sometimes her dear Duke did not quite know what to do with her or how to protect her. It did not suit him, a Knight of the Garter and a Duke of St Bungay, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... days Mr. Ruskin's influence was, comparatively speaking, small; and the expression of an opinion which heaped praise upon the single painting of a partially understood painter at the expense of a great and popular institution would only have served to arouse opposition, and possibly to attract ridicule. It is different to-day. We know the keen enthusiasm of the author of The Seven Lamps, and have seen again and again how he expresses himself in terms of somewhat exaggerated admiration when writing of a ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... causeway, which must once have traversed the plain, and the line of which may be not indistinctly descried stretching far out to seaward from the mouth of a little combe. It is true that geologists whom we have consulted ridicule the fancy of masonry offering such resistance to the tides, and explain it away as a pebble-ridge built up by the action of currents. And perhaps we might mention in this connection, that one of our party, on the first view, was half persuaded he had seen a sea-serpent. Well, this prosperous ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... the dowry portion settled, he pursued his way, considering that he owed her no further duty. Very frequently, the husband, overcome by jealousy or humiliated by the low standard of his wife who injured or brought ridicule upon his name, would have her kidnapped and taken to a convent. This right was enjoyed by the husband in spite of the general liberty of woman. A letters-patent was obtained through proof of adultery, and the wife was imprisoned in some convent for the rest ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... I had no other choice but to bring an action—which is what I have done. There was a general protest, all declaring that a lawsuit was out of the question and would bring ridicule upon the whole Society, to which he answered that he was exceedingly sorry to disoblige his colleagues, but his mind was made up. 'Besides, the man is in prison and ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... nobody. I will not even send snakes in a basket to Gungadhura. That scorpion shall sting himself to death if he sees fit, with a ring of the fire of ridicule all about him and no friends to console him, and no hope—nothing but disappointment and fear and rage! I will kill nobody. Yet I will ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... added, seems to have been a characteristic part of the Brook Farm experiment, despite the sober earnest and rapt enthusiasm that accompanied it. The members had their laughing allusions, and talked—in a strain of self-ridicule precisely similar to Coverdale's—of having bands of music to play for the field-laborers, who should plough in tune. This merely proves that they were people who kept their wits whole, and had the humor that comes with refinement; while it ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... you! It was you who laughed at my letters, and took no notice of them, except to show them to your friends and ridicule ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... what it is to perform your resolutions when the hour of temptation comes. It requires courage and firmness to do right, when you are surrounded by those who urge you to do wrong. Temptations to do wrong will be continually arising; and, unless you have resolution to brave ridicule, and to refuse solicitation, you will be continually led into trouble. I knew a young man who was ruined entirely, because he had not courage enough to say no. He was, when a boy, very amiable in his disposition, and did not wish to make any person ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... was not always of the same cast. It varied as greatly as were the moods of the composer. The sublimity of Ossian had its opposite in the biting sarcasm and trenchant ridicule of some ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... but sitting two on a horse and preceded by a band consisting only of some six drummers. He is playing his part doubtless very much to his own satisfaction, and little thinking that there is one "taking notes" and laughing at his proceedings. But so it is, we can always see, and ridicule the faults and foibles of others, would to God we could as easily perceive and weep over those of our own. The Baboo Mohes Chund called to pay his farewell visit to me and shortly afterwards sent a second edition of "russud" including ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... was vouchsafed to Thomas Sternhold when engaged with Rev. John Hopkins in versifying the Eighteenth Psalm. The ridicule heaped upon Sternhold and Hopkins's psalmbook has always stopped, and sobered into admiration and even reverence at the two stanzas beginning ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... that I was partial to him; indeed, his pomposity, as I considered it, was to me a source of ridicule and dislike. He took more notice of me than he did of anybody else; but he appeared to consider that his condescending patronage was all that was necessary; whereas, had he occasionally given me a half-crown I should have cherished better feelings towards ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... stranger in our midst—the foreigner—is viewed with heartless curiosity, or contempt, and subjected to ridicule. Patriotism to many a child means nothing more than a belief that our own country is the best, our own people the smartest, and that we can whip any and every ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... upon his head; but now, should this, our broomstick, pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... me tell you. I was reading a book, a story, last winter, and one of the characters, an old maid, was held up to ridicule in it for many little peculiarities that—that I recognized as my own. They had grown upon me without my knowing that they made me ridiculous, and now I—I have tried, but ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... which were very keen, against all of whatever rank who sought in any way to alter, and, as it was presumed, amend, the religious, philosophical, social, political, or literary creed and practice of the country, and held up to ridicule such men as Socrates and Euripides, as well as Cleon the tanner; wrote 54 plays, of which 11 have come down to us; of these the "Clouds" aim at Socrates, the "Acharnians" and the "Frogs" at Euripides, and the "Knights" at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... advantage of her half-sister's defeat. But a struggle had been going on in the girl's conscience, at all events. Yes, this explained everything. And, on the whole, it seemed to speak in Louise's favour. Her ridicule of Mr. Bowling's person and character became, in this new light, a proof of desire to resist her inclinations. She had only yielded when it was certain that Miss Higgins's former lover had quite thrown off his old allegiance, and when no good could ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... that at the Last Supper of our Saviour it was fitting to bring in dwarfs, buffoons, drunken Germans, and other absurdities. Did he not know that in Germany and other places infested with heresy, they were in the habit of turning the things of Holy Church into ridicule, with intent to teach false doctrine to the ignorant? Paolo for his defence cited the Last Judgment, where Michelangelo had painted every figure in the nude, but the Inquisitor replied crushingly, that these were disembodied spirits, who could ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... the matter secret from Uncle John, for they realized what a triumph it would be to surprise the old gentleman with proofs of their cleverness. To confide in him now would mean to invite no end of ridicule or good natured raillery, for Uncle John had not a grain of imagination or romance in his nature and would be unable to comprehend the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... whose society he announced his intention to join, belonged at that time to the most important monastic order in Germany. So much had already been said with justice, in the way of complaint and ridicule, of the depravation of monastic life, its idleness, hypocrisy, and gross immorality, that many of them fancied that the solemn renunciation of marriage and the world's goods, and the absolute submission of their wills to the commands of their superiors and the regulations ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... social abuses. Everything gave way to the zeal and activity of the new reformers. In France, every man distinguished in letters was found in their ranks. Every year gave birth to works in which the fundamental principles of the Church were attacked with argument, invective, and ridicule. The Church made no defence, except by acts of power. Censures were pronounced; books were seized; insults were offered to the remains of infidel writers; but no Bossuet, no Pascal, came forth to encounter Voltaire. There appeared not a single defence of the Catholic doctrine which produced ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The pen is mightier than the sword. How well may our readers remember one brief letter of Henry Clay (clarum et venerabile nomen!), who, when a candidate for the Presidency, wrote many excellent letters, and too many—so many, indeed, that his adversaries indulged in pointless ridicule, and called him 'The Complete Letter Writer.' We allude, of course, to that brief letter to certain importunate individuals in Alabama, which lost for him the decisive and final vote of New York, and made Mr. Polk President—its consequences being the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... voice. The parties returned to the chateau. Louise was very much chagrined that she should have allowed herself so imprudently to express her feelings. She knew that the conversation would be repeated, and feared that she should become a subject of ridicule for the whole court. In the interesting account which she gives of these events in her autobiography, she says that she retired to her room and ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... also heard of the pamphlet that has been published here called Das Welfe—that name Welfe is quite an idee fixe of the King now, and he brings it in on every occasion, and this pamphlet is written throwing the whole idea into ridicule, and beginning with the last years of the late King's reign. The Crown Prince[38] is very much liked, but, unfortunately, his new tutor will probably also leave very shortly—he has no authority over him, the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... proposal!" said the marquis; and, which seemed strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of ridicule ran through the tone in which he made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... new to you in art, or hear a proposition in philosophy you never heard before, do not make haste to ridicule, deny or refute. Possibly the ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... answered in PART ONE, and completely refuted by UP-TO-DATE SCIENTIFIC FACTS. No one has yet noted an error, nor answered an argument. If all students, teachers, ministers, etc., had this book (pp. 116-7), evolutionists could no longer conceal the "unanswerable arguments," nor answer them by ridicule or abuse. ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... one approved or played for many years. Richard Wagner was well on in life before his compositions brought him as much money as his writing. Hector Berlioz was a prominent critic, whose excursions into music brought him unmitigated abuse and ridicule. The list might ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... by frivolous applause, has once given way to insolent self-sufficiency, {such} foolish vanity is easily exposed to ridicule. ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... looked upon her as rather a nuisance, and was coldly critical upon her appearance and manner. She was an unsparing mimic, and frequently exercised the faculty on her step-daughter, whose nervousness became awkwardness in the constant expectation of being turned into ridicule. Consequently, she cordially disliked not only Lady Inez, but the little step-brother, who was made of so much importance, till one ghastly day changed the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... N. underestimation; depreciation &c (detraction) 934; pessimism, pessimist; undervaluing &c v.; modesty &c 881. V. underrate, underestimate, undervalue, underreckon^; depreciate; disparage &c (detract) 934; not do justice to; misprize, disprize; ridicule &c 856; slight &c (despise) 930; neglect &c 460; slur over. make light of, make little of, make nothing of, make no account of; belittle; minimize, think nothing of; set no store by, set at naught; shake off as dewdrops from the lion's mane. Adj. depreciating, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... which, we are sorry to find, has given offence where certainly no offence was intended. We have since heard all the details of the case to which reference was made, and are able to say that the conduct of the clergyman in question has deserved neither censure nor ridicule. Actuated by the purest charity he has proved himself a sincere friend ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... Yet Rabelais forces comparison with Cervantes, whose precursor he was in reality, though the two books and the two minds are very different. They have only one point in common, their attack and ridicule of the romances of chivalry and of the wildly improbable adventures of knight-errants. But in Don Quixote there is not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantes knew Rabelais' book or owed anything to it whatsoever, even the starting-point of his subject. Perhaps it was better he should ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... false custom, Immoral ditties are their delight; Vain and tasteless praise they recite; Falsehood at all times do they utter; The innocent persons they ridicule; Married women they destroy, Innocent virgins of Mary they corrupt; As they pass their lives away in vanity; Poor innocent persons they ridicule; At night they get drunk, they sleep the day; In idleness without ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... at large was much disposed to laugh at and to ridicule all the preparation that Dives of East Haven made to entertain his Lazarus. Nevertheless, there were a few who believed very sincerely in the efficacy of the scheme. But both those who believed and those who scoffed agreed in general upon one point—that ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... played at the theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the Belgians round to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of existence under the German Empire. But his efforts brought down on him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois. They were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music, need not at the same time excite a ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... aware of the great dangers of that common foible, vanity! And yet it is the light feather that wings many a poisoned dart; it is the harlequin leader of a vile crew of evils. Generally, vanity is looked upon as merely a harmless weakness, whose only penalty is ridicule; but examine its true character, and you will find it to be one of the most dangerous, and at the same time one of the most contemptible failings of humanity. There is not a vice with which it has not been, time and again, connected; there is not a virtue that has not been tainted by its touch. Men ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... of consolation. No! She is riding upon her soft cushion, or carried upon a litera, escorted, perhaps, by this accomplished villain, who plays the gallant cavalier upon my own barb! They converse together, perhaps of the poor captives in their train, and with jest and ridicule—he at least; and she can hear it, and then fling herself into her ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... from the present crowd,—in short, the only life for which a young man should even think of resigning his bachelor blessings. Thus established, the Comte de Manerville may advise his epoch, place himself above the world, and be nothing less than a minister or an ambassador. Ridicule can never touch him; he has gained the social advantages of marriage while keeping all the privileges ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... goal, forgetful of the truth that their steeds are tethered to a single idea, around which they are revolving only to tread down the grass and wind themselves up, where they may stand at last amid the world's ridicule, and ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... understanding much except that in some way either he or Miss Zeba, or perhaps Killamet in general, was being held up to ridicule, and that it was ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... into his coat. For this Nelli loves him, and gazes at him constantly; and when the master praises Garrone he is pleased, as though he had been praised himself. Nelli must at last have told his mother all about the ridicule of the early days, and what they made him suffer; and about the comrade who defended him, and how he had grown fond of the latter; for this is what happened this morning. The master had sent me to carry to the director, half an hour before the ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... he learned to smile when he was angry, to speak pleasantly while curses were burning on his lips. He was careful not to betray by look, word, or deed what was passing in his mind, as he feared the ridicule that would ensue should he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... engagements in Philadelphia and Harrisburg on February 22, he and a single companion took a night train, passed quietly through Baltimore, and arrived in Washington about daylight on the morning of February 23. This action called forth much talk, ranging from the highest praise to ridicule and blame. A reckless newspaper reporter telegraphed all over the country the absurd story that he had traveled disguised in a Scotch cap and a long military cloak. There was, of course, not a word of truth in the absurd tale. The rest of the party ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... friend of Addison, and the author of the 'Dispensary.' The College of Physicians had instituted a dispensary, for the purpose of furnishing the poor with medicines gratis. This measure was opposed by the apothecaries, who had an obvious interest in the sale of drugs; and to ridicule their selfishness Garth wrote his poem, which is mock-heroic, in six cantos, copied in form from the 'Lutrin,' and which, though ingenious and elaborate, seems now tedious, and on the whole uninteresting. It appeared in 1696, and the author died in 1718. We extract ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... snorts Alex. "Always tryin' to ridicule everything I do. It's simply a case of sour grapes with you—jealousy, ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... when William had gone, "we knew our neighbors now, don't we? We never can hate or ridicule them again." ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... admiration for herself, that she failed to see his growing preference for Maude, whom she frequently ridiculed in his presence, just because she thought he would laugh at it, and think her witty. But in this she was mistaken, for her ridicule raised Maude higher in his estimation, and he was glad when at last an opportunity occurred for him ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... countrified gowns. Bewildered, overwhelmed, so to speak, by this hourly torture, she became their drudge. They made sport of her ignorance, they deceived her and abused her credulity by absurd fables, they overburdened her with fatiguing tasks, they assailed her with incessant, pitiless ridicule, which well-nigh drove her benumbed intellect to imbecility. In addition, they made her blush at the things they said to her, which made her feel ashamed, although she did not understand them. They soiled the artlessness of her fourteen years with filthy veiled allusions. And they found amusement ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... happens. These jokes and ridicule are quite usual occurrences. I expect he is still here. But we may ask. Leonid ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al |
