"Decry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have been after eight years' work at other avocations in the old country. Putting aside the question of the magnificent health we enjoy—and that is no small thing—we are on the high road to a degree of competence we might never have attained to in England. Not that we wish to decry England; on the contrary, we would like to return there. But for a visit, merely. Here is our home, now. The young country that is growing out of its swaddling clothes, and that we hope, and we know, will one day be a Brighter Britain in deed ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... beautiful in summer, when all the fine trees are in full grandeur, for I never saw any larger or more flourishing. It is the custom for the French to decry everything Spanish, even to the natural productions; and I had often been told that the moment the French side was quitted all was barren and worthless; I found, however, on the contrary, that the mountain-scenery ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... master-of-the-horse, as some say, evading the orders, fought and gained an advantage, then, you may believe me, the city was in a turmoil; nor were there wanting friends of Minucius and emissaries from his camp to sound his praises as a general and decry the dictator and his policy, not to say his courage and ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... Addison, Cowper, Milton, and Dryden, who were scholars, but who alike felt that college honors and native genius did not go hand in hand,—which might almost be regarded as the rule, but for a few remarkable exceptions, like Sir Robert Peel and Gladstone. And yet it would be unwise to decry college honors, since not one in a hundred of those who obtain them by their industry, aptness, and force of will can lay claim to what is called genius,—the rarest of all gifts. Moreover, how impossible it is for college professors ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... accepting it. For the dry bones of commerce, avarice and method and need, are odious to the Valley; and we cover them up with a pretty body of fiction and observances. Thus, when it comes to buying pigs, the buyer does not begin to decry the pig and the vendor to praise it, as is the custom with lesser men; but tradition makes them ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... insight into its character and its customs must be possessed of an exceptionally oyster-like organization indeed. But the majority of American women seek foreign society on other grounds than this—chiefly from that tendency to ape everything European and to decry everything American to which I have already alluded as being characteristic of us as a nation. England and the English are the principal models chosen for imitation. It is marvellous to notice the fondness of American women abroad for the English accent and manner of speech ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... facts, electricity has again come forward as a curative agent in the last ten years. Instruction in its management in disease is included in the curriculum of almost every medical school, and most physicians now own an outfit, more or less extensive, for use in ordinary practice. To decry and utterly condemn is no longer the custom of the steady-going physician, the ethics of whose cloth had been for centuries to condemn all that interfered with the use of drugs, and everything whose action could not be understood by the examples of common experience, and without ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... feel quite guilty among you all, for I took not a single coin the whole afternoon," said Maud the modest; but Jim would not allow his favourite sister to decry herself in his presence, and was up in arms in a moment in ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... upon themselves a part, which seemed destined to the ministers of Religion. The hatred of the latter for philosophy was only a jealousy of trade. But, instead of endeavouring to injure and decry each other, all men of good sense should unite their efforts to combat error, seek truth, and especially to put to flight the prejudices, that are equally injurious to sovereigns and subjects, and of which the abettors themselves sooner or ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... been nothing more than translators and diffusers of European culture, their task would have been justified. They kept the ideals of civilization from perishing in this new soil. Through those eastern windows came in, and still comes in, the sunlight to illumine the American spirit. To decry the literatures of the Orient and of Greece and Rome as something now outgrown by America, is simply to close the eastern windows, to narrow our conception of civilization to merely national and contemporaneous terms. It is as provincial to attempt ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... purest folk-melody, and it is strange how we know this, though we do not know the special theme. We cannot decry the race-element as a rich fount of melody. While older nations strive and strain, it pours forth by some mystery in prodigal flow with less tutored peoples who are singing their first big song to the world. Only, the ultimate goal ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... abilities is as well attested as any fact in psychology. Those who decry eugenics on the ground that it is impossible to establish any "standard of perfection," since society needs many diverse kinds of people, are overlooking this fact. Any plan which increases the production of children in able families of ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... that which is difficult to understand is much admired by the simple-minded, who also decry pictures that tell their own story! A certain class of minds enjoy being mystified, and in consequence writers, painters, and musicians have appeared who are willing to juggle for their amusement. The simple definition given to us by the Russian writer comes ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... Deputy-solicitor for the commune of Paris, appears on this occasion as the opponent of the whole legislature; and all the temporizing eloquence of Barrere, and the mysterious phraseology of Robespierre, are employed to decry his morals, and to reproach the ministers with the sums which have been the price ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... individual and national freedom there is this great dream still to be striven for, let us not decry it as something too sublime for earth. It must be our guiding star to lead us rightly as far as we may go. We can travel rightly that part of the road we now tread on only by shaping it true to the great end that ought to inspire ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... falsehoods concerning "the Holy Church and the Holy Priests!" so long will they laugh at the censures of the Protestants; and as long as they can influence the Editors of political papers vociferously to deny evangelical truth, and to decry every attempt to discover the secrets of the Romish priestcraft as false and uncharitable, so long will the Jesuits ridicule and despise that incredulity which is at once so blinding, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... stream and expatiates on the blessings which it would bring, patterning its concept of the Heart of the Australian Continent upon what was known of the Great Plains of America, then just being opened up. Any child with an Atlas in hand can now decry the mistake of having given to this concept more credence than did Oxley or Macquarie: does not hindsight ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... experiment is necessary. Physiology is a science of experiment. Hence the frequent uncertainty of its results, since no two observers conduct an experiment in exactly the same manner—certainly no two ever institute it under precisely the same conditions. Nevertheless, let us not decry science. Out of much searching after truth comes the finding of truth—after long groping in darkness one comes upon a ray ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... their ray florets - have become prime favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them still another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry the importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the cone-flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into paltry nothingness. Having been instructed in the decorative usefulness of all this genus by European landscape gardeners, we Americans now importune ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... in certain circles to decry that benevolence which sits at home in slippers, and gives its money without seeing where it goes; but it is forgotten that the money dispensed in slippers was earned in boots, and that the man who has ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... less honorable, although less arduous, avenues to wealth and distinction were as open to her as to him. As educator, author, artist, in painting, music, and sculpture, she could freely attain to the same coveted end. The Suffragists did not decry man's "monopoly" of the honorable and profitable but severe professions of civil engineering, seamanship, mining engineering, lighthouse keeping and inspecting, signal service, military and naval duty, and the like. These, and the drudgery of the world's business and commerce, man ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... the people. Amongst other things I explained the value of beauty in the human form, and how, when united with other qualities, it tended to the happiness of the individual and the well-being of the world. This I did at length, and in a manner to secure conviction, because it had been the fashion to decry beauty as ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... his friend went through all the places where Father La Combe had held his mission, to decry him and to speak against him so violently that a woman was afraid to say her "Pater" because, she said, she had learned it from him. They made a fearful scandal through the whole country; for the day after my arrival at the Ursulines of Thonon, he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... are put upon the market by quacks, never by physicians of good standing. It is purely a money-making enterprise, without consideration of the health or destruction of the people. It is popularly supposed that physicians decry these things from fear that their sale will injure regular practice. This is another error as they increase work for the doctor by aggravating existing trouble, as well as causing disease where ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... penal measures was again pressed. Monot led off by proposing penalties against those who shall speak publicly against the mandats; Talot thought the penalties ought to be made especially severe; and finally it was enacted that any persons "who by their discourse or writing shall decry the mandats shall be condemned to a fine of not less than one thousand francs or more than ten thousand; and in case of a repetition of the offence, to four years in irons." It was also decreed that those who refused to receive the mandats ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... either on the ground upon bended knees, or sitting upon low benches. Nor was this rigid system relaxed in the middle of the same (xvith) century; when Roger Ascham composed his incomparable treatise, intitled the "Schoolmaster;" the object of which was to decry the same severity of discipline. This able writer taught his countrymen the value of making the road to knowledge smooth and inviting, by smiles and remunerations, rather than by stripes and other punishments. Indeed, such was the stern and Draco-like character ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... officious neighbors that his father was speaking ill of him. After having been proud of his son's successes, and having boasted of them everywhere, Melchior was weak and shameful enough to be jealous of them. He tried to decry them. It was stupid to weep; Jean-Christophe could only shrug his shoulders in contempt. It was no use being angry about it, for his father did not know what he was doing, and was embittered by his own downfall. The boy said nothing. He was ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... year, since Dick had so greatly developed in mental culture, his father had been growing very weary even of the name of Challoner; it had become a habit with him to decry them on every possible occasion. "What is in a name?" he would say, when some person would lament the dead-and-gone glories of Challoner Place. "There is not a soul belonging to them, except that disreputable Sir Francis; and he is as good as ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... is crossed in the game—look at his scowl. Mr. Yorke sees it, and what does he say? In a low voice he pleads, "Mark and Martin, don't anger your brother." And this is ever the tone adopted by both parents. Theoretically, they decry partiality—no rights of primogeniture are to be allowed in that house; but Matthew is never to be vexed, never to be opposed; they avert provocation from him as assiduously as they would avert fire from a barrel of gunpowder. "Concede, conciliate," is their motto wherever he is concerned. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and colouring—were sprawling about the chamber, any organised depreciation was out of the question. Where all were so beautiful, it required a larger output of moral courage than any one of us could essay to decry the whole pack. By way of doing his or her bit, everybody decided to praise one or two to the implied condemnation of the remainder. In the absence of collusion, it was inevitable that those rugs which somebody had thus branded as goats should ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... for months—is there one can deny it? Is there any one here thinks rebellion a sin? We counted the cost—and we did not decry it, And we asked for no more ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... upon truth and good manners, because it is the only way they have to gratify the genius and the interest of the faction together; and never so much pains taken neither, to so very, very little purpose. They decry the play, but in such a manner, that it has the effect of a recommendation. They call it "a dull entertainment;" and that is a dangerous word, I must confess, from one of the greatest masters in human nature, of that faculty. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... less exclusive fashion, the intimate friend and adviser of Esprit, d'Andilly, and La Rochefoucauld. The letters of these men show clearly their warm regard as well as the value they attached to her opinions. "Indeed," wrote Voiture to her many years before, "those who decry you on the side of tenderness must confess that if you are not the most loving person in the world, you are at least the most obliging. True friendship knows no more sweetness than there is in your words." Her character, so delicately shaded and so averse to all violent passions, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... week, business called me to Philadelphia. Judge of my delight when almost the first object that met my view was your beautiful, unforgotten little self. You were just stepping into one of those very omnibusses you have since seen fit to decry. What followed you must remember as distinctly as I—no not as distinctly, for the whole of that delicious interview is engraven on my heart—one of the sun-bright scenes of my life that I can never forget. And now, after that beautiful interchange ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... relation to Christianity especially, there are large classes amongst us who press the claims of faith so far, that it would become, if they had their will, an utterly unreasonable faith; some of whom do not scruple to speak slightingly of the evidences which substantiate Christianity; to decry and depreciate the study of them; to pronounce that study unnecessary; and even in many cases to insinuate their insufficiency. They are loud in the mean time in extolling a faith which, as Whately truly ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... there is time, and prepare thee for the combat of life and death! Cast from thee the foul scurf which now encrusts thy robust limbs, which deadens their force, and makes them heavy and powerless! Cast from thee thy false philosophers, who would fain decry what, next to the love of God, has hitherto been deemed most sacred, the love of the mother land! Cast from thee thy false patriots, who, under the. pretext of redressing the wrongs of the poor and weak, seek to promote internal discord, so that thou mayest become ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... course is possible; namely, To study the evil. Let the teacher tell of its ravages; let the minister proclaim its curses; let the poet sing it; the painter paint it; the editor report it; the novelist portray it; the scientist describe it; the philosopher decry it; the sisters and wives and mothers denounce it—until all shall unite in smiting ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... nothing more certain than that every Man would be a Wit if he could, and notwithstanding Pedants of a pretended Depth and Solidity are apt to decry the Writings of a polite Author, as Flash and Froth, they all of them shew upon Occasion that they would spare no pains to arrive at the Character of those whom they seem to despise. For this Reason we often find them endeavouring at Works of Fancy, which cost them infinite Pangs in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... erected a tomb, the sight of which does not set a scholar laughing. Do but think of the Mausoleum, and the Pyramids, and the monstrous sepulchres of the Indus and Ganges, which outside are mountains, and within are mines of precious stones. Ah, you have not seen the East, Jerome, or you could not decry the heathen." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... abundantly present. Few things are more curious than to compare, let us say, Googe and Spenser. Yet few things are more certain than that without the study and experiments which Googe represents Spenser could not have existed. Those who decry the historical method in criticism ignore this; and ignorance like wisdom is justified of ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... and an able experimenter, who had form'd and publish'd a theory of electricity, which then had the general vogue. He could not at first believe that such a work came from America, and said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to decry his system. Afterwards, having been assur'd that there really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, which he had doubted, he wrote and published a volume of Letters, chiefly address'd to me, defending his theory, and denying the verity of my experiments, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... paper did not go together. Meanwhile he would try his hand on prose. A controversy had arisen between Bowles and Campbell with regard to the merits of Pope. Byron rushed into the fray. To avenge and exalt Pope, to decry the "Lakers," and to lay down his own canons of art, Byron addressed two letters to **** ****** (i.e. John Murray), entitled "Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope." The first was published in 1821, the second ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... stithy, but a man of industry and talent might have shown them proudly as a lifetime's labour. The great men in literature are the epoch makers, and Sir Walter is the only man in the literary history of the world who was an epoch maker in more than one direction. It is the fashion to-day to decry him as a poet. There are critics who, setting a high value on the verse of Wordsworth or of Browning, for example, cannot concede the name of poetry to any modern work which is not subtle and profound, metaphysical or analytical. But as a mere ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... in Horace's time had a great many Admirers as that Poet informs us, but at last they were entirely decry'd. And it must not be imagin'd that the Fall of these Authors, as well French as Latin, was owing to the Change of their Languages. The true Reason was, they did not know how to hit the Point of Solidity and Perfection in those Languages, ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... Wellington, and George Canning, each of whom administered our foreign policy with no small share of success, were not linguists; and as to Charles Fox, he has left a French sentence on record that will last even as long as his own great name. I do not want to decry the study of languages; I simply desire to affirm that linguists—and through all I have said I mean colloquial linguists—are for the most part poor creatures, not otherwise distinguished than by the gift of tongues; and I want to protest against ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... particularise. A certain inevitable prejudice even at this length of time leads one to discount the valour of pilots in the German Air Service, but the names of Boelcke, von Richthofen, and Immelmann recur as proof of the courage that was not wanting in the enemy ranks, while, however much we may decry the Gotha raids over the English coast and on London, there is no doubt that the men who undertook these raids were not deficient in the form of bravery that is of more value than the unthinking valour of a minute which, observed from the ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... elaboration of style, which grew upon him more and more, giving throughout often a sense of extreme artificiality and of the self- consciousness usually bred of it, is but another incidental proof of this. And let no reader think that I wish here to decry R. L. Stevenson. I only desire faithfully to try to understand him, and to indicate the class or group to which his genius and temperament really belong. He is from first to last the idealistic dreamy or mystical romancer, and not the true idealist or dealer direct with life or character ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... bounds of purely scientific circles, the "species question" divides with Italy and the Volunteers the attention of general society. Everybody has read Mr. Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits or demerits; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with the mild railing which sounds so charitable; bigots denounce it with ignorant invective; old ladies of both sexes consider it a decidedly dangerous book, and even savants, who have no better mud to throw, quote antiquated writers ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... ready to lay down his worldly possessions, and even life itself, for the cause of the gospel; while the other may be an unregenerate man, so little desirous of the conversion of others, that he would but decry and detest them did he find them converted already, and so careless of the gospel, that did not his living depend on professing to preach it, he would neither be an advocate for it himself, nor yet come within earshot of ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... slaves! See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves! The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore! All, all look up with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law: While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry— 'Nothing is ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... where he was received as a Saint, he was invited to dinner by a wealthy and pious man. While he was at table, a man of bad character, who was, however, jealous of Francis's reputation, watched all his actions, in order to decry and criticise them: this man counterfeited a beggar at the door, and solicited an alms for the love of God. As soon as Francis heard the appeal for the love of God, he sent him the wing of a fowl, to which he had been just helped. The sham beggar, to whom it was taken, kept ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... Sentiments; who certainly either never seriously consider'd, that the were thereby endeavouring to destroy their own Happiness, and overthrow her Majesty's Title to the Crown: or (if they knew what they did) presumed upon the Lenity of that Government they decry'd; which (were there no better Reason) ought to have recommended it to their Approbation, since it could patiently bear with such, as were doing all ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... instantly covered with all the obloquy of all the libelers on earth. If you have met him as man with man, you have doubtless been captivated with his manners, his wit, his animation, and his accomplishments. I have known him long and well. But Europe, within a month, will decry him, as a fugitive, a fool, and a dastard. Such is popular wisdom, justice, and knowledge. A pupil of the first warrior of Prussia and of modern ages, and wanting only experience to do honour to the lessons of Frederick, he will be laughed at by the loose loungers of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... appreciative mammas those infantile specimens of humanity savour largely of the ridiculous, there can be no question that the present generation of dames de comptoir is a very sublime article indeed. I do not say this in derision, nor am I among those who decry the improvements introduced during the last few years, both into refreshment bars themselves, and notably into the class of ladies who preside over them. The discriminating visitor will decidedly prefer to receive his sandwich and glass of ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... contribute something to the agreeableness of the designe, and sett off a subject that of itselfe is dry and knotty enough, without making it more unacceptable by that mean and disreputed method, that hath so much decry'd the Critiques, and ordinarily hath given a disgust to a science before it hath been allow'd the least consideration, besides that didacticque way, is by no means proper in the present case, for as there is little ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... antediluvian, anteroom *Bi two biped, bicycle *Circum around circumambient, circumference *Cum, com, with, together combine, consort, coadjutor con, co *Contra against contradict, contrast *De from, negative deplete, decry, demerit, declaim down, intensive *Di, dis asunder, away from, divert, disbelief negative *E, ex from, out of evict, excavate *Extra beyond extraordinary, extravagant *In in, into, not innate, instil, insignificant *Inter ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... As Hindus we ought never to forget the labor of scholars. We owe them our life as a nation, our freedom as a recognized society, and our position in the scale of races. It is the fashion with many to decry the labors of those men as dry, unprofitable, and dreamy. We should know that it is to the study of the roots and inflections of the Sanskrit language that we owe our national salvation.... Within ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... reason that's to him like the proverbial red rag tae a bull. The last missionary tae Long Moose cam' awa wi' a lovely pair o' black eyes Sam Carr bestowed on him. I'm forewarnin' ye for yer ain good. Ye can decry material benefits a' ye like, but it'll be a decided benefit if ye ha' Sam Carr for a friendly neighbor at ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and marked by a conscientiousness and candor which have not always been reciprocated we have thought it simply right to set forth the doctrine as fairly and as favorably as we could There are plenty to decry it and the whole theory is widely exposed to attack For the arguments on the other side we may look to the numerous adverse publications which Darwin s volume has already called out and especially to those reviews which propose directly to ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... and distrust where there should be friendship and mutual confidence. There is riot one of the powers but that would welcome relief from the bondage of militarism; the demand for the limitation of armaments is almost universal. Believing that to decry war and praise peace without offering some plan by which the present situation may be changed is superficial, we hasten ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... in a minute, if I knew where to find a better. Rely on it, dearest Maud, all causes are alike, in this particular; though one side may employ instruments, as in the case of the savages, that the other side finds it its interest to decry. Men, as individuals, may be, and sometimes are, reasonably upright—but, bodies of men, I much fear, never. The latter escape responsibility ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... him, and for a little while he ate in silence, watching the sparkling throng and listening to such scraps of conversation as floated to him from merry tables. Down in Union Street it had been the fashion to decry idleness and the crimes of the rich—the orators having it that leisure was criminal and ease a heinous sin. Alban had never believed in any such fallacy. "We are all born lazy," he had said, "and few of us would work unless ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... hazy. The Spectra hoax, perpetrated so cleverly in 1916 by Mr. Ficke and Mr. Witter Bynner, fooled many of the elect. [Footnote: See Untermeyer's New Era, etc., pp. 320-23.] I have never believed that Emerson meant to decry Poe when he referred to him as "the jingle-man." Emerson's memory for names was faulty, and he was trying to ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... in South America took advantage of the statements in this book to depreciate the American railway system and American civil engineers, for their own private advantage in obtaining work, some Americans have been so foolish as to decry the book altogether, as traitorous to the interests of the country. Such mingled bigotry and conceit, shrinking from just criticism, would fetter all progress but fortunately ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... Government. The Whigs, papa says, absolutely preached submission to Napoleon! The Whigs, I hear, were the Liberals of those days. The two Pitts were Tories. The greatness of England has been built up by the Tories. I do and will defend them: it is the fashion to decry them now. They have the honour and safety of the country at heart. They do not play disgracefully at reductions of taxes, as the Liberals do. They have given us all our heroes. Non fu mai gloria senza invidia. They have done service enough to despise the envious mob. They never condescend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... observed to be happy, is a token of its price and value. If well formed and rightly taken, 'tis the best of all human societies; we cannot live without it, and yet we do nothing but decry it. It happens, as with cages, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out. Socrates being asked, whether it was more commodious to take a wife or not, "Let a man take which course he will," said he; "he will repent." 'Tis a contract ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... a remarkable example of what I have often noticed, how thoroughly the people come to know the true character of a public man, even when the press of the whole country unite to decry him. I suppose there was not a paper in New England, Republican or Democratic, that spoke kindly of Zach. Chandler for many years. He was disliked by the Democratic press for his unyielding Republicanism. He was disliked by the Republican press that supported Charles Sumner, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... for sale. Accordingly, great was the rivalry, constant the feuds, and unintermitting the respective criminations of the Erictho and Canidia of Pendle,[33] who had opened shops for the vending of similar contraband commodities, and were called upon to decry each other's stock, as well as to magnify their own. Each "gave her little senate laws," and had her own party (or tail, according to modern phraseology) in the Forest. Some looked up to and patronized one, and some the other. If old Demdike could boast that she had Tibb as a familiar, old Chattox ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... prepared to suffer for this fine art, a member of the body of which it is your present thought to become; for, be assured, there will be suffering, which will dog your progress; aye, and the greater your talent, so much more will be jealousy of it, from those, at least, so on the alert to decry that which they cannot create; so much more will be contumely; so much more will be innuendoes which can not be met openly, as they certainly will not be in the slimy words and manner of utterance of bitter heartlessness, that ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... the downfall of our Government and of the entire industrial system. Opposed to these men, who are frequently termed the "Reds," there is a rapidly disappearing faction of so-called "Yellows," who rely upon the use of the ballot, and decry direct action, either through personal repugnance to violence, or, as seems most likely, because they deem peaceful methods more prolific of votes, and consequently of future political advantage ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by." Squire.—"You may hold the manse in fee, You may wed my spouse, my children's memory of me may decry." ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... ineradicable. It is but a step from the painted savage, gorgeous in his beads and wampum, to my lady of fashion, who wears a tiara upon her stately head, chains and collars of precious stones at her throat, bracelets on her white arms, and innumerable rings upon her dainty fingers. Wise men may decry the baleful fascination of jewels, but, none the less, the jeweller's window ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... showed her the nine and facetiously asked her to choose; or should I spread them all at once? She always has too much in hand to stop to jest over trifles; she waved the tea-cloths aside, and seized her cup off Mrs Bust's tray, and went on talking shop. I don't want to decry Jessica. She's worth all the rest put together. While they gabble, she does things. If Mrs Carter (who hates the sight of her, by the way) and the rest of them would only let ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... these little exertions he was so much exhausted as almost to faint. Nothing saved him, probably, but a sip of the wine which he took from the glass as it stood on the table. It has been much the fashion, of late years, to decry wine, and this because it is a gift of Providence that has been greatly abused. In Mark Woolston's instance it proved, what it was designed to be, a blessing instead of a curse. That single sip of wine produced an effect on him like that of magic. It enabled him soon to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... without touching on another point, that suggests itself at the moment. It is the fashion to decry the niggardliness of the American government on the subject of money, as compared with those of this hemisphere. Nothing can be more unjust. Our working men are paid better than even those of England, with ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Mill continued to be the heart of the village. Through the Mill the lifeblood circulated; by the Mill the prosperity of the people was regulated; and since the master saw that on his own prosperity reposed the prosperity of those whom he employed, there was none to decry him, or echo a disordered past in the ear ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... this is when they compare Goldsmith's style with that of his contemporaries—that hostile essay, for example, published from Richardson's firm, in which, time after time, sneers must cease and praise prevail, despite the intention to decry. If reluctant laudation is most sincere, then Boswell himself said of Goldsmith that there was nothing that he touched that he did not adorn. Goldsmith adorned, but not with mere polish or veneer. He threw a curious felicity on things, and made them fair. The very beauty ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... infection is not due to the vaccine or to the process of vaccination, but to the infection. Many people get unjust ideas about vaccination from just such cases. If the mother is not cleanly or neglects the vaccinated area and permits it to become infected she must not and others should not decry vaccination as a consequence. Anyone who doubts the virtue of vaccination is condemning himself; he is simply ignorant of the accumulation of evidence in favor of it and assumes a position without any possible ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... belong to another order, who bring other standards, and sow the seed of new and larger types; who are not the organs of the culture or modes of their time, and whom their times for the most part decry and disown,—the primal, original, elemental men. It is here, in my opinion, that we must place Whitman; not among the minstrels and edifiers of his age, but among its prophets and saviors. He is nearer the sources of things than the popular poets,—nearer the founders ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... critics, it has been long a prevailing humour to decry one Alexander Pope. Mrs Margaret Fuller is resolved that if not first in the field against this notorious pretender, no one shall show greater hardihood than herself in the attack upon him. It is one of those occasions when, though surrounded by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... See, all our nobles begging to be slaves! See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves! The wit of cheats, the courage of a w***e, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry— "Nothing is sacred now but villainy." Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show there was one who held ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... is the 'Northern Evil' again. Oh, what a shame it is for intelligent people to decry Southern Christians in this way, and to erect their own moral sense into such ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... too, who six months ago seemed as reasonable a man as I ever met, have joined in the chorus of denunciators. It has become the fashion to-day, thanks to your socialists, reformers, and agitators, to decry a man because he is rich, to take it for granted that he is a thief and a scoundrel, that he has no sense of responsibility for his country and his fellow-men. The glory, the true democracy of this nation, lies in its equal ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to material forms, As mists to the copious shower As dead calms are to tornado storms That in tropical region lower So are educational fallacies That ignore and decry as naught The value and power that ever lie In ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... that thereby its whole body is protected. In other instances, while professing a willingness to hear—to seek truth—to not be afraid of the light—to boast of science even as the handmaid of religion—they have shown a disposition to decry the alleged discoveries of science, to ridicule its supposed facts, to make light of a whole concatenation of evidence, to prate of the uncertainties and vacillations of science, to sneer at 'sciolists,' or 'mere men of science,' to warn against the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... declares his wife with dignity; "I would not decry the children. I am only a little nervous as to their reception. When I know that your father and mother are prepared to receive them as my children, I know they will get but little mercy ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... decry the profession than to exercise it. To begin with, the heir-hunter must be posted up with information respecting unclaimed inheritances, and he must have sufficient acquaintance with the legal world to be able to obtain information from the ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... to-day decry any method of warfare which results in the killing of women and children, but the story of the aigrette trade deals with the slaughter of innocents by the slow process of {153} starvation, a method which history shows has never been followed by even ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... disparity can be defended is, that as "one Southerner is more than a match for two Yankees," he has an inherent, continuous, unconditioned right to have this superiority recognized at the ballot-box. Indeed, the injustice of this is so monstrous, that the Johnson orators find it more convenient to decry all conditions of representation than to meet the incontrovertible reasons for exacting the condition which bases representation on voters. Not to make it a part of the Constitution would be, in Mr. Shellabarger's vivid illustration, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... giving the above accounts of experiments which we have personally witnessed, our authority, being anonymous, is of no great weight. We state them to avoid the charge of writing on what we have not seen, and to show that we do not attempt unfairly to decry mesmerism without seeing it fairly tried; if we felt justified in giving the names of the parties, these instances would be much more conclusive. Nearly all the cases in Mr Townshend's book are given without the names of parties, probably for similar reasons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... get him to marry his daughter, the sister of Gentile. Hearing this, Squarcione fell into such disdain against Andrea that they were enemies ever afterwards; and in proportion as Squarcione had formerly been ever praising the works of Andrea, so from that day onward did he ever decry them in public. Above all did he censure without reserve the pictures that Andrea had made in the said Chapel of S. Cristofano, saying that they were worthless, because in making them he had imitated the ancient works in marble, from which it is not possible to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... Hence the reason is perspicuous, why no French plays, when translated, have, or ever can succeed upon the English Stage. For, if you consider the Plots, our own are fuller of variety; if the Writing, ours are more quick, and fuller of spirit: and therefore 'tis a strange mistake in those who decry the way of writing Plays in Verse; as if the English ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... representation of tortures in hell, nor was I stirred by her scorn of the stiff siege-pictures, with van der Werf offering his arm as food for the starving people, rather than surrender to the Spaniards. In spite of her distaste for the painting, however, she would not hear me decry van der Werf in favor of an obscure engineer, lately discovered as the true hero of the siege. Van der Werf should not be snatched from her by a man she chose to detest, so she argued and abused my treachery during ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... is the visible symbol of an inner radiance, so is color the sign manual of happiness, of joy. Our cities are so dun and drab in their outward aspects, by reason of the weight of care that burdens us down. We decry the happy irresponsibility of the savage, and the patient contentment of the Oriental with his lot, but both are able to achieve marvels of color in their environment beyond the compass of civilized man. The glory of mediaeval cathedral windows is a still living ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... France, for instance, between Racine and Andre Chenier, we are obliged to recognise that it was very rarely both genuine and appropriate. The Romantic Revival, which we are beginning ungratefully to decry, did at least restore to poetry the sense of a genuine stateliness of expression, which once more gave it the requisite dignity, and made it a vehicle for the vital and the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... Napoleon, and who owe the little stiffness they have to the fact that Bismarck lived. It is one of the things a full-blooded man is least able to bear in Germany, to hear the querulous questioning of the great deeds of this man, whose boot-legs were stiffer than the backbones of those who decry him. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... consider it a crime to leave this beauty spot," said his wife, "and it is a sin against heaven to decry it." ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... sex in the hearing of their champion, without pricking a lance with him in their behalf. What do you, either of you, who abuse woman in that wholesale style, know of her? Nothing—less than nothing; and yet you venture, upon your paltry experience, to lift up your voices and decry the sex. Now I do know her; and upon my own experience avouch, that, as a sex, woman, compared with man, is as an angel to a devil. As a sex, woman is faithful, loving, self-sacrificing. We 'tis that make her otherwise; we, selfish, exacting, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "that you can be quite aware of the extent of the stoop. The fact is, I am, as I've tried to make you understand, a hairdresser; some might lower themselves so far as to call me a barber. Now, hairdressing, whatever may be said for it" (he could not readily bring himself to decry his profession)—"hairdressing is considribly below you in social rank. I wouldn't deceive you by saying otherwise. I assure you that, if you had any ideer what a barber was, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... happens that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one had told him as yet of Suzanne's revelations; he therefore appeared ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... be concluded, from this specimen of academick life, that I have attempted to decry our universities. If literature is not the essential requisite of the modern academick, I am yet persuaded, that Cambridge and Oxford, however degenerated, surpass the fashionable academies of our metropolis, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... among those who decry the Greek and Latin classics. We think it a glorious privilege to read both those grand old tongues, and that an intelligent, cultivated man who is shut out from the converse of the splendid minds of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... tenderness of Latin elegy, the regal pomp of history, the gorgeous and philosophic mystery of the old dramatic fables. Never before had he learnt to gaze on "the bright countenance of truth, in the mild and dewy air of delightful studies." Those who decry classical education, do so from inexperience of its real character and value, and can hardly conceive the sense of strength and freedom which a young and ingenuous intellect acquires in all literature, and in all thought, by the laborious and successful endeavour to enter into ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... men, of immature understandings, can never know things truly, even as persons unconversant with scriptures are unable in all their acts to be guided by reason. With eyes directed to the faults of the scriptures, they decry the scriptures. Even if they understand the true meaning of the scriptures, they are still in the habit of proclaiming that scriptural injunctions are unsound. Such men, by decrying the knowledge of others proclaim the superiority of their own ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... prosperity as is permitted to men of dark skins. There are Negro teachers in the South—the privilege of teaching in their own schools is the one respectable branch of the public service still left open to them—who, for a grudging appropriation from a Southern legislature, will decry their own race, approve their own degradation, and laud their oppressors. Deprived of the right to vote, and, therefore, of any power to demand what is their due, they feel impelled to buy the tolerance of the whites at any sacrifice. If to live is the first duty of man, as perhaps it is the first ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, "the town was poisoned with much false and abominable criticism," and that endeavours had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life: but since all reasonable ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... nature to write comedy: I want that gaiety of humour which is required to it. My conversation is slow and dull; my humour saturnine and reserved: In short, I am none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees. So that those, who decry my comedies, do me no injury, except it be in point of profit: reputation in them is the last thing to which I shall pretend. I beg pardon for entertaining the reader with so ill a subject; but before I quit ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... that affectation of respect for the doctrines of the established church which decency imposes; but the tendency of his work is to decry all revelation. It is founded on the noted work of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... mad dance, while blest health prompts to move, We'll count joys to come, and exchange Vows of truth; And haply when Age cools the transports of Love, Decry, like good folks, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... same letter he described the Inns. "It is a great thing—quite a matter of course—with English travellers, to decry the Italian inns. Of course you have no comforts that you are used to in England; and travelling alone, you dine in your bedroom always. Which is opposed to our habits. But they are immeasurably better than you would suppose. The attendants are very quick; very punctual; and so obliging, if you ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... peculiarities of person and manner would soon betray him, whatever might be his disguise, and he would be singled out by wags, acquainted with his foibles, and more successful than himself in maintaining their incognito, as a capital subject to be played upon. Some, pretending not to know him, would decry his writings, and praise those of his contemporaries; others would laud his verses to the skies, but purposely misquote and burlesque them; others would annoy him with parodies; while one young lady, whom ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Indeed, I think that our own tendency in England to reverence, our constant appeal to classical standards, is an obstacle to our intellectual and artistic progress. We are like elderly writers who tend to repeat their own beloved mannerisms, and who contemn and decry the work of younger men, despairing of the future. A nation may reach a point, like an ancient and noble dynasty of princes, where it is overshadowed and overweighted by its own past glories, and where it learns to depend upon prestige rather ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... among the enemies of the new delusion to decry Mesmer as an unprincipled adventurer, while his disciples have extolled him to the skies as a regenerator of the human race. In nearly the same words as the Rosicrucians applied to their founders, he has been called the discoverer of the secret which brings man into more intimate connexion ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Chancellor Maupeou was disgraced, and the judicial system he had founded fell with him. Unpopular from the first, the Maupeou Parliament had remained in the nation's eyes the image of absolute power corrupted and corrupting. The suit between Beaumarchais and Councillor Goezman had contributed to decry it, thanks to the uproar the able pamphleteer had managed to cause; the families of the former magistrates were powerful, numerous, esteemed, and they put pressure upon public opinion; M. de Maurepas determined to retract the last absolutist attempt of Louis XV.'s reign; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Pygmies; tho' most of the great and learned Men would seem to decry this Story as a Fiction and mere Fable, yet there is something of Truth, they think, must have given the first rise to it, and that it was not wholly the product of Phancy, but had some real foundation, tho' disguised, according to the different Imagination ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... the world at present, we keep order, we make money, we spread a bourgeois sort of civilisation, but it is not a particularly fine or fruitful civilisation, because it deals so exclusively with material things. I do not wish to decry the race, because it has force, toughness, and fine working qualities; but we do not know what to do with our prosperity when we have got it; we can make very little use of leisure; and our idea of success is to have a well-appointed house, expensive amusements, and to distribute ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... transformed with the coming of material prosperity: but the Church went on unchanged, unchanging. One may praise the steadfastness with which the Church fought for what its bishops believed to be right, or one may, on the other hand, decry the arrogance of its pretensions to civil power and its hampering conservatism; but as the great central fact in the history of New France, the hegemony ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... spirit emulating God. For only in this way is unclean lead turned into gold." (P. 75.) "If one now ventures to say that the Word of Christ or the Holy Ghost of wisdom dwells in the microcosmic heaven [i.e., in the soul of man] we should not decry the blind children of the world as godless and abandoned. [But certainly the divine spirit is, as is later averred, the rectangular stone in us, on which we are to build.] This divine spark is, however, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... if merit's exalted 'Tis excellent sport to decry it, And trail its good name in the gutter; And that cynics, white-gloved and cravatted, Are the cream and quintessence of all things, Ass ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... believes, you believe. Now, he believes all these doctrines, and you implicitly through him. But what I chiefly say as the object of this note is, that the bulk of men must believe by an implicit faith. Ergo, decry it not. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... be necessary. There is at present no such legitimated money; Portugal coin being only current by private consent, so that any one who pleases may refuse to take it in payment. The king may also at any time decry, or cry down, any coin of the kingdom, and ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... bear in the least to decry her dear 'Jass,' and yet she knew that her sister had so far troubled her head very little, if at all, about her aunt's girls' club ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... singular that those who decry political economy, because it investigates men and the world as it finds them, are more gloomy than political economy itself, at least as regards the past and the present. Look into their books and their journals. What do you find? Bitterness and hatred of society. The very word ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... public and private relation. The change socially could not be greater if we were to see some irresistible apostle of Paganism ariving from abroad in Christian Ireland, who would abolish the churches, convents, and Christian schools; decry and bring into utter disuse the decalogue, the Scriptures and the Sacraments; efface all trace of the existing belief in One God and Three Persons, whether in private or public worship, in contracts, or in courts ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... interest of the country party to decry the conduct of all the king's ministers, the prudent and peaceable administration of Ormond was in a particular manner displeasing to them. In England, where the Catholics were scarcely one to a hundred, means had been found to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... entertain a suspicion that amid the gaieties of the winter he had really lost his heart, or thought he had, and was repulsed. At least, in his "Dialogue on Love," written five years later, he says, "I, too, was once in love," and proceeds, after a few lines, to decry the sentiment as harmful to mankind, a something from which God would do well to emancipate it. This may have referred to his first meeting and conversation with a courtesan at Paris, which he describes in one of his papers, but this is not ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... least I never learned half so much from all I ever read. There is )s much wit as useful knowledge. He is said to have hurt his reputation by it in France, which I can conceive, for it is almost the interest of every body there that can understand it to decry it. The other, far inferior, but entertaining,, is Hainault's "Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire de France." It is very amusing, though very full of Frenchisms; and though an abridgment, often ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... contrived was this scheme by means of Melot, in truth: now would you decry his friendship? He serves Isolda better than you his hand gives help which yours denies: what need of such delay? The signal, Brangaena! O give the signal! Tread out the torch's trembling gleam, that night may envelop all with her veil. Already her peace reigns o'er hill and ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... how much I differ in this opinion from some ancient fathers in the Church, who arguing against the heathens, made it a principal topic to decry their philosophy as much as they could: which, I hope, is not altogether our present case. Besides, it is to be considered, that those fathers lived in the decline of literature; and in my judgment (who should be unwilling to give the least offence) appear to be ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... feeling that led to his deliberation; viz., the firm resolve not to win Helen's, affections, and then leave her. No, he nobly resolved first to learn the state of his own feelings; and well would it be if many others would act equally generous. But no! however men decry beauty, they are all its slaves, and it ever wins a willing homage from them. They are won by the attractions of a pretty face, and are in consequence, most particular in their attentions to its ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... only rapidly sketch the events that followed the publication of the Land Conference Report. Mr Sexton made it his business in The Freeman's Journal to decry its findings on the sinister ground that they offered too much to the landlords and were not sufficiently favourable to the tenants, sneering at the proposal for a bonus, hinting that no Government would find money for this purpose. Mr Davitt, who was an earnest disciple of Henry George's ideal of ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... coloured carpets and hangings, have your modern reproductions antiqued. If you prefer gay, cheering tones, let the painted furniture be bright. These schemes are equally interesting in different ways. It is stupid to decry new things, since every grey antique ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... fashion to-day to decry the cavaliers and the wearers of "love-locks," but they had a pretty taste in art and an eye for artistic surroundings, those old fellows of the sword and cloak; a much more pretty taste than their descendants, ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... among her memories the talk of those lamentable four girls. It had spoilt the sweetness of her day; it spoils now, for a while, her own sweetness. Her comments on it have none of the wayward charm of her morning fancies, for Pippa is very human—she can envy and decry, swinging loose from the central steadiness of her nature like many another of us, obsessed like her by some vile happening of the hours. Just as we might find our whole remembrance of a festival thus overlaid by malice and ugliness, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the dawn of a millennium. And history affords no presumption in favour of the prophet who prophesies smooth things. The prognostics of a pessimist may be as much belied by the event as the hopes of an optimist. But for one prophet to decry the predictions of another simply as prophecies is a downright absurdity. Even among rival soothsayers some regard must be had to fairness and common sense; when Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, smote Micaiah on the cheek, he struck him not on the ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... naught But hate could dwell if once they flashed the fire Of being, or the doom-gift of Desire Should curse thy life, unbidden and unsought. Poor snow man with thy tattered hat awry, And broomstick musket toppling from thy hands, 'Tis well thou hast no language to decry Thy poor creator or his vain commands; No tear to shed that thou so soon must die, No voice to lift in prayer where no ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... what was my subject? I told him I was giving your ladyship my notions of the Italian opera. "Let me see what they are, my dear; for this is a subject that very few of those who admire these performances, and fewer still of those who decry them, know ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... to decry literature, he felt an inclination to communicate to the public his ideas on a topic connected with his art. His "Analysis of Beauty" made its appearance in one volume quarto, in the year 1753. Its leading principle is, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... officials, and so reintroduce the old inequalities of wealth? What motive would they have for not doing so? What motive is possible except idealism, love of mankind, non-economic motives of the sort that Bolsheviks decry? The system created by violence and the forcible rule of a minority must necessarily allow of tyranny and exploitation; and if human nature is what Marxians assert it to be, why should the rulers neglect ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... certain natural "rights," and the women only such rights as are granted her by the males. And the reason of this wrong-headed attitude on part of the mob is plain. It rules by force, whereas the semi-ascetic sects decry force, using only moral suasion, falling back on the Christ doctrine of non-resistance. This has given their women a chance to prove that they have just as able minds as the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... myself—is very great. Before my departure from home I had to listen, of course, to the usual croaking chorus of acquaintances in the neighbourhood who were not going yachting and who, according to their own assertion, never would on any account go yachting. There is a tendency in many persons to decry every pleasure which they have no chance of sharing, and this was not ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... from war?—Go, fool, to Dardan ears These bodings whisper, to thy new ally. Go, swell the panic, spread the coward's fears. Puff up the foemen's prowess to the sky,— Twice-conquered churls,—and Latin arms decry. See now, forsooth, the Myrmidons afraid Of Phrygian arms, Tydides fain to fly, Achilles trembling, Aufidus in dread Shrunk from the Hadrian deep, and cowering ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... what has been described in this book, that there is as yet no prospect of coming to an understanding with many people. It is here that we come to the point where the desire must arise that it should no longer be a characteristic of our present day culture to at once decry as fanciful or visionary a method of research which differs from its own. But on the other hand it is also a fact at the present time that a number of people can appreciate the supersensible method of research, as it is presented in this book, people who understand that the meaning ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... harangue, I began to this effect. You omit one thing, my friend, how they that decry food decry sleep too, and they that declaim against sleep declaim against dreams in the same breath, and so destroy the primitive and ancient way of divination. Add to this, that our whole life will be of one form and fashion, and our soul enclosed in a body to no ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... distinction is its irrigation with liquid manure. In this respect it stands unrivalled, and, perhaps, unimitated. And this, probably, is the head and front of his offending to those who criticise his economy and decry ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... reputation, that the Jesuits and Dominicans began to be greatly alarmed, and determined to put a stop to the progress of this method. To do this, it was necessary to decry the author of it; and as heresy is an imputation that makes the strongest impression at Rome, Molinos and his followers were given out to be heretics. Books were also written by some of the Jesuits against Molinos and his method; but ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to society, Nick, with a friend (another jovial fellow), Went to a Club—I should have said Society— At the "City Arms," once call'd the "Porto Bello" A Spouting party, which, though some decry it, I Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow; There they discuss the tax on salt, and leather, And change of ministers and change ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... admit that there are delightful writers still. I am not about to decry our living romancers, and certainly not to criticise them. If any man choose to maintain that there is more poetry in Tess than in the entire Barsetshire series, that Dickens could not have bettered the Two Drummer Boys of Rudyard Kipling, that Treasure ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... against the "accent" and "stress" theories which have been so common of late years in regard to English poetry, and which, though not capable of being applied in quite the same fashion to the Romance languages, have had their counterparts in attempts to decry the application of classical prosody (which has never been very well understood on the Continent) to modern tongues. No one can speak otherwise than respectfully of Dr Guest, whose book is certainly one of the most patient and ingenious studies of the kind to be found in any ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... man's province. He has used new materials and labor-saving devices in railway stations and place of amusements, not selfishly, but because of the appreciation of the travelling public. It is the fashion to decry labor-saving devices in the house, because they do away with that sign of pecuniary ability, the capped and aproned maid. The obvious saving of steps by the speaking-tube and telephone-call is frowned upon for the same reason. It is this attitude of society which ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards |
