"Deprecation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adversaries, by the wonderful firmness of his conduct upon his trial, and his spirited resolution not to submit to any thing indirect and pusillanimous. He defended himself with a serene countenance and the most cogent arguments, but would not stoop to deprecation and intreaty. When sentence was pronounced against him, this did not induce the least alteration of his conduct. He did not think that a life which he had passed for seventy years with a clear conscience, was worth preserving by the sacrifice of honour. He refused to escape from prison, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... look of deprecation about him, that she exclaimed, 'One would really think you had been accepting this ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Well, you mightn't guess it from my looks," he answered with an attempt to ingratiate himself by way of self-deprecation, "but I am pretty good at working ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... as if recalled from an abstraction, Susanna gave a little laugh,—what seemed a slightly annoyed, half-apologetic little laugh,—and lifted her hands in a gesture of deprecation, of self-reprehension. ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... just now, in deprecation of set courses of reading, was designed for private students only, who so often find a stereotyped sequence of books barren or uninteresting. It was not intended to discourage the pursuit of a special course of study in the school, or the society, or the reading class. This is, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... don't!" and Silas made a gesture of deprecation, but both felt that Joseph had a right to revile them as he chose, and they had no right to complain. But he, even while he could not deny himself the gratification of a little cruel reproach, knew that they were not ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... almost lachrymose deprecation of this treatment). Is that becomin' language for a clergyman, James?—and you ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... From this dedication we gather that, little as 'essays' now can be considered a word of modesty, deprecating too large expectations on the part of the reader, it had, as 'sketches' perhaps would have now, as 'commentary' had in the Latin, that intention in its earliest use. In this deprecation of higher pretensions it resembled the 'philosopher' of Pythagoras. Others had styled themselves, or had been willing to be styled, 'wise men.' 'Lover of wisdom' a name at once so modest arid so beautiful, was of his devising. [Footnote: Diogenes Laertius, Prooem. Section 12.] But while ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... at her in genuine astonishment. The turn the conversation had taken led quite beyond his uncomplicated experiences with the other sex. She saw his surprise, and extended her hands in deprecation and entreaty. "Alas, what must you think of me? How can I explain my humiliating myself before a stranger? Only by telling you the whole truth—the fact that I am not alone in this disaster, that I could not confess my situation to my family without ruining myself, ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... The pilot snorted deprecation. "That's the way it used to be." He fingered the spoon of his coffee cup. "That's the way it still should be, of course. But it isn't. They're spreading the duty around now and I spend less than one week out ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... son a pitiful smile, as if in deprecation of her husband's severity, but said not a word; and James, haunted by the taste of failure the sermon had left in his own mouth, and possibly troubled by sub-conscious motions of self-recognition, could hardly look his father in the face, and ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... the current of their prose? I confess to a certain shame for my not employing frankly that shade of indication, a finer shade still than the dash.... But what on earth are we talking about?" And the Chairman of the Corps Committee pulled himself up in deprecation of our frivolity, which I recognized by acknowledging that we might indeed hear more about the work done and doing at the front by Richard Norton and his energetic and devoted co-workers. Then I plunged ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... higher cast. These pretensions I will explain hereafter. All the rest I resign to the reader's unbiased judgment, adding here, with respect to four of them, a few prefatory words—not of propitiation or deprecation, but simply in explanation as to points that would otherwise be ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... about the wall. "What touch! Yes, you merely have to live on, to be anything you like. It'll do itself for you. Well, I suppose you'll have to see her." She turned about to Cornelia with an air of deprecation. "Mamma, you know. She's down stairs waiting for us. She thinks it right to come with me always. I dare say it is. She isn't so very bad, you know. Only she insists upon knowing all the girls I take a fancy to, herself. You needn't ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... van Rijn were as well painted as Van Ravosteyn's. In the Jewish quarter, though Rembrandt lived in it, interest had been limited to the guldens earned by dirty old men in sitting to him. What ardor, too, for the newest science, what worship of Descartes and deprecation of the philosophers before him! And then the flavor of romance—as of their own spices—wafted from the talk about the new Colonies in the Indies! Good God! had it been so wise to quench the glow of youth, to slip so silently to forty year? He had allowed her to drop out of his life—this ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... importunity with which publication was solicited, or obstinacy with which correction was rejected, I must remain accountable for all my faults, and submit, without subterfuge, to the censures of criticism, which, however, I shall not endeavour to soften by a formal deprecation, or to overbear by the influence of a patron. The supplications of an author never yet reprieved him a moment from oblivion; and, though greatness has sometimes sheltered guilt, it can afford no protection to ignorance or dulness. Having hitherto attempted ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... swift deeds was performed with such a glib precipitancy that if was as though the action had been rehearsed a score of times. The garden was all drowsy peace now that Orestes spread his palms in a gesture of deprecation. A little distance from him, Ahasuerus with his forefinger drew upon the water's surface designs which appeared ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... not rise upon his feet, but clasped his hands, and said in a tone of deprecation—"I will fly. I am become a fiend, the sight of whom destroys. Yet tell me my offence! You have linked curses with my name; you ascribe to me a malice monstrous and infernal. I look around; all is loneliness and desert! This house ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... confused hunter, rising hurriedly to his feet, and lifting his cap, in a tremor of respectful deprecation, before the general, while his tongue began to trip and fly in the vain attempt to get out ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... strengthened again with its former unnatural strength; the demon raged within him in renewed fury as he tore his robe which Numerian held as he lay at his feet from the feeble grasp that confined it, and, striding up to the pile of idols, stretched out his hands in solemn deprecation. 'The high priest has slept before the altar of the gods!' he cried loudly, 'but they have been patient with their well-beloved; their thunder has not struck him for his crime! Now the servant returns to his service—the rites ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... a becoming show of deprecation. He said he did not think the story would bear immediate repetition, or was even worth telling once, but, if we had nothing better to do, perhaps we might do worse than hear it; the most he could say for it was ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... this frank confession, I may seem to some of you to throw our compass overboard, and to adopt caprice as our pilot. Skepticism or wayward choice, you may think, can be the only results of such a formless method as I have taken up. A few remarks in deprecation of such an opinion, and in farther explanation of the empiricist principles which I profess, may therefore appear at this point to be ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... were naturally punctuated by visits to the Polish "bar" and cafe. At these it came as somewhat of a surprise to have tips refused. I paid for my dinner and added the customary ten per cent. The waiter drew himself up and waved his hand in deprecation. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... companion was not sufficiently intimate to interrogate her on the subject of her opinions of others. Mr. Sharp had too much knowledge of the world not to perceive the little mistake he had made, and after begging the young lady, with a ludicrous deprecation of her mercy, not to betray him, he changed the conversation with the tact of a man who saw that the discourse could not be continued without assuming a confidential character that Eve was indisposed to permit. Luckily, a pause in the discourse between the governess and her colloquist ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... around by the wall, feeling his way, but occasionally striking and jarring a picture frame or looking glass as he passed, and muttering good-humored little growls of deprecation, and finally making the sofa creak as he struck and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... said, "have you forgotten that on a far more important occasion to YOU, I showed no desire to pry into your secret?" Hurlstone made a movement of deprecation. "Nor have I any such desire now. But for the sake of our coming to an understanding as friends, let me answer the question for you. You are here, my dear fellow, as a messenger from the Mission of Todos Santos to the Ecclesiastical Commission from Guadalajara, whose ship touches ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... tyranny on one side and mean servility on the other which one too often sees, but pressed upon them with true knightly chivalry, and received, not carelessly as due and usual, but with affectionate deprecation and reluctance. Yet there was not the slightest affectation of affection, than which no affectation is more nauseous. True affection, undoubtedly, does often exist where its expression is caricatured, but the caricature is not less despicable. The pride of the father in his ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the Grundy woman raise an eyebrow of deprecation at the informal introduction of Jack and Mary, or we shall refute her with her own precepts, which make the steps to a throne the steps of the social pyramid. If she wishes a sponsor, we name an impeccable majesty of the very oldest dynasty of all, which is entirely without scandal. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... a married woman, Mrs. Daney," The Laird began, with old-fashioned deprecation for the blunt language he was about to employ, "you'll admit that the child wasn't found behind one of old Brent's cabbages. This is the ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the light of the hero of the recent episode. It was a matter Willett would not discuss with them, nor, when they somewhat pointedly referred to Harris and his part in the affair, was it Willett's policy to say aught in deprecation. As "the representative of the commanding general" temporarily at the post, and observing the condition of affairs, it was his proper function to give all men his ear and none his tongue, to hear everything and say nothing. But the adjutant knew, and had not been able ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... critics; you were at liberty to think so whilst no claimant of public notice—as being so, it is most arrogant in you to be modest. This would be the criticism applied justly to a man who, in Kant's situation, as the author of a new system, should use a language of unseasonable modesty or deprecation. To have spoken boldly of himself was a duty; we could not tolerate his doing otherwise. But to speak of himself in the exclusive terms I have described, does certainly seem, and for years did seem to myself, little short of insanity. Of this I am sure that no student ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a gesture of general deprecation, and did not ask WHY Mainwaring's young brother should contemplate his death with satisfaction. Nevertheless, some time afterwards Miss Macy remarked that it seemed hard that the happiness of one member ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... this last description, we would say in deprecation of their strictures—Friends, the world is made up of a number of odd personages, as the animal kingdom is of singular, and not wholly pleasant creatures. Just as the scarabaeus and the ugly insect are as much a part of animated nature as the golden-winged butterfly, and humming-bird, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... Revolution is due to the teaching of Rousseau more than to that of any other French philosopher, the crimes and mistakes of the Revolution are directly to be traced to his influence, and this in spite of Rousseau's deprecation of violence.[73] ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... yourself, sir!" answered the General, waving his hand with gentle deprecation. "This is neither time nor place for heroics. I did but attempt to impress you with the fact, that your mother's unjust will had caused all this domestic turmoil. You took the property from me—I won the lady from you. Let us look upon ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... these resolutions was secondary. The real purpose was to arouse the public to the dangerous character of the Federalist legislation. Madison, many years afterward, explained that he meant only an appeal to the other States to unite in deprecation of the measures. The immediate effect was to set up a sort of political platform, about which the opponents of the Federalists might rally, and by the presentation of a definite issue to keep up the Republican organization against ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... There stepped into the room, the tall, somewhat full figure of a lady who stood looking on with eyes at first surprised, then cynically amused. The intruder paused, laughing a low, well-fed, mellow laugh. On the moment she coughed in deprecation. Miss Lady sprang back, as does the wild deer startled in the forest. Her hands went to her cheeks, which burned in swift flame, thence to drop to her bosom, where her heart was beating in a confusion of throbs, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... arm from the clutch which the speaker had laid upon it, and shook his head in gentle deprecation. "No, no; you must excuse me, Theodore," he said. "We mustn't meddle in ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... to me, on thought," pronounced bel-Kalfate, inclining his head toward the notary with an air of courtly deprecation—"it comes to me that thou hast been defrauded. For what is a trifle of ten thousand douros of silver as against the rarest jewel (I am certain, sidi) that has ever crowned the sex which thou mayest perhaps ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... bowing a little in his chair, spreading out his hands in a gesture of deprecation and grinning like ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... anxious, came in upon him and brought him to his feet. Anne had learned this year that you should not knock at the door of business offices, but she still half believed you ought, and it gave her entrance something of deprecation ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... go the day after to-morrow," said Lady Marney, speaking in a whisper, and looking volumes of deprecation. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... the man's wrath, and healed his wound as best she might, ere returning to her patient, who looked at her with an impish grin on his lips, and yet human deprecation in his eyes. Feeling unprepared for discussion, she merely asked whether the dinner had been relished, and sat down to her book; but there was a grave, sorrowful expression on her countenance, and, after an interval ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appearance in response to an invitation that Miss Birdseye's relaxed voice had tinkled down to her from the hall over the banisters, with much repetition, to secure attention. She was a plain, spare young woman, with short hair and an eye-glass; she looked about her with a kind of near-sighted deprecation, and seemed to hope that she should not be expected to generalise in any way, or supposed to have come up for any purpose more social than to see what Miss Birdseye wanted this time. By nine o'clock ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... head and clucking with his tongue in deprecation of this painful episode, moves to the chair just vacated by the Archbishop and stands behind it with folded palms, looking at the President. The Accountant General shakes his fist after the departed visitors, and bursts into savage abuse ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... dear lord," he most pathetically concludes, "let the Admiralty write harshly to me; my generous soul cannot bear it, being conscious it is entirely unmerited!" The reader of sensibility will not fail to feel this very affecting deprecation; and to lament, that it ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... — N. dissuasion, dehortation[obs3], expostulation, remonstrance; deprecation &c. 766. discouragement, damper, wet blanket; disillusionment, disenchantment. cohibition &c. (restraint) 751[obs3]; curb &c. (means of restraint) 752; check &c. (hindrance) 706. reluctance &c. (unwillingness) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... flower it grew, Unhandsome and unnoticed too, Except in deprecation That such an herb unreared by toil, Prolific cumberer of the ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... which the waiter took part, suggesting various solutions. At last Gino triumphed. The bill came to eightpence-halfpenny, and a halfpenny for the waiter brought it up to ninepence. Then there was a shower of gratitude on one side and of deprecation on the other, and when courtesies were at their height they suddenly linked arms and swung down the street, tickling each other with ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... was tempered by a feeling almost tender, crossed her lips and immediately vanished. She shook her head as if in deprecation of the passion my words evinced, and was about to dismiss me, when she suddenly changed her mind and seized upon the aid I had offered, with a fervor that roused my sense of chivalry and deepened what might have been but a passing fancy into an ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... cloud station; 50 Larks on thyme beds Forbore to mount or sing; Bees drooped upon the wing; The raven perched on high Forgot his ration; The conies in their rock, A feeble nation, Quaked sympathetical; The mocking-bird left off to mock; Huge camels knelt as if 60 In deprecation; The kind hart's tears were falling; Chattered the wistful stork; Dove-voices with a dying fall Cooed ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... who had not as yet approached that subject. Lucy knew that this event must be far off, and was not agitated about it as yet; on the contrary, she met his look sympathetically and with deprecation after the first natural blush, and soothed him in her feminine way, patting softly with her pretty hand ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... matter? Are you vexed about anything? What have I done?" she asked, in a tone of anxious deprecation which no other person but Harrison Cordis had ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... the people from Montepoole, that know me, should come by? What are you thinking of?" said he, in a tone that certainly justified Fleda's deprecation. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... generally believe in the existence of a Spirit of Evil, and occasionally pray to him in deprecation of his wrath. They do not doubt his inferiority to the Great Spirit, but they believe that he has the power to inflict torments and punishments upon the human race, and that he has a malignant delight ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... sally his simple visitors had no answer, and they simply looked at each other in decent deprecation; but their confusion was speedily covered by the return of the young girl with two large bunches of roses—one of them all white, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... both hands, in polite deprecation, and looked as if he was beginning to recover his good ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... she said in deprecation of her stupidity, "I didn't think you were going to stay indefinitely—as long as the show ran. And yet I never thought of your going away. It's always seemed that you were the show—or, rather, that the show was you; just something that you made go. It doesn't seem possible that it can keep ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... and have given him[FN225] tidings to that effect." And she responded to him with fairest response and tenderness of terms and gem-like verse. Then she took her ink-case and paper and a brazen pen and would have written but he forbade her, saying by way of deprecation "This be not the right rede! An thou return a reply my slaves will take it and will bear it to my native country and will inform the folk of all our adventure: 'tis better far that I fare to them myself and greet them ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... opened and there came in a youth of seventeen, tall and well-built, with clothing that testified to an encounter alike with brier and bog. The hound Bran followed him. He blinked at the lights and the fire, then with a gesture of deprecation crossed the hall to the stairway. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... himself to become conscious of the lawyer's meaning. "It is not of business that I come to kiss the Senora's hand to-day," he replied, with a melancholy softness; "it is as her neighbor, to put myself at her disposition. Ah! what have we here fit for a lady?" he continued, raising his eyes in deprecation of the surroundings; "a house of nothing, a place of winds and dry bones, without refreshments, or satisfaction, or delicacy. The Senora will not refuse to make us proud this day to send her of that which we have in our poor home at Los Gatos, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... balance. And he couldn't quite destroy a picture of Mirabelle, walking down the aisle out of step to the wedding march. Her arms were loaded with exotic flowers, of which each petal was a crisp yellow bank-bill. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to snort in deprecation, and he did neither. He was too busy with the consciousness that at last he was in a position to capitalize his information. He knew what nobody else did, outside of Henry and his wife, Mirabelle, Mr. Archer and probably Judge Barklay and if he flung himself into the League's campaign, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... getting old, and his younger voice and more experience in such matters will make it a good thing for us all if he will take the family prayers whenever he is at home." As he concluded with faltering voice, Amos began to remonstrate in words of earnest deprecation; but his father stopped him, and, laying his hand on his shoulder, kindly said, "Do it to please me, and to please us all, dear boy." Then, turning to Walter, with every shade removed from his countenance, he asked, "And what is ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... she had hoped for. An unfamiliar bashfulness made her look away from the gray eyes and stammer in rough deprecation: ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... those austere souls who regard anthologies as a labor-saving contrivance for the benefit of persons who like a smattering of knowledge and are never really learned, we can at least plead in mitigation that we have high and ancient authority for the practise. In any event no amount of scholarly deprecation has been able to turn mankind or that portion of mankind which reads books from the agreeable habit of making volumes of selections and finding in them much pleasure, as well as improvement in taste and knowledge. With the spread of education ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... The other smiled in self-deprecation. "I like a good fighter," he said; "I was never one myself. If I had been I would have accomplished more. Yes, you shall go up a mile or so in the air—and a thousand miles beyond." He turned to close the door and seal ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... in vague deprecation, but he felt it already clear for her. "That, you see, is my only logic. Not, out of the whole affair, to have ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... portrait they delivered to the Captain, who took them with the same air of deprecation tainted with disgust that coloured all his actions in ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... said, with fine deprecation, being only half pacified, "I do not see who there could be to ask the Bishop except ourselves. Where should the Bishop of Carisbury lunch in Cullerne except at the Rectory?" In this unanswerable conundrum she quenched the smouldering ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... kissed. Now, when the little girl called to him as if it were the simplest thing in the world, he could not go. And then she stabbed him by falsely kissing the complacent Allan standing by, who thereupon smirked in sickening deprecation ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Oxford, is he?' Miss Luttrell chimed on vacantly, wagging her wrinkled old head in solemn deprecation of tke evil omen. She knew it as well as Mrs. Oswald herself did, having heard the fact at least a thousand times before; but she made it a matter of principle never to encourage these upstart pretensions on the part of the lower orders, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... constitute other moods on the same analogy, as, for example, an obligatory mood—'I must go,' or 'I ought to go'; a mood of resolution—'I will go, you shall go'; a mood of gratification—'I am delighted to go'; of deprecation—'I am grieved to go.' The only difference in the two last instances is the use of the sign of the infinitive 'to,' which does not occur after 'may,' 'can,' 'must,' 'ought,' etc.; but that is not ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... with a certain inward deprecation of the grin that spread over his face, and the responsive levity of his phrase, "There was a change of hands, but the one that kep' the fire goun' the hardes' and the hottes' was ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... 1799, eighteen pennies were struck out of the pound of metal, but the people thought they were counterfeit, and would not take them until a proclamation ordering their circulation, was issued December 9th. They became used to a deprecation of currency after that, and there was but very little grumbling in 1805, when Boulton was ordered to divide the pound of copper into 24 pennies. The machinery of Boulton's mint, with the collection ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... better than he; Though I could see that solemn change in him Which every face will wear, when Heaven and Hell Are struggling in the heart for mastery. He was unhappy; every sudden sound Startled his apprehensions; from his heart Rose heavy suspirations, charged with prayer, Desire, and deprecation, and remorse;— Sighs like volcanic breathings—sighs that scorched His parching lips and spread his face with ashes,— Sighs born in such convulsions of the soul That his strong frame quaked like Vesuvius, Burdened with ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... dressed than they had either of them done for years past, and although their whole manner showed a change, inasmuch as they had been formerly snarling and misanthropic, and were now civil almost to deprecation. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... slavery was wrong but he never did much to curb its growing power, contenting himself with a deprecation much like this expressed in the letter ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... a deprecation with his maimed hand, and even smiled faintly. "I knew you'd say that. I knew what you'd think about it, but it's all the same now. I did it for you and Safie! I knew I was in the way; I knew you was ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... with leave of Speech implor'd And humble Deprecation, thus reply d: Let not my Words offend thee, Heavnly Power, My Maker, be ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... above was growled out over his shoulder by the Missourian to a chance stranger who had just accosted him; a round-backed, baker-kneed man, in a mean five-dollar suit, wearing, collar-wise by a chain, a small brass plate, inscribed P. I. O., and who, with a sort of canine deprecation, slunk ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... almost should have feared, that such large payments, collected from day to day, would have produced want in the treasury, a deprecation of all fictitious values, and consequently all the evils which befall a country that has no money, ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... together in Skagway. Therefore, if Alan had believed her dead when they went ashore at Cordova, a few hours after the supposed tragedy, it must have been she who jumped into the sea. He shrugged his shoulders in deprecation of his failure to discover this amazing fact in his ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... off the glaciers over there—anybody would think of a condiment,' Miss Anderson remarked in deprecation, and to this Brookes made no response. It was a liberty she ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... me once more. At that moment all my energies appeared to be restored; I threw myself into an attitude expressive of deep contrition for the intrusion of which I had been unconsciously guilty, and dropping on one knee, and raising my clasped hands, inclined them towards her in token of mingled deprecation of her anger, and respectful homage to herself. At first she hesitated,—then gradually and timidly retrod her way to the seat she had so abruptly quitted in her alarm. Emboldened by this movement, I made a step or two in advance, but no sooner had I done so than she again took to flight. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... in which the teacher was speaking. At the close, this Chief was found sitting on the ground outside, his back to the door, his head bent forward and buried in his arms. He was weeping. When spoken to, he raised his arm with a movement of deprecation, and, in a voice full of pity and indignation, said—"to think that there was no one even to give Him a drink of water!" That poor savage had known what thirst is. This one awakened chord of human sympathy with the human Christ was communicative. Other hearts were touched, and from that time the ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... name, one hand made swift movement of deprecation. "Pardon if I mistake, but I take it you're ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... from livin' in these yer pine woods along o' the other sap. They just worship the ground you and your sister tread on—certain! of course! of course!" he added hurriedly, recognizing Christie's half-conscious, deprecating gesture with more exaggerated deprecation. "I understand. But what I wanter say is that they'd be willin' to be that ground, and lie down and let you walk over them—so to speak, Miss Carr, so to speak—if it would keep the hem of your gown ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... in some fashion of his own, to combine, in a single movement, a snatch at the money with a gesture of polite deprecation. They parted with mutual salutations, two gentlemen who had carried an honorable transaction to a worthy close. A white- aproned waiter smiled upon them tolerantly and held open the door that Rufin might ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... hard in the face, and seeing I was sorry for him, took a pinch of snuff (every Cicerone takes snuff), and made a little bow; partly in deprecation of his having alluded to such a subject, and partly in memory of the children and of his favourite saint. It was as unaffected and as perfectly natural a little bow, as ever man made. Immediately afterwards, he took his hat off altogether, and begged ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Her happiness began to falter and darken like departing sunbeams. She remained for a space uncertain of herself, knowing neither what was needed nor what was best; then she spoke with resolute deprecation: ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... friend, in a tone of deprecation. "The lightest sense of wrong gains undue magnitude the moment we begin to complain. We see almost anything to be of greater importance when from the obscurity of thought we bring it out ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... injunction to suffer and be strong from the cold, as the Englishman has so largely done, but I am not sure. At one point of my devious progress to the capital I met an Englishman who had spent ten years in Canada, and who constrained me to a mild deprecation by the wrath with which he denounced the in-doors cold he had found everywhere at home. He said that England was a hundred, five hundred, years behind in such matters; and I could not deny that, even when cowering over ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... generating two individualities.—There I am afraid I put my foot in it, but he was far too simple to see it was cloven—ha! ha! and I hastened to remark that, as a magistrate, he must have numberless opportunities of noting similar phenomena. He waved his hand in deprecation, and I hastened to remark that, up to a certain point, whatever hint the newspapers had given, Leopold had expanded and connected with every other, but that at one part of the story I had found him entirely at fault: he could ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... nature is significant. It is used in varied contexts with the most divergent implications but always by way of explanation of behavior that is characteristically human. The phrase is sometimes employed with cynical deprecation as, "Oh, that's human nature." Or as often, perhaps, as an expression ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Marshal answered, in accents of deprecation. There were times when the young King would show his impatience of the Italian ring, the Retzs and Biragues, the Strozzis and Gondys, with whom his mother ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... a moment, then with a jerk of his hand went away, taking with him the officer from Loring. Stafford had a moment in which to make a gesture of anger and deprecation—a gesture which the other acknowledged with a nod; then he was gone, looking back once. Cleave returned to Tullius and the small fire by ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... said Eleanor, turning to him with a strange deprecation on her fair proud face. "I know that you have been everything that is patient and generous, and I am sorry—oh I am more than sorry—to have seemed to trifle with you; but what can I do? Remember that when I decide, it is for my whole life. You cannot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... look to the American people and to that God who has never forsaken them. Allusion has been made to the interest felt in relation to the policy of the new administration. In this I have received from some a degree of credit for having kept silence, and from others some deprecation. I still think ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... her hands before her and half-turned away her head, as if in deprecation of some sacrilege, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... dismay. This only could it be—this only till he recognised, with his advance, that what made the face dim was the pair of raised hands that covered it and in which, so far from being offered in defiance, it was buried, as for dark deprecation. So Brydon, before him, took him in; with every fact of him now, in the higher light, hard and acute—his planted stillness, his vivid truth, his grizzled bent head and white masking hands, his queer actuality of evening-dress, of dangling double eye-glass, ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... of astonishment there arose quite a chorus of requests from the younger members of Phadrig's audience for a rose to keep in memory of the marvel they had seen; but he shook his head, and said with a smile of deprecation: ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... triumph. Suspense and suspicions were past now; he was to see his desire on his enemy. But instantly a dozen men were on their feet—St. Pierre, Catou, Bonaventure himself, with a countenance full of pleading deprecation, and even ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... much more,' she said, looking at Harvey with a pathetic deprecation of criticism. 'I want to keep an income of three hundred pounds. I could live on less, much less; but I should like still to have it in my power to do a little good now and then, and I want to be able to leave something to my sister, or her children. The truth is, Mr. Rolfe—no, I ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... toward him with smiling deprecation. "Prisoners! Fie, what a word among friends? Let us rather say guests of honor. If I give you a guard it is as a precaution, to make sure that no rash peon makes the mistake of ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... imploring eyes. Why couldn't Nan be allowed to break upon him like a salty, fragrant wave of the sea, he seemed to ask Miss Anne, bringing all sorts of floating richness, the outcrop of her fancies and affections? Aunt Anne would return the glance with her sweet, immovable deprecation and go on detaching, while Nan, with an equal obstinacy—though hers was protesting, vocable, sometimes shrill to the point of anguish—stuck to her self-assumed rights. It was Raven himself who involuntarily stepped over to Aunt Anne's side and finished ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... laughed suddenly—though in Dunwoodie's laughter there was a note of deprecation ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... sudden look of sharp suspicion and even hard aggressiveness that quite changed the lady's face as he mentioned the word "souvenir," but it quickly changed to a smile as she put up her fan with a gesture of arch deprecation, ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... In deprecation of this mode of proceeding, and in behalf of men who I believe are every day wronged by it, I would urge a few considerations which seem to ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Mrs. Lee, and in some sort put him under her care. He was young, not ill-looking, quite intelligent, rather too fond of facts, and not quick at humour. He was given to smiling in a deprecatory way, and when he talked, he was either absent or excited; he made vague blunders, and then smiled in deprecation of offence, or his words blocked their own path in their rush. Perhaps his manner was a little ridiculous, but he had a good heart, a good head, and a title. He found favour in the eyes of Sybil and Victoria Dare, who declined ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... tabernacle, with its startling voice, in which God opened the heart of Samuel to take in the purpose of life; and from the wonderfully instructive scene in which the shrinking spirit of Jeremiah met the Divine summons with the humble cry of deprecation, "Behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child," till the Divine sympathy and wisdom answered his arguments and lifted him above his fears. But we have agreed to take Isaiah as the representative of the prophets; ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... her head in beautiful grave deprecation. "You oughtn't to make me say too much. But I'm glad ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... the difficulty of explaining your position here!" said the old lady, raising both hands and arms in an elaborate gesture of deprecation, and smiling kindly. "You put me in a false ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... beautiful shoulders in polite deprecation. "The mescal religion, we found, has spread very largely in New Mexico and Arizona among the Indians, and with the removal of the Kiowas to the Indian reservation it has been adopted by other tribes even, I have heard, as far ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... He that is for you than all those who are against you" has been quoted to me again and again in deprecation of my attitude in these things. It has always appeared to me a matter in which individual judgment must be exercised, and upon which no broad and general lines of conduct ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... considered a lucidation of his conduct. It takes but very little, I'm sorry to say, miss, to upset his behavior—not more'n a pint at the outside.—But it don't last! bless you, it don't last!" he added, in a tone of extreme deprecation; "there's not a morsel of harm in him, poor fellow—though I says it as shouldn't! Not as the guv'nor do anything more'n his duty in puttin' of him out—nowise! I know him well, bein' my wife's brother—leastways ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... heard made to Sir George Foster was in 1889, on a Sunday School excursion when a Grit lawyer superintendent spoke with admiring deprecation of the then famous divorce case; adding, as might be expected of a righteous Grit, that it was a pity so eminent an advocate of prohibition should have so compromised, perhaps ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Lord's Anointed, and vengeance shall pursue him. Tell me not, in deprecation of this sentiment "Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord." Human justice has its work and must follow the assassin, if need be, to the very gates of hell! It is God's edict that he who causelessly takes any human life, "By men shall ...
— Abraham Lincoln - A Memorial Discourse • Rev. T. M. Eddy
... waistbands of our small-clothes cautiously grasped in our hands, with a timid show of resistance, our brave red faces slobbered over with tears, as we stood marked for execution! Never was there a finer specimen of deprecation in eloquence than we then exhibited—the supplicating look right up into the master's face—the touching modulation of the whine—the additional tightness and caution with which we grasped the waistbands with one hand, when it was necessary to use the other in wiping ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... hands and eyes in holy horror and deprecation. "A rocking-horse, Mr. Coventry," said she; "what an injudicious selection! (Aunt Deborah likes to round her periods, as the book-people say.) The child is a sad tomboy already, and if you are going to teach her to ride, I won't answer for the consequences in after-life, when the habits of our ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... pillared labyrinth, waiting for them, suffering equal anxieties, and dreadful to think of in their present replete condition, languishing for tea. His proposal to go and look for her was accepted with just the shade of deprecation which admitted him to an amused tolerance of the girl's delinquencies, as if somehow Eunice wouldn't have dared to be late with him had she not had reason more than ordinary for counting ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... has been said in deprecation of the waste of fertilizing matters in the city of New York, in which the writer of this pamphlet has conscientiously joined; because, he thought it wicked to commit such waste, while we were surrounded by lands lying ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... deprecation. 'Ah, it is exactly that which is of such absorbing interest—exactly that! It is the abstruseness of the proposition which stimulates research—which stirs profoundly the brain of the thinking world. The question ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... Wilmington!" said Mrs. Munger, with intense deprecation, "that's such a very different thing. You were not brought up to it; it was ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... forced to do in Sacramento on the only other occasion when I entered into an explanation of this delicate affair by—er—er—calling the individual to a personal account—er. I do not believe," added the colonel, slightly waving his glass of liquor in the air with a graceful gesture of courteous deprecation, "knowing what I do of the present company, that such a course of action is required here. Certainly not, sir, in the home of Mr. Hawkins—er—the gentleman who represented Mr. Bungstarter, whose conduct, ged, sir, is worthy ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... about you in the newspapers," Yetta said, as they seated themselves in adjoining rockers, and Mrs. Gans flashed all the gems of her right hand in a gesture of deprecation. ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... did not send a refusal. And I feel sure she is thinking of going. You will not judge that I am unwarrantably interfering," Decima added in a tone of deprecation. "I would not do such a thing. But I thought it was right to apprise you of this. She is not well enough to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... his feet, but clasped his hands, and said, in a tone of deprecation, "I will fly. I am become a fiend, the sight of whom destroys. Yet tell me my offense! You have linked curses with my name; you ascribe to me a malice monstrous and infernal. I look around: all is loneliness and desert! This house and your brother's ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... forced the then Editor to sit down and write "something." It was the first time he had ever tried to write fiction, and as the story grew under his pen, he began to realise the joy of creation. And so it was that, in spite of his playful deprecation of "such nonsense" being printed, the adventures of "the Monkey that would not kill" came to be told, and we know that we can do our old friends and readers no greater kindness than to dedicate these chronicles to them in permanent ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... brightened for a moment. "Oh," she said, with polite deprecation, "I couldn't think ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... it surlily, but sadly, and with a gentle deprecation of their insistence. While the several monuments that testified to his cousin's wealth and munificence rose in the village beyond the brook, he continued in the old homestead without change, except that when his housekeeper died he began to do ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... speak about—seldom write; yet his experience was one that a multitude of men have felt vaguely at least. There was a laugh about it, a sense of self-deprecation; but above all, Skag knew for the sake of the future that he must get himself better in hand against this incredible pull to the place where she was. It seemed quite enough to reach the compound or the grass plot ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost |
