"Vainglorious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the next day as she chanced to meet that young lady on the street, "I have something to tell you. I want to call on you to witness that I shall never again be guilty of that vainglorious absurdity of saying that I am ready for anything. One can never know whether this is true or not; at least I am sure I never can. What I am to say in the future is simply, 'Lord, make me willing to do what there is for me to do this day.' Remember that in a few days you ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... 6. Vainglorious ostentation this way is very blamable. All ambition, all vanity, all conceitedness, upon whatever ground they are founded, are absolutely unreasonable and silly; but yet those being grounded on some real ability, or some useful skill, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... bravado better than the wisest dispositions to insure victory; it comes from the heart and goes to it. God has made nobler heroes, but he never made a finer gentleman than Walter Raleigh. And as our Admirals were full of heroic superstitions, and had a strutting and vainglorious style of fight, so they discovered a startling eagerness for battle, and courted war like a mistress. When the news came to Essex before Cadiz that the attack had been decided, he threw his hat into the sea. It is in this way that a schoolboy hears of ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fifteenth, the day he had settled for his departure, as he sat thinking how he would go down to the lake in a few hours, a letter started to his mind which, as well as he could remember, was written in a foolish, vainglorious mood—a stupid letter that must have made him appear a fool in her eyes. Had he not said something about—The thought eluded him; he could only remember the general tone of his letter, and in it he seemed to consider Nora as a sort of ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... absorbing life aim and action is toward others—toward aiding the toils, advancing the well-being, relieving the suffering, elevating the life, of all around her. And this in no spirit of self-satisfied and vainglorious self-estimation, but in that utter unconsciousness which is characteristic of her whole being. Of the social reformer, the purposed philanthropist, the benefactor of the poor, the wretched, and the fallen, there is no trace in Dorothea Brooke. ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... these whom we see before us, and around us, and beneath us, are but a herd of slaves; gulled and vainglorious slaves!" ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the magnificent (?) attempt of the vainglorious Lafitte to stem the advance of the Government of the United States. In the parlance of the camp, "He was a ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... him even greater pleasure than the proceedings which celebrated the centenary of his chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, the high sense of social duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle of well-earned wealth, neither squandered in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, nor scattered with the careless charity which blesses neither him that gives nor him that takes, but expended in the execution of a well-considered plan for the aid of present and future generations of those who are willing to ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... military power. Carlyle said of Germany and France in November, 1870, "that noble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become Queen of the Continent, instead of vaporing, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and oversensitive France, seems to me that hopefulest public fact that has occurred in my time." How did Germany attain to this position of "Queen of the Continent"? By creating and maintaining, with utmost intelligence and skill, the strongest ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... concluded Monsieur Graslin sent an architect to Montegnac. The banker intended to restore the chateau, gardens, terrace, and park, and also to connect the castle grounds with the forest by a plantation. He set himself to make these improvements with vainglorious activity. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... great In straps and buttons—haughtily silenced Paul, Hand-bound and sent him guarded to the camp, And the poor comrade shivering stood the watch Till dawn of day and I was made aware. Among the true were some vainglorious fools Called by the fife and drum from native mire To lord and strut in shoulder-straps and buttons. Scrubs, born to brush the boots of gentlemen, By sudden freak of fortune found themselves Masters of better men, and lorded it As only base and brutish natures can— Braves ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... me. But they'll never get me—never! There's ten more good years in me yet; and if we were to slip to the bottom to-morrow, we should work back to the top again before we finished. When I led the grand march at the Charity Ball I was accused of taking a vainglorious part in a vainglorious show. Well, who would look better in such a role than I, or who has earned a better right to play it? There, child! ain't that success? ain't that glory? ain't that poetry?—H'm," she broke off suddenly, "I'm glad Jimmy wasn't ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... follow argument, and again so soothed and elated and thrilled by his own importance in the scheme and the honors which his position in certain companies would heap upon him, that an abyss had yawned before him of which he had been wholly unaware. He was not unaware of it now. He was a vainglorious, ignorant man, whose life had been spent in common work done under the supervision of those who knew what he did not know. He had fed himself upon the comforting belief that he had learned all the tricks of any trade. He had been openly boastful of his astuteness and experience, and yet, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... overweening, vainglorious; nugatory, fruitless, ineffectual, frustrate, unavailing, bootless, futile, abortive, ineffective, empty; delusive, chimerical, unsatisfying, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... aroused by the exploits of the Yankee cruiser. Never since the days of the Invincible Armada had war been so brought home to the people of the tight little island. Long had the British boastfully claimed the title of monarch of the seas. Long had they sung the vainglorious song,— ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... now came forward. The party stood for a moment exchanging vainglorious remarks with Devil's Row. A few stones were thrown at long distances, and words of challenge passed between small warriors. Then the Rum Alley contingent turned slowly in the direction of their home street. They began to give, each to each, ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... Carus, or my other friends are serving in the army. Dohrn has joined a cavalry regiment. I have not yet met a soul in England who does not rejoice in the splendid triumph of Germany over France (456/2. See Letter 239, Volume I.): it is a most just retribution against that vainglorious, war-liking nation. As the posts are all in confusion, I will not send this letter through France. The Editor has sent me duplicate copies of the "Revue des Cours Scientifiques," which contain several articles about my views; so I send ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Pareille, threatening very sharp and boisterously the cowherds, shepherds, and farmers of Seville and Sinays. This done, the shepherds and shepherdesses made merry with these cakes and fine grapes, and sported themselves together at the sound of the pretty small pipe, scoffing and laughing at those vainglorious cake-bakers, who had that day met with a mischief for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in the morning. Nor did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great red medicinal grapes, and so handsomely dressed it and bound it up that ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... conscious of its great potential superiority over Canada, in men and in available resources. So evident, indeed, was the disparity, that the prevalent feeling was not one of reasonable self-reliance, but of vainglorious self-confidence; of dependence upon mere bulk and weight to crush an opponent, quite irrespective of preparation or skill, and disregardful of the factor of military efficiency. Jefferson's words have already been quoted. Calhoun, then a youthful member ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Ostensibly a solemn revenge for the burning of Greek temples by Xerxes, it has been justified as a symbolical act calculated to impress usefully the imagination of the East, and condemned as a senseless and vainglorious ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... notes; but, after all, they are much like children sent out of the stiff drawing-room into the nursery, snubbed to be sure by the act, but joyful in the freedom of banishment. We were going to say (but it might sound vainglorious), where do things read so well as in notes? but we will put the question in another form:—Where do you so well test an author's learning and knowledge of his subject?—where do you find the pith of his most elaborate researches?—where do his most original suggestions escape?—where do you ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... principles were high, always high, and absolutely unshakable. He was the strangest compound that ever got mixed in a human mould. Such a person as that is given to acting upon impulse and without reflection; that was Orion's way. Everything he did he did with conviction and enthusiasm and with a vainglorious pride in the thing he was doing—and no matter what that thing was, whether good, bad or indifferent, he repented of it every time in sackcloth and ashes before twenty-four hours had sped. Pessimists are born, not made. Optimists are born, not made. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... modest and delicate beauties of Mr. Lamb's writings, contrasted with the lofty and vainglorious pretensions of some of his contemporaries. This gentleman is not one of those who pay all their homage to the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I felt profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt for this vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species, who spent his nights in his ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... way in the courageous developments of the man. He soon evinced the sagacity, cunning, perseverance, and heroic courage which constitute the admiration of the Indians. And he relied largely upon these in the gratification of an ambitious, vainglorious, and mischief-loving disposition. In wisdom and energy he was superior to any one who had ever lived before. Yet he was simple when circumstances required it, and was ever the object of tricks and ridicule in others. He could transform himself into any animal he pleased, being ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... will readily understand that the present difficulties in Kabul cause him endless anxiety, considering the position of his dominions. The unexpected turn of events, following now so rapidly on each other since the English wantonly sacrificed Cavagnari and his friends to a vainglorious love of bravado, has shaken the confidence of the native princes in the stability of English rule. They are frightened out of their senses, having the fear of the tribes before them if the English should be worsted; and they dread, on the other hand, lest the English, ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... received, he claimed, a letter from the King, strengthening his commission and empowering him to "doe justice to all men, not sparinge those of the Councell", which he had often shown them, but this they would not heed. "I hope," he wrote, "you never held me to be ambitious or vainglorious, as that I should desire to live here as Governor to predominate, or prefer mine owne particular before the generall good." My position in Virginia is most miserable, "chiefly through the aversions of those from whom I expected assistance". He ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... my Martial, if we two could be To enjoy our days set wholly free; To the true life together bend our mind, And take a furlough from the falser kind. No rich saloon, nor palace of the great, Nor suit at law should trouble our estate; On no vainglorious statues should we look, But of a walk, a talk, a little book, Baths, wells and meads, and the veranda shade, Let all our travels and our toils be made. Now neither lives unto himself, alas! And the good suns we see, that flash and pass And perish; and the bell that knells them cries: "Another ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... months' standing. Meeting Fishhead one day in the spring on the spindly scaffolding of the skiff landing at Walnut Log, and being themselves far overtaken in liquor and vainglorious with a bogus alcoholic substitute for courage, the brothers had accused him, wantonly and without proof, of running their trot-line and stripping it of the hooked catch—an unforgivable sin among ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... it is distressing to hear that misfortune has befallen any person of one's acquaintance, and so far as Gregory Williams himself is concerned I have no wish to see him punished simply because he has been worldly and vainglorious. You thought him able in a business way, and liked to meet him. But as for her, Flossy, his wife," Selma continued, with a gasp, "it would be sheer hypocrisy for me to assert that I am sorry for her. I should deem myself unworthy ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... which is remarked in savages and cruel children. Storri was dominated of a passion for revenge; under sway of that passion no chance of money-loss would stay him; he would sacrifice all and begin his schemes anew before he would deny himself those vainglorious triumphs upon which he had set his heart. He hated Richard; he hungered for Dorothy; and Mr. Harley knew how he would go to every extravagant extent ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and Sibyl—having secured as many as she wanted—retired to a corner, and silently fell to plucking them, while Sedley, who was as vainglorious as a Comanche, capered about on his short legs, and boasted of imaginary exploits with ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... is reached by Mr Schwab, who has decreed for himself a lofty pleasure-dome, which is said to resemble Chambord, and which takes its place in a long line of villas, without so much as a turnip-field to give it an air of seclusion or security. In this vainglorious craving for discomfort there is a kind of naivete which is not without its pathos. One proud lady, whose husband, in the words of a dithyrambic guide-book, "made a fortune from a patent glove-hook," boasts that her mansion has a glass-room ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... They live on a grand scale, and though food and clothes are dearer with them than with us, they must still be better fed and clothed than we are—as gentility requires. Moreover, they have enormous debts, yet occasionally, in a vainglorious mood, they make ducks and drakes of their guineas, pay other nations to box about for their pleasure, give their kings a handsome douceur into the bargain; and, therefore, John Bull must work to get the money for such expenditure. By day and by night he must tax his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... was the weakest of mortals, was, nevertheless, by a common fatality attending such men, the most vainglorious; he yielded precedence to every petty officer of the Crown, and yet in his own house would not give the right-hand to any person of quality that came to him about business. My behaviour was the reverse of his in almost ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... only the slightest connexion, are the widely different stories of King Rasni's amours, of the thirsty career of a drunken blacksmith, and of the prophet Jonah—his disobedience, strange sea-journey, mission in Nineveh and subsequent ill-temper being set forth in full. Vainglorious Rasni talks like Alphonsus, and his ladies are even less charming than Iphigena. Ramilia boasts as outrageously as her brother, and is only prevented by sudden death from an incestuous union with him; Alvida, after poisoning her first husband ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... of to-day, though there run not the blood of Lafayette, and though he detest Americans as he detests the Germans, he yet, detesting, sorrows for them, sees them as mere misled yokels, uncosmopolite, obstreperous, of comical posturing in ostensible un-Latin lech, vainglorious and spying—children into whose hands has fallen Zola, children adream, somnambulistic, groping rashly for those things out of life that, groped for, are lost—that may come only as life ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... the warrior took somewhat of the exaggerated coloring shed over his exploits. Proud and vainglorious, swelled with lofty anticipations of his destiny, and an invincible confidence in his own resources, no danger could appall and no toil could tire him. The greater the danger, indeed, the higher the charm; for his soul revelled ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the exceptional type of criminal who is greedy—for money and its luxurious possibilities; selfish—with regard for no other heart in the world; crafty—with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and cruelty; refined and vainglorious—with pride in his skill to thwart justice and confidence in his ability to continually broaden the scope of his work. Crime is the ruling passion of this unknown man. And the way to catch him is by using that passion as a bait upon the hook. I am the wriggling little angle ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... Truelove regarded it gravely. "'Tis not too small, after all," she said. "And does thee not think it more comely than these other, with their silly pomp of colored heels and blossoms woven in the silk?" She indicated with her glance the vainglorious row upon the bench beside her; then looked down at the little foot in its ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Sousa, appears to be nettled at the prosperous issue of the voyage; for he testily remarks, that "the admiral entered Lisbon with a vainglorious exultation, in order to make Portugal feel, by displaying the tokens of his discovery, how much she had erred in not acceding to his propositions." Europa Portuguesa, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... the Chief of the Mouth of the River and the Chief of the Upper Current of the River. The former was very vainglorious, and therefore wished to put the latter to shame, or to kill him by engaging him in the attempt to perform something impossible. So he sent for him, and said: "The sea may be a useful thing, in so far as it is the original ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... abandon forever your vainglorious and senseless scheme of universal conquest. You must immediately withdraw your every vessel to within the boundaries of your solar system, and you must keep them ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... therefore, the very next morning, Wednesday, May 24th, commenced its march. The force consisted of seventy-seven Englishmen, sixty Mohegans, and two hundred Narragansets. The Narragansets were great braggarts. They made the forest resound with their vainglorious boasts, and, with the most valiant gestures, declared that they would now show the English how to fight. Guided by Indians through the forest, they pressed along rapidly through the day, and at night, having traversed about twenty miles, bivouacked upon the banks of a small ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... somewhat the feeling of triumph and added responsibility that must animate your soul at the present time because of the personal abuse heaped upon you on account of myself. The great victory and vindication does not make me feel boastful or vainglorious, but, on the other hand, very humble, and gives me more faith in humanity and makes me more determined to work harder in the interest of all our people of both races regardless of race or color. I shall urge our people everywhere ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... not take long to decide, and a very short time saw Surbridge Hall once more in the ancient line; and old Mr Roe, in relating the means he used to expel the vainglorious descendant of his partner, generally concluded with the moral, if not the words of Shakspeare—"Men's pleasant vices make whips ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... walls a vainglorious announcement of the Vikzhel, threatening to strike if both ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... doing; and therein I should only be acting according to the maxims of chivalry; for you know we are admonished to be dumb as to our own deeds, and eloquent in praise of others; and, moreover, that if the squire is vainglorious, he is not worthy to become a knight, and that he who is silent as to the valour of others is a thief ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... make your way by bullying. It is true that your own lips are not soiled by the utterance of all the mean words that are spoken for you, and that you don’t even know of the sham threats, and the false promises, and the vainglorious boasts, put forth by your dragoman; but now and then there happens some incident of the sort which I have just been mentioning, which forces you to believe, or suspect, that your dragoman is habitually fighting your battles for you in a way that you ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... remonstrated against employing so small a force, and indeed was opposed to the measure altogether, as being undertaken precipitately and without sufficient preparation. King Ferdinand, however, was influenced by the counsel of Don Diego de Merlo, and was eager to strike a brilliant and decided blow. A vainglorious confidence prevailed about this time among the Spanish cavaliers; they overrated their own prowess, or rather they undervalued and despised their enemy. Many of them believed that the Moors would scarcely remain in their city when they saw the Christian troops ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... back,—how strange—out of the grave; Its dreams are in your eyes, and still there clings Dust of the grave on your vainglorious hair; And a mysterious ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... retreat or starve, and that the retreat would prove more disastrous than was that of Napoleon from Moscow. He promised his Tennessee and Kentucky soldiers that their feet should soon tread their "native soil," etc., etc. He made no concealment of these vainglorious boasts, and thus gave us the full key to his future designs. To be forewarned was to be forearmed, and I think we took full ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... been more written about and fought over than those of Amerigo Vespucci. Some will have it that he went only two voyages, and say he was a braggart and a vainglorious fool if he said he went more. Others think that he went at least four voyages and probably six. And most people are now agreed that these last are right, and that he who gave his name to the great double Continent of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... on the street, had been moved to ask whether the girls had many beaus, and Aunt Sharley, with a boastful flirt of her under lip which made her side face look something like the profile of a withered but vainglorious ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... play them round his fingers. He banished all those who opposed him, relying on force alone. In dealing with those who were really patriotic, he either corrupted their character by buying them with silver or removed them by assassination. He was a vainglorious man and spent money like water. From the foreign capitalists he borrowed in a most indiscriminate manner, while on the Mexican people he levied all sorts of cruel taxes. Thus the strength of the people was drained and the resources of the country were exhausted, creating a position over ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... alive. This that I tell thee is true. The sons of Pandu are endued with great might. They are, again, fighting for their own sake. Why should not they, O Bharata, be able to slay thy troops. Thou, however, O king, art exceedingly covetous. Thou, O Kaurava, art deceitful. Thou art vainglorious and suspicious of everything. For this, thou suspectest even us. I think, O king, thou art wicked, of sinful soul, and an embodiment of sin. Mean and of sinful thoughts, thou doubtest us and others. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to smile back. I got up off the floor and slumped on the cushions. As for Cap'n Jonadab Wixon, he'd stopped yellin', but his face was one broad, serene grin. His mouth, through the dust and the dirt caked around it, looked like a rain gully in a sand-bank. And, occasional, he crowed, hoarse but vainglorious. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a level with the ordinary savage. He was exceedingly illiterate, and ignorant. And yet he had the most amazing self-confidence, with not a particle of reverence for any man, whatever his rank or culture. He thought no one his superior. Colonel Coffee paid very little respect to his vainglorious report. In the following characteristic strain Crockett comments on ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... time is no excuse for idleness. "Our life," says Jeremy Taylor, "is too short to serve the ambition of a haughty prince or a usurping rebel; too little time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride of a vainglorious fool, to trample upon all the enemies of our just or unjust interest: but for the obtaining virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and modesty, for the actions of religion, God gives us time sufficient, if we make the ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... landed his seamen who helped to drive them out with their pikes, and they fell back with heavy loss. On the 20th Bonaparte raised the siege which had cost him nearly 5,000 men by war and sickness. Smith received the thanks of parliament and a pension of L1,000 a year. Though vainglorious and arrogant, he conducted the defence of Acre with sound judgment as well as with energy and courage. By weary marches through the desert, Bonaparte led his army back to Egypt, where he defeated an invasion of Turks. Smith sent him a bundle of newspapers, and from them he received ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... footing for the horses, and I could not but join in the ringing laughter of oar Frenchmen as occasionally Brunet and Souris, the two ponies, would flounder, almost imbedded, through the yielding mass. Even the vainglorious Plante, who piqued himself on his equestrian skill, was once or twice nearly unhorsed, from having chosen his road badly. Sometimes the elevations were covered with a thicket or copse, in which our dogs would generally ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... combination of circumstances gave impulse to "the Board of Erin," I know not-whether it arose out of a vainglorious purpose to meet the Orangemen with a weapon of import similar to their own, or whether it was merely the love of young people to have association with the occult, I can merely conjecture—but it was only when ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... followed within a few weeks by the death of the King of Navarre. His painful wound was not, perhaps, necessarily mortal, but the restless and vainglorious prince would not remain quiet and allow it to heal. He insisted on being borne in a litter through the breach into the city which had been taken under his nominal command. It was a sort of triumphal procession, marching ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the only remaining monument of Hastings. Matilda's own handiwork prepared her thank offering of tapestry, recording her husband's victory; and this work, done as it was for a gift to Heaven, not a vainglorious record, still endures in the very cathedral to which she gave it, one of the choicest historical witnesses that have come down to our times. We might be apt to regret that she did not present her work to Battle Abbey, where it would have been most appropriate; but as the Puritans would ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... his garden-house, and am in the act of taking my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness, that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable, so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib, who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to Asirvadam ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the displeasure with which he has been visited by the ticklish Tarasconnais. Daudet relates that in his attempt to shed a humorous light upon some of the more vivid phases of the Provencal character he selected Tarascon at a venture; not because the temperament of its natives is more vainglorious than that of their neighbours, or their rebellion against the "despotism of fact" more marked, but simply because he had to name a particular Provencal city. Tartarin is a hunter of lions and charmer of women, a true "produit du midi," ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... the pillage of all the houses of the patriots at Chataigneraie—to which town Chalbos with seven thousand troops had marched—it was against him that the Vendeans first moved. Chalbos, who had occupied his time in issuing vainglorious proclamations, and in writing assurances to the Convention that the Vendeans were so panic stricken that the war was virtually over, only saved his army by a long and painful night march back to Fontenay. Here the troops lay ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... The Blended Rose excelled in wit, beauty, and accomplishment those of the whole world, and challenged any knight to dispute it. Thereupon appeared the seven knights of The Burning Mountain, and by their herald announced that they would disprove by arms the vainglorious assertions of the knights of The Blended Rose and show that the ladies of The Burning Mountain as far excelled all others in charms as the knights themselves surpassed all others in prowess. Upon this a glove of defiance was thrown, the esquires presented ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... is still prevalent in England. He, as I read him, is not a person of Napoleonic ideas, but of ideas quite superior to Napoleonic.... That noble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become Queen of the Continent, instead of vapouring, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and over-sensitive France, seems to me the hopefulest fact that ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... King of England was informed that the Duke of Buckingham, for reasons well known to himself, would not be agreeable as Charles's ambassador to his Most Christian Majesty. Upon learning this, the vainglorious Buckingham was loud in proclaiming the reason ("well known to himself") and in protesting that he would go to France to see the Queen with the French King's consent or without it. This was duly reported to Richelieu, and by Richelieu to King Louis. But ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... and Monsieur remains his truculent, vainglorious self, Montsurry has suffered a strange degeneration. It is sufficiently remarkable, to begin with, after his declaration at ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... and repressed, trying to remember the harsh, unkind things I had said to her, and berating myself fiercely for all of them. What a stupid, vainglorious ass I was, not to have divined something of the inward fight she was making to conquer the emotions that filled her heart unto ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... his khaki riding suit loped gaily down the broad mountain road toward Ganlook, beside the black mare which carried John Tullis. Behind them rode three picked troopers from the House Guard. He had told Tullis of his vainglorious defence ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... though to smelter words of Greek And Latin be the rhetorique Of pedants counted, and vainglorious, To smatter ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... instant I came nearer to being angry than I have been for a long time. Waste myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had a sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest sarcasms I could lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! "Oh well," I thought, with vainglorious superiority, "he ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... of Gallegos, De Soto received the intelligence that the chief Ucita had taken refuge in a forest, surrounded with swamps, not far from the Spanish camp. The vainglorious Porcallo was exceedingly indignant that the Indian chief should presume to hold himself aloof from all friendly advances. He entreated De Soto to grant him the privilege of capturing the fugitive. De Soto complied ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... on the same floor; being, in fact, the back parlour; and had, as Mrs Todgers said, the great advantage (in London) of not being overlooked; as they would see when the fog cleared off. Nor was this a vainglorious boast, for it commanded at a perspective of two feet, a brown wall with a black cistern on the top. The sleeping apartment designed for the young ladies was approached from this chamber by a mightily convenient little door, which would ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... need for that; for riches make men vainglorious, proud, and to oppress their bretheren, and are the occasion of wars. No man can be rich but he must be rich either by his own labors, or by the labors of other men helping him. If a man have no help from his neighbors, he ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... times and circumstances in which he wrote. It was an age when the love of truth was almost dead, extinguished partly by the crushing tyranny of omnipotent Emperors, partly by the intellectual and moral degeneration of pagan society. The Flavian house soon showed the same characteristics of a vainglorious despotism as the line of Caesars which it had supplanted. Under Domitian "the only course possible for a writer without the risk of outlawry or the sacrifice of personal honor was that followed by Juvenal and Tacitus during his reign, viz., ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... point; and the sword proved, as Sanza had said, to be a genuine Muramasa. Sanza was delighted at the verdict; but the other two went home rather crestfallen. Umanojo, although he had been worsted in the argument, bore no malice nor ill-will in his heart; but Banzayemon, who was a vainglorious personage, puffed up with the idea of his own importance, conceived a spite against Sanza, and watched for an opportunity to put him to shame. At last, one day Banzayemon, eager to be revenged upon Sanza, went ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... behind me, persisted all the way as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing my cloak. My thoughts were further distracted by the excessive pride of Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in being members of so distinguished ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... to consult with the commander in chief three men who died hated and scorned by their countrymen. The first was Horatio Gates, a vainglorious man, given to intrigue and treachery. Next came tall and slovenly Charles Lee of Virginia, a restless adventurer, who, by his cowardice in the battle of Monmouth, stirred even Washington to anger. ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... would have made a palatable dish of those gaiters of his heroic grandfather which he was so fond of talking about. Then he was a good-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous, vainglorious talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what is more, he never bore malice. Of course, his being so pronounced a coward was a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness we could more or less guard against it. So, after warning him of the ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... warlords, the might of three was much more in their armies than in themselves. Cruel Philip was not a warrior of any kind. Ambitious Louis and the vainglorious Kaiser were only second-rate soldiers, who would never have won their own way to the highest command. But Napoleon was utterly different. He was as great a master of the art of war on land as Nelson was by sea; and ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... pages and liveried varlets about their steps. Usually, unless he went hunting or on a visit to some noble, Guidobaldo, like his father, walked about Urbino like any one of his citizens; but he knew the pompous and somewhat vainglorious temper of Messer Benedetto, and good- naturedly was willing to humor its harmless vanities. Bowing to the ground, the master-potter led the way, walking backward into his bottega; the courtiers followed their prince; Giovanni Sanzio ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... English press, and the indignities he had offered to our ambassador; but the real ground of quarrel was to be found in an official gasconade of Bonaparte's, in which he declared that "Britain could not contend single handed against France," a vainglorious boast, which (in those days at least) touched a chord which thrilled the patriotic feelings of every Englishman that ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... too long, his face too long, his ears too big, his long nose overhung his upper lip. He was impressive and capable looking but appeared too crafty, too foxy. I felt sure that he had not the least suspicion of what was coming. He looked all vanity, self-satisfaction and vainglorious self-sufficiency. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... is interested in is extremely self-conscious and thinks that she is being purposely slighted unless she is the center of everything. Others, both boys and girls, are excessively irritable, very suspicious, inordinately selfish, hysterical, vainglorious, or in other ways show lack of self-control and emotional stability. Later in life such conditions may lead to intense misery. Nevertheless traits of this sort are often combined with very fine qualities in other respects. This renders ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... Jovannic slowly. But suddenly, in a blaze of revelation, he understood what had lurked in his mind since the scene in the village; the smiles that mirth of men who triumph by a stratagem, who see their adversary vainglorious, strong and doomed. He remembered Captain Hahn's choleric pomp, his own dignity and aloofness; and it was with a heat of embarrassment that he now perceived how he must appear to ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... showy and gay ones, and divide them between thy servants and the poor; that is to say, if thou canst clothe six pages, clothe three and three poor men, and thus thou wilt have pages for heaven and pages for earth; the vainglorious never think of this ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... described above, and so disqualify themselves for the great role of world-wide emancipation, which some religion at some time will certainly have to play. It is the same difficulty which is looming large in modern World-politics, where the local selfishness and vainglorious "patriotisms" of the Nations are sadly impeding and obstructing the development of that sense of Internationalism and Brotherhood which is the clearly indicated form of the future, and which alone can give each nation deliverance from fear, and ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... and upon whose hearts most generous sentiments knock in vain, who still are overawed and bowed by the magnitude of this catastrophe. No matter what they believe about it, the effect is the same. The effect is to reduce a man from the swaggering braggart—the vainglorious lord of what he sees—the self-made master of fate, of nature, of time, of space, of everything—to his true microscopic stature in the cosmos. He goes in tears to put together again the fragments of the few, small, pitiful ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... follow me." Again Riggs laid hold of the two saddles. A desperate gleam, baleful and vainglorious, flashed over his face. He was living his ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... with some personal defects, and a character so petulantly vainglorious, exposed the "Resolute" to the bitter sarcasm of contemporary writers. Accordingly we find him through life encompassed by a host of tormentors, and presenting his chevaux-de-frise of quills against them at all and every point. In the Epistle Dedicatory to the second edition of his Dictionary, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... beneath formality and perfect politeness a profound antipathy to the conqueror. It required almost a formal order from her husband to bring her to Dresden. She was then a pretty woman, twenty-four years old, witty, and proud of her birth and her crown. Napoleon she looked on as an upstart, a vainglorious adventurer, the cause of all the humiliations inflicted on the Austrian monarchy; and the splendor which surrounded the hero of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Wagram, aroused in her a resentment all the keener because she was compelled to hide it. Napoleon ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... commerce with them, understanding that they were coarsely clothed, and all in the same manner, took it for granted that they had none of those fine things among them of which they made no use; and they, being a vainglorious rather than a wise people, resolved to set themselves out with so much pomp that they should look like gods, and strike the eyes of the poor Utopians with their splendour. Thus three ambassadors made their entry with a hundred attendants, all clad in garments ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... be absurd in us to prank ourselves in their dainty plumes and splendid garments; why, then, should we imitate their full blown vices? Why should we assume their hard hearted pride and relentless cruelty, to which murder is not only a sport, but a subject of vainglorious triumph? Let those whose rank claims as its right such bloody homage take pride and pleasure in it; we, who have no share in the sacrifice, may the better pity the sufferings of the victim. Let us thank our lowliness, since it secures us from temptation. But forgive me, father, if I have ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... were few, and they made no effort to obstruct the flight of the fugitive. Instead, they gave him a wide berth. From far in the rear came hoarse cries, but Quentin was uttering no shout. He was grinding his teeth because the fellow had worsted him in the rather vainglorious encounter on the porch, and was doing all in his power to catch him and make things even. To his dismay the fellow was gaining on him and he was losing his own strength. Cursing the frightened men who ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... force of Napoleon's own intelligence and will could now supply. This fatal problem baffled his attempts to gain alliances; and yet the isolation of France was but half acknowledged, but half understood; and a host of rash, vainglorious spirits impatiently awaited the hour that should call them to their revenge on Prussia for the triumphs in which it had not permitted ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... your national heroes out of men whose reasoning powers remained those of a college sophomore, who were unable to state an opponent's position with fairness, who lacked wholly the judicial quality, who were vainglorious and extravagant, who had, in short, the mind of an exuberant barbarian; but you instantly forget their intellectual defects in the presence of their abounding physical and moral energy, their freedom from any taint of ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... expression bewildering to less gifted tongues, scathing invective, cutting sarcasm, or bitter irony impress upon an offender the gravity of a breach of discipline. Withal, he is modest. He appreciates his own power, but there is no undue display of that appreciation, no vainglorious boasting over achievements which read like a fairy-tale. Fittest to lead or follow, idol of every true soldier. Who, that knows him as those who fought beside him, does not wish to see him at the head of that army and that nation of which he is the ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... their powerful chargers. On parades they manifested none of the show and ostentation of the other troops: neither, in battle, did they endeavor to signalize themselves by any fiery vivacity, or desperate and vainglorious exploit,—everything, with them, was measured and sedate; yet it was observed that none were more warlike in their appearance in the camp, or more terrible for their ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... village. At intervals one was perched high in the branches of a tree which could overlook the palisade. Presently a Manyuema within the village fell, pierced by a single arrow. There had been no sound of attack—none of the hideous war-cries or vainglorious waving of menacing spears that ordinarily marks the attack of savages—just a silent messenger of death from ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... like style, as may be seen in my book, where I have some designs by his hand, both for painting and illuminations, among them an eagle, excellently done, and a fine lion tearing up a tree. These two excellent illuminators are referred to by Dante in the passage on the vainglorious in the eleventh chapter of the Purgatorio, in ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... to have taken the advice, I admit. I was not in nearly such a vainglorious mood as I had been back in the Swede's barroom, with the waterfront applauding me. If Newman had offered to dodge around the corner with me, I'd have gone. The aspect of that empty wharf was depressing, and there was something sinister about all these unusual circumstances surrounding our joining ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... thus more than a franc a line. Alfred de Broglie has made these memoirs the test of a paper entitled "Memoirs de Chateaubriand, a Moral and Political Study," in the Revue des Deux Mondes. It is a severe analysis of the book and the man. He concludes that Chateaubriand was one of the most vainglorious, selfish and malignant of his tribe. He, indeed, betrayed himself broadly, but surviving writers, who knew intimately his private life—such as St. Beuve—have disclosed more of his habitual libertinism. The Radical journals, and some of the Legitimists, turn to account the portraits left ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... it to where it meets the great gulf, possessing with emblems of empire and his indomitable spirit the lower reaches of the stream whose upper waters had first been touched by the gentle Marquette and the practical Joliet and the vainglorious Hennepin. Between that day and the time when it became a course of regular and active commerce (again in Mark Twain's chronology), "seven sovereigns had occupied the throne of England, America had become ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... yield to Fate, Minion of Fortune, now miscalled in vain! Can vantage-ground no confidence create, Marcella's pass, nor Guarda's mountain-chain? Vainglorious fugitive! yet turn again! Behold, where, named by some prophetic Seer, Flows Honour's Fountain, {2} as foredoomed the stain From thy dishonoured name and arms to clear - Fallen Child of Fortune, turn, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... word, but bowing himself down humbly to the earth, both before the King and the Queen's Majesties, went forth into the field; and at the same time the wolf was also ready, and stood boasting, and giving out many proud and vainglorious speeches. The marshals and rulers of the lists were the leopard and the loss. These brought forth a book, on which the wolf swore and maintained his assertion that the fox was a traitor and a murderer, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... paradoxes, et risum teneatis amici? You shall find that of Aristotle true, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae, they have a worm as well as others; you shall find a fantastical strain, a fustian, a bombast, a vainglorious humour, an affected style, &c., like a prominent thread in an uneven woven cloth, run parallel throughout their works. And they that teach wisdom, patience, meekness, are the veriest dizzards, harebrains, and most discontent. [715]"In the multitude of ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... German legions returned, in the spring of 1871, to their own firesides, they presented a body of men of whom any nation might have been proud. Elated they were at their unparalleled successes, but not puffed-up or vainglorious. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... place in the list of National League pitchers, finished third in the earned run computation, showing that if he had been given proper support he probably would have been one of the topmost pitchers of the league, even on the basis of percentage of games won, which is more vainglorious than ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... personal prowess and valor, in a manner very eloquent indeed, and in a style which it seems was very much admired in those days as evincing only a proper spirit and energy,—though in our times such a harangue would be very apt to be regarded as only a vainglorious ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... To ampler fates that leads? Not down through flowery meads, 110 To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds, But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... I seen a man, black or white, so delighted as was that vainglorious Kafir. For whole hours he danced and sang and took snuff and saluted with his hand, telling me the story of his deed over and over again, no single version of which tale agreed with the other. He took a new title also, that meant "Eater-up-of-Elephants"; ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... the vainglorious way in which Germany's enemies foretold that before long their armies would meet in the heart of Germany, where Cossacks would parade the streets of Berlin and Indian lancers and Gurkhas would stroll through the parks of Potsdam. The German fleet, it was asserted, would be at the bottom of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Kallikratidas for pay, and see how he would manage to maintain the men. And when he finally left Ephesus, he endeavoured to force Kallikratidas to admit that he had handed over to him a fleet which was mistress of the seas. Kallikratidas, however, wishing to expose his vainglorious boasts, answered: "If so, sail from hence, passing Samos on your left, and hand over the fleet to me at Miletus; for we need not fear the Athenians at Samos, if our fleet is mistress of the seas." To this Lysander answered that it was ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... weakening of this sinister proclivity with the passage of time or the continued advance in the arts of life. The only civilized nations that can be counted on as habitually peaceable are those who are so feeble or are so placed as to be cut off from hope of gain through contention. Vainglorious arrogance may run at a higher tension among the more backward and boorish nations; but it is not evident that the advance guard among the civilised peoples are imbued with a less complete national self-complacency. If the peace is to be kept, therefore, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... layers of the atmosphere. I did not actually say what was in my thoughts, but I got so near to it that if they had any corresponding idea they could not have failed to express it. But then they are two empty, vainglorious fellows with no thought beyond seeing their silly names in the newspaper. It is interesting to note that neither of them had ever been much beyond the twenty-thousand-foot level. Of course, men have been higher than this both in ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of vainglorious men To dream that we should seek to flee After those weary leagues of sea Crossed, but to hunt them in ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Confidence by name—not seeing the way before him, fell into a deep pit, which was on purpose there made, by the prince of those grounds, to catch vainglorious fools withal, and was dashed in pieces with ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... the next campaign will be a hot one for, now that Spain has been as completely subdued as such vainglorious, excitable people can be subdued, the French marshals are free to join against us; and it is hard to see how, with but 30,000 men, we are going to defend Portugal against ten times that number of French. ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... who had given them leave of absence from dinner that they meant to go a long walk. He had not mentioned Appenfell, not from any want of straightforwardness, but because they thought that it might sound like a vainglorious attempt, and they did not want to talk about it until they had really accomplished it. But in truth if they had mentioned this as their destination, no wise master would have given them permission to go, unless ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... slip an opportunity of getting information about her. On the other hand he might be about to be called upon to pay more for his kidnapping exploit. He had, however, just lunched ducally; and he was in a vainglorious mood, ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... Liberals, by his defeating all Liberal measures; the Liberals at the Tories, by their consciousness of getting everything that is to be got in Church and State; and all at one another, by substituting low ribaldry for argument, bad jokes for principle, and an openly avowed, vainglorious, imbecile vanity as a panoply to guard himself from the attacks of all ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... bring the stimulus of great events into the Concord life by writing stories, of which I would report the progress to my one or two confidantes. My father overheard some vainglorious boasts from my lips, one afternoon, when the windows of the little library where he sat were open; and the small girl who listened to me, wide-eyed, and I myself, proud and glad to have reached a thrilling denouement, were standing beside the sweet-clover bed, not dreaming of ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... his vainglorious boast, and was more than ever in doubt of the soundness of the good ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the vainglorious host deck the meal with little salt-shell or smooth cup; but all has been now abolished in shameful wise by ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... secret grudge; (for much did him displease The coming of Beowulf now—bold sailor o'er the seas. To none on earth would he allow a greater fame 'mong men Beneath the heavens than his): 'Art thou the same Beowulf then, Who swam a match with Breca once upon the waters wide, When ye vainglorious searched the waves, and risked your lives for pride Upon the deep? Nor hinder you could any friend or foe From that sad venture. Then ye twain did on the waters row; Ye stretched your arms upon the flood; the sea-ways ye did mete; 10 O'er billows glided—with your hands them tossed—though ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... have in some measure always conceived their national future as an ideal to be fulfilled. Their anticipations have been uplifting as well as confident and vainglorious. They have been prophesying not merely a safe and triumphant, but also a better, future. The ideal demand for some sort of individual and social amelioration has always accompanied even their vainest flights of patriotic prophecy. They may never have sufficiently realized that ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... of influencing an assembled crowd is exposed to most dangerous abuses. As one may disinterestedly animate them, for the noblest and best of purposes, so another may entangle them in the deceitful meshes of sophistry, and dazzle them by the glare of a false magnanimity, whose vainglorious crimes may be painted as virtues and even as sacrifices. Beneath the delightful charms of oratory and poetry, the poison steals imperceptibly into ear and heart. Above all others must the comic poet (seeing that his very occupation keeps him always ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... will turn to prophecy, And his device will have foreshown his doom. To cope with Tydeus and that post to guard, I send the gallant son of Astacus, Whose noble blood is loyal to the rule Of honour and abhors vainglorious words, Whose chivalry fears nothing but reproach, Sprung from that remnant of the Earth-born race, Which the sword spared, a true son of the soil, Melanippus. Ares' hand the die will cast, But nature sends our soldier to the field To drive ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... began. 'A treaty with the barbarians is out of our power. It is the scourge of the empire, Alaric himself, who commands the invading forces! Vain were the dignified remonstrances of the grave Basilius, futile was the persuasive rhetoric of the astute Johannes, addressed to the slaughtering and vainglorious Goth! On their admission to his presence, the ambassadors, anxious to awe him into a capitulation, enlarged, with sagacious and commendable patriotism, on the expertness of the Romans in the use of arms, their readiness for war, and their vast numbers within the city walls. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the best-educated people have found it necessary to establish a society, called the Society for Psychical Research, in order to demonstrate that ghosts are not possible. I believe I am not overstepping the bounds when I say that this vainglorious people, who claim to have the finest public-school system in the world, are, considering their advantages, the most superstitious of all the white races. Out of perhaps thirty men, whom I asked, not one was willing to say he could pass through a graveyard at night without fear at heart, an undefined ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... time," said Marc'antonio with a touch of vainglorious pride. "I have made the acquaintance of many continentals, even with some that were extremely rich. But I ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... frivolous modes of dealing with the rights of races to self-development! Because Englishmen may be classified as hard and conceited, Frenchmen as capricious, Austrians as dull, and the people of one other nation are sometimes thought to be vainglorious, shall these therefore be slaves? And where is that model race which shall sway them all? A people may have grave defects, but it may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... mind of neither, you see, was there any doubt of what must be the issue. The calm confidence in which La Tour d'Azyr had spoken compelled itself to be shared. He was no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of what a force as a swordsman ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... accused him of having requested a moderation of the edicts. In truth, this most vacillating, confused, and unfortunate of men perhaps scarcely comprehended the purport of his recent negotiations in Spain, nor perceived the drift of his daily remarks at home. He was, however, somewhat vainglorious immediately after his return, and excessively attentive to business. "He talks like a King," said Morillon, spitefully, "negotiates night and day, and makes all bow before him." His house was more thronged ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... hardly bring the question into the slightest discussion, or ask an opinion even in the most confidential manner, without betraying, in my judgment, some impropriety of conduct, or without feeling an apprehension that a premature display of anxiety might be construed into a vainglorious desire of pushing myself into notice as a candidate. Now, if I am not grossly deceived in myself, I should unfeignedly rejoice, in case the electors, by giving their votes in favor of some other person, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Woman in White' lisped out, 'Sherry, sir?' Only imagine being handed one's fish by the envoy that got us into the Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the accomplished writer of 'Orley Farm'! Picture a succession of celebrities in motion around the table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious sentiment of the man that could say, 'Lyons, a little more fat;' or, 'Carlyle, madeira;' and imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so gracefully handed you by 'Lost and Saved,' and the culminating pride of taking your flat candlestick from ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... admonition in order to emphasize the viciousness of pride that had caused all the trouble in the churches of Galatia, and has always caused the Church of Christ no end of difficulties. In his Epistle to Titus the Apostle states that a vainglorious man should not be ordained as a minister, for pride, as St. Augustine points out, is the mother of ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... are angels from Heaven watching over them, David, guiding them, showing them how. I believe good white angels are guiding every true minister,—not the bad ones— Oh, I know a lot about ministers, honey,—proud, ambitious, selfish, vainglorious, hypocritical, even amorous, a lot of them,—but there are others, true ones,—you, David, and some more. They just have to grow together until harvest, and then the false ones will be dug up and dumped in ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... Marlowe does not escape his censure for having trespassed in this particular beyond the limits of good taste. Nash wonders "how eloquent our gowned age is growen of late," and he has nothing but contempt for those "vainglorious tragoedians who contend not so seriously to excel in action, as to embowell the clowdes in a speach of comparison; thinking themselves more than initiated in poets immortalitie, if they but once get Boreas by the beard and the ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... favoured by a great man of the church and a great estate, one of the greatest in all that country there. And indeed, whosoever could spend as much as he could for one thing and another, would be a right great estate in any country of Christendom. But vainglorious was he, very far above all measure. And that was great pity, for it did harm and made him abuse many great gifts that God had given him. Never was he satiated with hearing ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... had kept up the appearance of being hurt every few minutes, just as a precaution. Then even that had ceased and I had dropped into vainglorious apathy. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... who did not believe that Bradley Gaither was a better man at bottom than his life had shown him to be, not one, indeed, who did not believe that his grievous errors were among the dispensations which an all-wise Providence employs to chasten the proud and humble the vainglorious. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... pretend, indeed, to find in humanity what they deny to exist as Deity, but I should be incapable of the illogical exchange. It is to deny that the seed sprang from a root; it is to replace a grand and illimitable theism by a finite and vainglorious bathos. Of all the creeds that have debased mankind, the new creed that would centre itself in man seems to me the poorest and the most baseless of all. If humanity be but a vibrion, a conglomeration of gases, a mere mould holding chemicals, a mere bundle ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... of the deepest sorrows I have ever known—perhaps I have never felt such sorrow...perhaps I have never been so mercifully supported under it. It is a good and profitable sorrow I trust for me: it has made so much in me reveal itself as hollow, worldly, selfish, vainglorious. It has, I hope, helped to strip away the veil, and may be by God's blessing the beginning of more earnest life-long ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... missed most in your first letter was what I do not miss in the second, the good news of dear Mr. Martin. Both he and you are very vainglorious, I suppose, about O'Connell; but although I was delighted on every account at his late victory,[112] or rather at the late victory of justice and constitutional law, he never was a hero of mine and is not likely ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... so far as the charge of being proud may be brought against people who were, habitually, distinctly guiltless of the misdemeanor known as "taking credit." They never boasted of Robert Acton, nor indulged in vainglorious reference to him; they never quoted the clever things he had said, nor mentioned the generous things he had done. But a sort of frigidly-tender faith in his unlimited goodness was a part of their personal sense of right; ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... first, but when the initial surprise was over, they were blazing with rage and eager to do murder. The Italian and the Sierra Leone nigger ran out of their way on to the forecastle head, and they came on, vainglorious in numbers, and armed with their deadly knives. But the two English roughs, the English gentleman, and the little English sailor, were all of them men well accustomed to take care of their own skins; the belaying pins out of the pinrail ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... on either side of some tangled forest, he yet felt that their roots were interwoven below ground, drawing common life and nourishment and sympathies from that old teeming soil of human aspirations. Nor was he vainglorious of his achievement. His superiority over the art-expert he took as a gift of the gods. Vanityi was abhorrent to his nature. He was not proud but glad—glad to have been able to reconquer his legitimate social position; ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... withdrew his challenge to the bunch, and laid his billiard cue down with a sigh and the remark that all he lacked was time, to have the scalps of every last one of them hanging from his belt. Pink was figurative in his speech, you will understand; and also a bit vainglorious over beating Andy Green and ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... nothing but riches, honors, and magistracy" can content "I (for my part) shall ever esteem it much more manly and sacred, in this harmless and pious study, to sit until I sink into my grave, than shine in your vainglorious bubbles and impieties; all your poor policies, wisdoms, and their trappings, at no more valuing than a musty nut." These sentiments were probably fresh in his heart when, in 1634, friendless and poor, at the age of seventy-five, he died. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... was, full of most marvellous loud tales and exploits, and speaking a language at times obscure but never colourless. He was a new sensation to Bud King's men, who rarely encountered new types. They hung, delighted, upon his vainglorious boasting, the spicy strangeness of his lingo, his contemptuous familiarity with life, the world, and remote places, and the extravagant frankness with which he ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... about in the immediate neighborhood of Boonesborough, and appeared to have spoken freely about our projects, greatly exalting and exaggerating their importance; indeed, he could scarcely have said more if we had been traveling as accredited agents between two belligerent powers. Such vainglorious garrulity was not only intensely provoking, but involved real peril to all parties concerned. I thought the Irishman was perfectly right in taking that blundering bull by the horns, and acting decisively on his own responsibility, inasmuch as ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... must be an egotist—as the word is popularly understood—in his speech. But even although this were the case, the world would be divided into egotists, likable and unlikable. There are two kinds of egotism, a trifling vainglorious kind, a mere burning of personal incense, in which the man is at once altar, priest, censer, and divinity; a kind which deals with the accidents and wrappages of the speaker, his equipage, his riches, his family, his servants, his furniture and array. The other kind ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... vainglorious, would approach with his enormous horde; he would taunt us, no doubt, with his absurd 'Koos-takke,' which I verily believe has no meaning at all, and of which we need take no heed. In a few days, having exhausted the supplies, he would have to retire, and then sallying forth we could fall upon ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... in the quaint mediaeval Latin. It was indeed a Hosmer who unwittingly had so nearly brought Edmond Ironside to grief. "Was I descended from the man?" queried Freeman. Quite proud that my story had been substantiated and perhaps a bit vainglorious over the fact that a man of my name had looked like a king, I was not slow in saying that I probably was, that my line for six hundred years after that date, honest yeomen, had lived near the spot, in the fields of Kent. Freeman assented to the probability, but it was suggested ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... of Alamito Ranch, was in charge of the expedition that rode late that afternoon against Macdonald's homestead to liberate Mark Thorn, and close his mouth in the cattlemen's effective way upon the bloody secrets which he might in vainglorious boast reveal. Chadron had promised rewards for the successful outcome of the venture, and Chance Dalton rode with his three picked men ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... the band of Crow warriors again crossed their path. They came in vaunting and vainglorious style; displaying five Cheyenne scalps, the trophies of their vengeance. They were now bound homewards, to appease the manes of their comrade by these proofs that his death had been revenged, and intended to have scalp-dances and other triumphant ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving |
