"Scornful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the entire range from bad to fairly good; but there is one who writes a most exquisite verse. He is a tender, sympathetic, yet cynical man. Somehow he has slipped away. I was not able to hold him, nor did I wish or even dare to keep him. He is scornful of the world. He sees no reason why he should be here. He would rather not have been born—if he had been consulted. After all, I may have idealized and overrated him. One of his rival poet friends once told me that my favorite and favored verse-maker was ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... the mania deepened into a madness," and he noted that in England the play and not the novel kindled the passion; though in the criticism of the novel, classed as it had been even in this country with the work of Thackeray, he could only recall one note of dispraise, "so earnest and scornful that, in its loneliness, it seemed to fall like the clatter of a steel glove in a house of prayer." He recalled a friend of his goaded to ferocity by another's exuberance of rapture for some latter-day singers, crying out "Hang your Decadents! Humpty-Dumpty is worth ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... "was years agone. And me a lonely man to this day. So 'tis I seek a comrade—a right man, one at odds wi' fortune and the world and therefore apt to desperate ploys, one hath suffered and endured and therefore scornful of harms and dangers, one as knoweth the sea. Now let that man pledge me the blood-brotherhood, let him stand staunch and faithful blow fair, blow foul, and I'll help him to a fortune greater than ever came out of Manoa, El Dorado, or the Indies. ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... running out of the Ark to meet me. I was secretly relieved. Mr. Rollin had been watching me narrowly; his lips curled, and his eyes flashed with a half angry, half scornful light. He cast an unloving glance at ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... to be scornful. Merton meant that on the screen it would be recognized as this and nothing more. It could not be taken for the mansion of a rich banker, or the country home of a Wall Street magnate. He felt that he had been keen in his dispraise, especially as old Gashwiler would ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... openly scornful, now, and he seemed a little angry that Rand should believe such a story, as though his confidence in his friend's intelligence had been betrayed. "Good Lord, Jeff, where did you ever ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... replied in a scornful tone. "You can pose rather cleverly—you tricked me into trusting you, but your ability is limited, after all. When the strain comes, you break down. Could anything have been feebler than the defense ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... talk such nonsense," and Patty ran a scornful eye over the six feet three of broad and ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... change of heart in me toward womankind. For very soon after she came to live with us, I noticed that in regard to all other young women I was growing daily more exacting. I did not admit this to myself, and still less to Beatrice, because she was most scornful of the girls I knew, and mocked at them. This was quite unfair of her, because she had no real acquaintance with them, and knew them only from photographs and tintypes, of which I had a most remarkable collection, and of what I chose to tell her about them. I was a good ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... calling out to be led immediately to the fray. "A torrent of human beings rushing through lanes and narrow streets"—such is Meagher's description of the scene—"surging and boiling against the white basements ... wild, half-stifled, passionate, frantic prayers of hope ... curses on the red flag: scornful delirious defiances of death.... It was the Revolution if we had accepted it." But it was not accepted. The local leaders were unworthy of the people. They persuaded O'Brien to go elsewhere. It was a cardinal and egregious mistake which he regretted within ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... alone and with his sword, she still supposed that her lover must die; and she turned and flung her arms round his neck, and clung to him for a moment, kissing him. Then she faced the king, with a smile on her face and the little dagger in her hand. But the king came up, wearing a scornful smile, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... in, dazed, overwhelmed. Could it be? Could it possibly be that—that what I wished came true. The idea sobered me, but I dismissed it with a scornful smile. "No such ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Cigarette, with scornful acquiescence. She had no patience with him. He danced so deliciously, he looked so superb, and he would give her nothing but these absent answers. "Wisdom don't bring men who look as you look into the ranks of the volunteers for Africa. Besides, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... too many teeth!" was the scornful reply of the pirate. "The worthy saint must strike well before Barbaro of Istria sues to him ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... Yocum stood a little in advance of those near her, for of course she led the singing. Her clear and earnest voice was distinguishable from all others, and though she did not glance toward Ramsey he had a queer feeling that she was assuming more superiority than ever, and that she was icily scornful of him and Milla. The old resentment rose—he'd "show" that ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... shameful story in a fierce, scornful torrent of words. When it was told, Eleanor lifted her head and faced Miss Ferris proudly. "Now you know." she said. "Now you can see that I was right— that there ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... be little surprised to learn the axe was already sharpened that is to take off my head!" cried Don John, with a scornful laugh. "And such being the exact state of my feelings and opinions, my trusty Gonzaga, I ask you whether I am likely to have proved a suitable Petrarch for so accomplished a Laura as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... fellers like me, it ain't courage at all. It's lunacy. I ain't in my right mind when a sharp turn comes. Why, I've gone cold a year after, thinking of things I laughed my way through when they happened. But I'm not quarrelling with fate—I thank the good Lord I'm built as I am, and don't feel scornful of a man that keeps his sense and acts ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... Classical "authority" resumes its silent, steady pressure. Scholars like to remember that the opening lines of Ben Jonson's "Drink to me only with thine eyes" are a transcript from the Greek. In his "Ode to Himself upon the Censure of his New Inn" in 1620 Jonson, like Landor long afterward, takes scornful refuge from the present in turning back to ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... trail she came upon the man, but he paid no heed to her approach. He sat with his face in his hands and—she could not believe her eyes and ears—he was sobbing bitterly. For an instant her lips curled in the smile of scornful triumph and then something like disgust came over her. There was mockery in her voice as she ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Desire Baker, who belonged to the era of colonial hardship, and who, through a redundant punctuation, is relegated to a day still more remote. For some stone-cutter, scornful of working by the card, or born with an inordinate taste for periods, set forth, below ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... excellent hairdresser's, they are learning French to beguile the time; and even the few solitaries left on guard at Mr. Atkinson's, the perfumer's round the corner (generally the most inexorable gentleman in London, and the most scornful of three-and- sixpence), condescend a little, as they drowsily bide or recall their turn for chasing the ebbing Neptune on the ribbed sea-sand. From Messrs. Hunt and Roskell's, the jewellers, all things are absent but the precious stones, and the gold ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... to play the high and mighty tragedy queen with me, Bernardine," he cried. "Take care that your ways do not turn my love for you into hate! Beware, I tell you! A smile would bring me to your feet, a scornful curl of those red lips would raise a demon in me that you would regret if ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... tree that lay outside the summer-house, and covered his face with his hand, as though her loveliness was more than he could bear to look upon. Now, however, he raised his eyes and let them dwell upon her scornful features. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... without any resource save myself—it is impossible! What could he do without me? Oh! without me he would be utterly destroyed. Yet who knows—let destiny be fulfilled—condemned he was, let him remain so then! Good or evil spirit—gloomy and scornful power, whom men call the Genius of man, thou art a power more restlessly uncertain, more baselessly useless, than the wild wind in the mountains; Chance thou term'st thyself, but thou art nothing; thou inflamest everything with thy breath, crumblest mountains at thy approach, and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... all met at last, foul Days, fine Days, all sorts of Days, and a rare din they made of it. There was nothing but, Hail! fellow Day,—well met—brother Day—sister Day,—only Lady Day kept a little on the aloof, and seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some said Twelfth Day cut her out and out, for she came in a tiffany suit, all white and gold, like a queen on a frost-cake—all royal, glittering, and Epiphanous. The rest came—some in green, some in white—but old Lent and his family were not yet out of mourning. Rainy Days ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... abroad, for a time? Everything here must remind him—as it does me—of what happened. It was quite right," she went on judicially—"for everyone's sake, we should stay here just the same at first. People," with a scornful lift of the head Carteret noted and admired—"might have mistaken our reason for going away. They had to be made to understand we were perfectly indifferent.—I knew all that, though we never discussed it. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the Earl, in a somewhat scornful tone, "unless men of character and true bravery were to lead them, they will always be defeated as they have hitherto been. For my own part I have not the slightest fear on the subject. However, I repeat that I am not sorry ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... haste, and as if scornful of the mob that had so recently been threatening to hang him, the man walked back to his buckboard, climbed in, and stood there on his feet with the reins in one hand, and the rope in the other. "You get away ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... under what discouragements was the task to be undertaken and prosecuted: with diminished and diminishing numbers of fellow-workers; with narrow resources and restricted means; amid manifold and unexpected difficulties; amid jealousies that not infrequently deepened into scornful enmity! How often must he have cried from the depths of his heart: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?" Only a brave and genuine man, a man of prayer and faith and love, could have borne up under such wearying burdens. ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... said Carver; and I could see the grin on his scornful face; "a bullet for ballast to his brain, the first time I ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... laughed contemptuously. "Where's your lady? That?" and he levelled a scornful finger at the girl. "A ranting tough of a female who brings a breath of the stables with her and scolds like a ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... constantly congratulated on his daughter's prominence as bridesmaid, and he was sent for professionally, that he might be talked to socially. Yet if he ventured to hint dissatisfaction, or to express himself by a scornful "Pooh! Pooh!" he was answered by looks of such astonishment, of such quick-springing womanly suspicions, that he could not doubt the kind of ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... and spread the mortar. But Uncle William had constructed an elaborate platform with plenty of room for bricks and the pail of mortar, and space in which to stretch his great legs. It was a comfortable place to sit and look out over Arichat harbor. Andy, who had watched the preparations with scornful eye, had ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... that by noting the joy or anger shown by the enemy on being thus disturbed, we shall be able to conclude whether his policy is to lie low or the reverse. He instances the action of Cho-ku Liang, who sent the scornful present of a woman's head-dress to Ssu-ma I, in order to goad him out of his ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... do what, my valiant cousin?" said he, in a meaning and half-scornful voice. "What does your most chivalrous Brotherhood of the Rose purpose ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... before the king, Utgard-Loki, whom they saluted with great respect. Their salutations were however returned by a contemptuous look from the king, who, after regarding them for some time, said with a scornful smile— ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... scornful, satirical, sometimes pitiful and sometimes abusive manner—in which you treated the Bull Moose; and so we are going to have a great spectacle, the Bull Moose and the Elephant kissing each other at Chicago; and seated on the Elephant's shoulders will be the crowned ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Scornful, the Kid pursued his quest. He entered the all-night chop-house, cafe, and bowling-alley of his friend and admirer, Justus O'Callahan. The O'Callahan was about in his ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... Laudher's public disgrace, and of his incapability to repel it, sank deep into his heart. The blood in his veins became hot and feverish when he reflected upon the scornful and degrading insult he had just borne. Soon after his return home, his father and mother both noticed the singularly deep bursts of indignant feeling with which he appeared to be agitated. For some time they declined making any inquiry as to its cause, but when they saw at length the ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... alter'd looks askance They view his sable face and form, When they perceive the scornful glance Of the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... now become obvious to the Duke that his siege must be raised. The days were gone when the walls of Dutch towns seemed to melt before the first scornful glance of the Spanish invader; and when a summons meant a surrender, and a surrender a massacre. Now, strong in the feeling of independence, and supported by the courage and endurance of their English allies, the Hollanders had learned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... on solid matters, and not on trifles, such as dress, adjustments, ornaments, and the like fooleries, which would disgust any man of sense? In a word, that she would not be haughty, proud, arrogant, impertinent, scornful, and waste a man's estate in frivolous expences, such as gaudy clothes, unnecessary jewels, toys, and the like long train of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... A half-scornful laugh betrayed the incredulity of him I addressed, while the other, apparently anxious to relieve the awkwardness of the moment, suddenly broke ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Kim turned a scornful back—he did not want to hear the old story how the Devil played with the boys and repented of it and ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... did, with a scornful sniff. After rapping sharply on the Browns' door and receiving no answer, she had made her way to the studio where the tea was being held. When Jo Bill opened the door, without waiting to tell her whom she was seeking, she swept into the room, "not ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... from the floor a small volume which had been concealed by her dress, and, as it opened at a page stained with the juice of a purple convolvulus, she smiled defiantly, and read with almost scornful emphasis,— ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Alice was openly scornful. "Well, from the pace he went off just now, I should think he'll smash up your precious old car before he goes far. And no loss either," said Alice, who was engaged to a soldier in a cavalry regiment, and therefore disdained all purely ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... cried his host, with a scornful laugh. 'Where are my silver-mounted pistols? Where's the ibex-hoof made into a paperweight? And'—he raised his voice to a shout of comical ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... personality. But all the same the hour, the time, and the song followed by silence, and the silence by song, affected me and affected many. What had I to look forward to when I went out into the street? And if I yielded they might, nay would, help me to work. I laughed a little at myself, and was scornful of my thoughts. They were ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... believer; a devout scoffer; a tender-hearted misanthrope; a churchman faithful to his order yet loathing to wear its uniform; an Irishman hating the Irish, as Heine did the Jews,[1] because he was one of them, yet defending them with the scornful fierceness of one who hated their oppressors more; a man honest and of statesmanlike mind, who lent himself to the basest services of party politics for purely selfish ends; a poet whose predominant faculty was that of disidealizing; a master of vernacular ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... and "Coriolanus," the last Shakespearean revival there, was a magnificent spectacle. It is a play made up principally of one character and a crowd, the crowd being a sort of moving background, treated in Shakespeare's large and scornful way. A stage crowd at the Lyceum always gives one a sense of exciting movement, and this Roman rabble did all that was needed to show off the almost solitary splendour of Coriolanus. He is the proudest man in Shakespeare, and Sir Henry Irving is ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... four corners of the pedestal, and fastened the strings to the nearest houses, in derision, and went away laughing. It was at that time that he modelled four grinning masks for the corners of his sedan-chair, so that they seemed to be making scornful grimaces at his detractors as he was carried along. He could afford to laugh. He had been the favourite of Urban the Eighth who, when Cardinal Barberini, had actually held the looking-glass by the aid of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... governments. In the village of this disciple, some young women students in the higher or university courses for women, and followers of Tolstoy, were living for the summer in peasant fashion, and working in the fields, "to the scornful pity of the peasants" (I italicize this phrase as remarkable on the lips of an adept.) These young women, having heard of the dispatch by post of the books, and being in the town, thought to do the count's disciple a favor ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... oak room!" was the scornful reply. "And what good would that do? You know well enough that the wall's double on three sides, and there are more secret entrances than even I know of. The oak room's not for you this night, Squire. It's hoping to get you there ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... person he proved to be; an odd compound of gentleness and acerbity, of kindliness and rancor; a quiet, guileless, stubborn, violent old man-at-arms, who would not be interrupted while he was eating. He was both scornful and contemptuous of evildoers. All ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... grave; that my infant would be left among strangers, and that my mother would scarcely have fortitude sufficient to survive me. Then I anticipated the inconvenience of so long a journey, for Tregunter House was within a few miles of Brecon. I dreaded to encounter the scornful vulgarity and the keen glances of Miss Betsy and Mrs. Molly. I considered all these things with horror; but the propriety of wedded life commanded the sacrifice, and I readily ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... ain't never lazed around on shore when there was a berth in a seaworthy craft to be had for the askin'. I let Abe do that," he added, in what Louise thought was a rather scornful tone. ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... a scornful movement. "If you call an increase of ten dollars a month in two years an advancement," ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... the gas was extinguished Baubie had retired into darkness beneath the bed-clothes, rage and mortification swelling her small heart. Good-for-nothing street-songs! Tinkler! Mrs. Duncan's scornful epithets rang in her ears and cut her to the quick. She lay awake, trembling with anger and indignation, until long after Kate had followed the younger fry to rest, and their regular breathing, which her ears listened for till they caught it from every bed, warned her that the weary ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... beneath him, and he retreateth back again, and paleness hath hold of his cheeks, even so did godlike Alexandros for fear of Atreus' son shrink back into the throng of lordly Trojans. But Hector beheld and upbraided him with scornful words: "Ill Paris, most fair in semblance, thou deceiver woman-mad, would thou hadst been unborn and died unwed. Yea, that were my desire, and it were far better than thus to be our shame and looked at askance of all men. I ween that the flowing-haired ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... her friends gladly bade farewell to Oil City, leaving the scornful lady seated at the piano executing the charming melody of "We're a band of brothers from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... An acute and scornful expression of "You don't get round me!" filled all of the farmer's face that was not covered ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... fierce and scornful look, which told of what he would do if his hands were free. Then for a few moments ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... under the banner of the Montagnards, it left to its vanguard, the secret societies, the work of saving the insurrectionary honor of Paris, which the bourgeoisie had yielded to the soldiery so submissively that Bonaparte was later justified in disarming the National Guard upon the scornful ground that he feared their arms would be used against themselves by ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... earth in the phenomena which made it so hateful to Massachusetts. In every issue raised between it and the Bay Colony from the very first, and in every element of its strife, he stands stoutly forth as its champion, and casts scornful reflections, though not in a scornful spirit. Wherever our two historians have the same point under treatment, we discern this antagonism between them,—never in a single case manifesting itself in an offensive or bitter way, but tending greatly to give a brisk and quickening vigor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... gentle and kind one, Who com'st o'er my dreams, Like the gales of the west, Or the music of streams; Oh, softest and dearest, Can that time e'er be, When I could be forgetful Or scornful ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... have wings, fair sirs, to gain entrance here;" and with a scornful gesture he disappeared below the parapet, and the blast of a trumpet signified that the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... ecclesiastical institutions revealed their origin. The fact was that at this time Hugh was accustomed to assert with much emphasis some extremely provocative and controversial position. He was markedly scornful of Anglican faults and mannerisms, and behaved both then and later as if no Anglicans could have any real and vital belief in their principles, but must be secretly ashamed of them. Yet he was acutely sensitive himself, and resented similar ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the leading men in the Colonies, and the colonists, began to undergo a transition from the defence of their constitutional liberties as British subjects to their security by declaring independence of Great Britain, seems to have been the receipt of the intelligence of the scornful rejection of the second petition of Congress, and of the King's proclamation, putting the advocates of colonial rights out of the protection of the law, by declaring them rebels, and requiring all public officers, civil and military, to apprehend them with a view to their ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... he then unbosomed himself to Oliver, still characterised his thoughts, but he had not courage to elude the dialogue forced upon him, still less to make known his resentment of the man's offensive vulgarity. He endured in silence, his heart afire with scornful wrath. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... might've learned this town well enough by now," he reflected, "to know that a bally minstrel show's about the size of it." Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. Finnigan's art of the large red lips and the twanging banjo; his thought was scornful rather than envious. He aspired, moreover, to be known as the pilot of stars, at least in the incipience of their courses, to be taken seriously by association, since nature had arranged that he never could be on his intrinsic merits. His upper lip was too short ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... reply vouchsafed by the marchesa, followed by a scornful laugh. "I shall say what I please in my own house. Poor Cesarino! You are very ignorant. I ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... operators known in his peculiar line. On the present occasion, he did not heed the piteous pleadings of the disappointed boatmen, nor Sobrina's explanations, nor Can Grande's arguments. But when the whole five of us fixed upon him our mild and scornful eyes, something within him gave way. He felt a little bit of the moral pressure of Boston, and feebly broke down, saying, "You better do as you like, then," and so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... sureness of aim and eye, the dexterity and quickness of that hand, and his tongue fairly cleaved to the roof of his dry mouth. He struggled to draw his revolver, but his arm refused to obey his will. Yet it was not wholly cowardice that swept over him in a sickly tide. As he had met those scornful, indignant eyes, there had rushed back to his mind a thousand small benefits conferred upon him by this man, a thousand instances of friendliness, the memory of the first days they had worked together, how he had slept under his roof, fed at his table, how, more than all, he had been ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... of those my soul loved best; Meek women, men as true and brave As ever went to a hopeful grave: Their hands and mine, when side by side With kindred zeal and mutual pride, We worked until the Initials took Shapes that defied a scornful look.— Long as for us a genial feeling Survives, or one in need of healing, The power, dear Rock, around thee cast, Thy monumental power, shall last For me and mine! O thought of pain, That would impair it or profane! Take all ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty assumption is apt to involve—considerations probably equivalent to those which induced Lord Bacon to liken final causes to "vestal virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that "sitteth in the seat of the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section from which the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, but, we suppose, is wholly unconscious of denying "any manifestation of design in the material ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... voices in distress or pain. The ice was broken into thousands of confused shapes, but none, Hans thought, like the ordinary forms of splintered ice. There seemed a curious expression about all their outlines—a perpetual resemblance to living features, distorted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful shadows, and lurid lights, played and floated about and through the pale blue pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the sight of the traveller; while his ears grew dull and his head giddy with the constant gush and roar of the concealed waters. These painful circumstances increased ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... English Edwards with whom he was proud to claim kin. As to the offers to remember his interests in the perfidious peace that perfidious Albion was about to swear with equally perfidious France, his rejection was scornful indeed. "Negotiate for me! Arbitrate for me! Is it I who wanted the French crown? Leave me to make my own truce. I will wait until you have been three months over sea." Among those who witnessed the scene were several Englishmen who sympathised with Charles—if we may believe Commines. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... from the absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to the silly Dr. Goldsmith; though the latter changeling has had bright gleams of parts, and the former had sense, till he changed it for words, and sold it for a pension. Don't think me scornful. Recollect that I have seen Pope ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to your own doom," rejoined Demdike, with a scornful laugh, as he seized the abbot's bridle. "But you shall hear me. I tell you, you will never go forth on this expedition. I tell you that, ere to-morrow, Whalley Abbey will have passed for ever from your possession; and that, if you go thither again, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in triumph. His heart burned hot with scornful anger and contempt of the futility of her effort. "They're there afore she started!" he said, looking up at the aspects of the hour shown by the sky, and judging of the interval since the encounter by the spring. Through a rift in the gray cloud a star looked down with an icy ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... setting her teeth together, "I'll beard the wolf in his den. If my intuition has played me false, at worst the man can only sneer at me and I've always weathered his scornful moods. But if I ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... his lips, but set it back untasted. Howat looked away from Mariana's scornful interrogation, unable to reply. Finally, "I am old, as you once reminded me," he stated; "I'm out of my time, don't understand, I can only remember, and remembering isn't any longer of use. The men I knew, the kind, I hope, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... had no trouble until all the spring and summer flowers arrived in their gayly colored gowns and then, though she did not in the least envy them, she did not like to hear the scornful remarks about her furs, and sometimes she wished that under her fur coat she had a pretty ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... I was feeling so little generous that if I had known something then of his mother's allusion to 'white geese' I would have advised him to get one of them and lead it away on a beautiful blue ribbon. Mrs. Blunt was wrong, you know, to be so scornful. A white goose is exactly what her son wants. But look how badly the world is arranged. Such white birds cannot be got for nothing and he has not enough money even to buy a ribbon. Who knows! Maybe it was this which gave that tragic quality ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... excursions lost his ground: No sooner got, than with disdain He threw them on the ground again; And hasted forward to pursue Fresh objects, fairer to his view, In hope to spring some nobler game; But all he took was just the same: Too scornful now to stop his pace, He spurn'd them in his rival's face. Possession kept the beaten road, And gather'd all his brother strew'd; But overcharged, and out of wind, Though strong in limbs, he lagg'd behind. Desire had now the goal in ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... one, and skipped and laughed, poussetting, crossing, down-the-middling, with his merry little partner, till every one of the bettermost sort of the thirty-nine couples had dropped panting away, and till the youngest Miss Gorgon, coming up to his partner, said in a loud hissing scornful whisper, "Lucy, Mamma thinks you have danced quite enough with this—this person." And Lucy, blushing, starting back, and looking at Perkins in a very melancholy way, made him a little curtsey, and went off to the ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... shouldn't wonder if you did. Your present prospects look very much like it," was Eugenia's scornful reply, which Dora scarcely heard, for ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... see! Bond and mortgage'll do for me. Good! That gal that passed me by Scornful like—why, mebbe I Some day'll hold in pawn—why not?— All her father's prop. She'll spot What's my little game, and see What I'm ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... ominous. Suddenly, with a scornful "I guess I won't play any more!" she dropped the hands she held, and, with head high, walked mincingly over to the window, and stood with her back to ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... against the doorway of the 'Nave d'Oro,' the people struggling with each other lest they should lose the sight as he passed through the Piazza, and suddenly there came a voice,—cold, and scornful, and low, but no man lost the words,—'Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee!' The people stopped their pushing and looked aghast to see ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... to speak unto Thy mercy, me, dust and ashes. Yet suffer me to speak, since I speak to Thy mercy, and not to scornful man. Thou too, perhaps, despisest me, yet wilt Thou return and have compassion upon me. For what would I say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or living death. ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... yere Mexican fam'ly mean,' says the Red Dog man, a-surveyin' of 'em plenty scornful, 'a-draggin' of their domestic brawls out yere to offend a sufferin' public for? Whyever don't they stay in their wickeyup an' fight, an' not take to puttin' it all over the American race which ain't in the play none an' don't thirst ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... English Prince of Wales, is surely qualified to do. Carriages and saddles; top-boots and redingotes, as we call riding-coats. Nay the very mode of riding: for now no man on a level with his age but will trot a l'Anglaise, rising in the stirrups; scornful of the old sitfast method, in which, according to Shakspeare, 'butter and eggs' go to market. Also, he can urge the fervid wheels, this brave Chartres of ours; no whip in Paris is rasher and surer than the unprofessional one ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... you! It's not much I'm asking of you; it won't cost you anything to help tide this thing over with Kirkwood. And you get your share right now—to-night. Why—" His lip curled with scornful depreciation as he began again to minimize the importance of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... immobility of the human beings about her made it impossible for them to see anything in her present condition but a vile and premeditated infraction of the social code, the punishment of which was ostracism. All she could do now was to shun the scornful gaze of men, and to bear in silence the great change that was coming upon her. Strangely enough, she felt no useless remorse, no vain regrets. Her heart was pure, and she was conscious that it was filled with peace. Sorrow there was, it is true, but only a mellow phase of ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... La Corne is always so decided in his likes and dislikes: one must either be very good or very bad to satisfy him!" replied Angelique with a scornful ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... our talk or our writing in almost any I key we choose. Our mood may be dreamy or eager or hilarious or grim or blustering or somber or bantering or scornful or satirical or whatever we will. But once we have established the tone, we should not—except sometimes for broadly humorous effects—change it needlessly or without clear forewarning. If we do, we ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... he clung with a persistency which surprised and irritated his partner. This was honesty. Nothing would induce him to steal, or even to share stolen booty; hunger, threats, bitterly sarcastic speeches were alike in vain, and at last Barney's scornful amusement at the "boy without a carikter" began to be mingled with a certain respect; not that he was the least inclined to follow his example and give up pilfering himself, but he thought it was "game" of the little 'un to hold his own, and that was a quality he could understand and ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... would tell you that I had decided to be governed wholly by his wishes!" she responded at last with what I felt was self-scornful bitterness. ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... father what we have been talking about, if that is what you mean,' said Duffy, a little indignantly. The tears were shining in her eyes, for she was very fond of her brother, and always ready to help him whenever she was allowed, and so she felt this scornful rebuff the more keenly. ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... assimilate with that of our poet. "He was," according to G. Villani, l. viii. c. 41. "of a philosophical and elegant mind, if he had not been too delicate and fastidious." And Dino Compagni terms him "a young and noble knight, brave and courteous, but of a lofty scornful spirit, much addicted to solitude and study." Muratori. Rer. Ital. Script t. 9 l. 1. p. 481. He died, either in exile at Serrazana, or soon after his return to Florence, December 1300, during the spring of which year the action ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... more to us, because we see in her more of the conflict between passion and moral obligation, which is the essence of drama. Her scornful rejection of the advances of Monsieur (II, ii), though her husband palliates his conduct as that of "a bachelor and a courtier, I, and a prince," proves that she is no light o' love, and that her surrender to Bussy is the result of a sudden and ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... were blue, but now they were deep wells reflecting the soft gray of the clouded sky beyond the window-panes. I had made sure that her lips lent themselves most readily to mocking smiles scornful of any wit less trenchant than her own; but now these mocking lips were pensive, and with the rounded cheek and chin gave her the look of a sweet child wanting to be kissed. I had said her hair was bright in the sunlight, and so, indeed, it was; but lacking the sun ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... kind to him when others had been cold and slightly scornful. He had come to see clearly that she was not a Christian, and that she was not by any means faultless through the graces of nature. But she had given ample proof that she had a heart which could be touched, and a mind capable of appreciating and being Moused by the ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... party!" Rey remarked at length. "Too bad you can't join us, Miss Mallory." And now he turned to Bedient with a scornful laugh: "Why don't you use your men in the forecastle to man the ship, and relieve the lady ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... mouth. As he emerged a second later, disgusted and furious, from this tender embrace, the clang of the elevator twenty feet away caught his ear and, turning, his eyes met the astonished gaze of two young girls and their scornful, frowning father. At that moment the door of the Strongs' apartment opened, there was a vision of the elder Mr. Strong's distracted face, the yellow gleam of the last telegram in his hands, and ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Tzaritza's eyes was almost human. With a low growl, she dropped the thoroughly cowed poodle at Peggy's feet and then turned and stalked from the room, the very picture of scornful dignity. Mrs. Stewart snatched the poodle to her breast. There was not a scratch upon it save the one inflicted by Sultana, and richly deserved, as the tuft of the handsome cat's fur ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... never want a skull to grin ghastly lessons of morality at me, while I have you," replied Helen, with a scornful laugh. ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... now she scornful flies the plain, The fields we then frequented; If e'er we meet she shows disdain, She looks as ne'er acquainted. The bonnie bush bloomed fair in May, Its sweets I'll aye remember; But now her frowns make it decay— It fades as ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude—each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts—Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him, a scornful sweet smile curving her lips. As the apple of her eye she loved him; it is necessary ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene |
