"Disdain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ireland is 'twixt Man and Brute. A lion with the sea-surge for his mane, Is there hurled back by Man with proud disdain, Although heart-drained with gash from head to foot. Oh, in that Eden of Forbidden Fruit, How Satan, searching for a snake in vain, Fumed forth a monster from his heart and brain— ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... the house he had been ordered to occupy the sergeant sniffed with disdain. "These people must have lived like cattle," he said angrily. To be sure, the place was not alluring. The ground floor had been used for the housing of cattle, and it was dark and terrible. A flight of steps led to the lofty first floor, which was denuded but respectable. The sergeant's visage ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... a virtue to overcome cold shoulders. The man or woman who received his first overtures with grace would probably be one on whom it would be better that he should look down and waste no further time; whereas he or she who could afford to treat him with disdain would no doubt be worth gaining. Such men as Mr Bott are ever gracious to cold shoulders. The colder the shoulders, the more gracious are ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... in scenes to come, I waxed tender even to shedding tears over the true pleasures of humanity, pleasures so delicious, so pure, and henceforth so far from the reach of men. Ah, if in such moments any ideas of Paris, of the age, of my little aureole as author, came to trouble my dreams, with what disdain did I drive them out, to deliver myself without distraction to the exquisite sentiments of which I was so full. Yet in the midst of it all, the nothingness of my chimeras sometimes broke sadly upon my ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... world Went forth, pure in his heart, against the taint Of dissolute tongues, 'gainst jealousy, and hate, And scorn, against all enemies prepared, All but neglect: and so, his spirit damped At once, with rash disdain he turned ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Israel; the ordinary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them than in the other all His miracles: surely the heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters, than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of nature. Nor do I so forget God as to adore the name of nature; which I define not with the schools, to be the principle of motion and rest, but that straight and regular line, that settled and ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... are no springs from which we can construct aqueducts, it is necessary to dig wells. Now in the digging of wells we must not disdain reflection, but must devote much acuteness and skill to the consideration of the natural principles of things, because the earth contains many various substances in itself; for like everything else, it is composed of the four ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... tramples on his personal enemies wherever they cross his path, with a facility which no former president ever enjoyed; he takes upon himself the responsibility of measures which no one, before him, would have ventured to attempt; he even treats the national representatives with disdain approaching to insult; he puts his veto upon the laws of congress, and frequently neglects to reply to that powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes treats his master roughly. The power of General Jackson ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... which cannot fail to elevate to an appreciable degree his status in the industrial world. Then, by enjoyment of this right, the Negro will no longer in effect be excluded from the higher type of occupations and pushed into those commonly regarded as menial and held in disdain.[123] ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... conqueror of Peru. He certainly resembled his namesake in courage, vigour, and perseverance, if in nothing else. The young horse displayed great unwillingness at first to quit its companions,—shaking its magnificent mane, and flourishing its voluminous tail in wild disdain as it ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... cloak—the golden beams were brought to bear upon it. We have it for certain that an offer was made to a member of the establishment to stay all impending proceedings, and, further, to pay down a sum of L500 on the names of the actual writers being given up. It was rejected with disdain, while such were the precautions taken that it was impossible to fix Hook, though suspicion began to be awakened, with any share in the concern. In order, also, to cross the scent already hit off, and announced by sundry deep-mouthed pursuers, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... simple. Young men formed the company, to whom she addressed counsel and command with the utmost freedom and a conscious authority. Through all her speech a certain undercurrent of scorn, a half-veiled touch of disdain, was perceptible. At their parting she invited the English visitors to come again, kissed Mrs Browning on the lips, and received Browning's kiss upon her hand. The second call upon her was less agreeable. She sat warming her feet in a circle ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... divided his forces into two parts, and he was himself ravaging Armenia to take vengeance on Artavasdes; but he sent Surena against the Romans, not because he despised them, as some say, for it was not consistent for him to disdain Crassus as an antagonist, the first of the Romans, and to war against Artavasdes and take the villages of Armenia; but it seems that he really feared the danger, and that he was on the watch to await the result, and that he put Surena ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... lucky, find a flow'ry spot, For which they never toil'd nor swat; They drink the sweet and eat the fat, But care or pain; And, haply, eye the barren hut With high disdain. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... influenced them greatly as yet. But on the other hand, one must claim for the amenities of life that they have their value, that they are, after all, the external decorations of an inward discipline. It is not necessarily a fine disdain of material things, but rather a keen sense of moral and physical efficiency, which pays due heed to wherewithal ye shall be clothed, at any rate outside of Palestine. Those who dream and discuss may wear anything or nothing. It mattered not what Socrates wore. But men of action must wear ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... society. But when my limbs, as 'twere half dead, Were lying on my restless bed, I made these lines—which, my good friend, That you may know my pains, I send. Now, though so free, so bold to dare, So apt to scoff—good sir, beware Lest with the eye of your disdain You view these lines, my vow, my pain. Beware of Nemesis, beware!— For Vengeance, should I cry aloud— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... suit the capricious young person at the piano, so Brian, who had a pleasant voice, sang the quaint old ditty of cruel Barbara Allan, who treated her dying love with such disdain. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... however, halted inside the door and glanced around her with incredulous disdain. She seemed upon the point of refusing to ride in so crude a conveyance; seemed about to complain to the conductor and to demand something better. She went forward under protest and drew her gloved fingers across the plush back of a seat, looked at her fingers and said, "Hmh!" as though her worst ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... any chance speaks the truth about the few things he does know. He said that Mr. Charteris had gone to Albany, and that Mrs. Charteris had the pretty whim to follow him. "Touching," I think he called it.' The disdain in the girl's voice ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... dull black. Cf. candidus shining white as opp. to niger shining black. 3. instinctam fired, animated. 15. interminatus he forbade with threats. inter minor, freq. in Plautus and Terence. 23-25. 'Sertorius did not disdain to turn to account the superstition of the ruder Spanish tribes, and to have his plans of war brought to him as commands of Diana by the white fawn of ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... is there in order to enable every one to salt his food according to his own requirements. Many people are led by their natural instinct to salt their viands in a proportion to suit them. But there are others, among them, above all, the well bred persons previously mentioned, who treat eating with disdain and for whom the whole attraction of a repast is the charm of conversation, and to them the idea of having recourse to the salt cellar ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... following the channel, drew incredibly close to the bank, the Germans leaned on their hoes and watched us pass, all save one, who continued to hoe industriously round the roots of the vines, ignoring us with a Roman's disdain. "Comme ils sont laids" (How ugly they are), said a voice. There was no surprise in the tone, which expressed the expected confirmation of a past judgment. It was the pastry cook's voluble wife who had spoken. The land through which we were passing, up to that time simply the pleasant ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... little the worse for liquor. He had only walked from Covent Garden, he said, and had taken nothing but a tankard of stout and a Welsh rarebit. He had been hearing the divinest singing—boys with the voices of angels—and had been taking his supper in a place which duchesses themselves did not disdain to peep at from the sacred recesses of a loge grillee, George Sheldon had told him. But poor country-bred Georgina Halliday would not believe in the duchesses, or the angelic singing boys, or the primitive simplicity of Welsh rarebits. She had a vision of beautiful women, and halls of dazzling ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... was gone. Where was constancy to draw the line? A man was not less a man because he was also a mounted policeman. He might even be grandiloquently styled, by those who were particular about the names of things, the soldier of peace. Still Dora had an irresistible conception of the pained disdain, the latent superciliousness, which would have sprung into full force in Fanny's dark eyes, if she had ever seen the once magnificent Cyril in the most careful modification of a ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... the truffle and the nectarine in the chief place of honour of earth's fruits, is not perhaps a dish for princesses when raw. But she ate, if not with appetite, with courage; and when she had eaten, did not disdain the pitcher. In all her life before, she had not tasted of gross food nor drunk after another; but a brave woman far more readily accepts a change of circumstances than the bravest man. All that while, the woodman continued to observe ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... written in the History of Successful Strategy how Lord Williams of Afghanistan, landing at Cape Town in January, found Muller on his way from Port Christmas, Whittaker at Bergstorm, Parris at Kooisberg, Ruthven on the Brodder, and everybody and everything at a deadlock. And being too old and wise to disdain the wisdom of others, the keen old brain under the frosty thatch recalled to mind the story of Stonewall Jackson, collected what forces he could muster, slipped in between two of the columns held immovable, and having ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... surface had been for ages so completely harmonized in colour by storms and accidents of climate, that it was impossible to say where the hand of art began or that of nature ended. The whole building displayed a naked baronial grandeur and disdain of ornament; whatever beauty it had—seeming to exist rather in defiance of the intentions of its occupants and as if won from those advantages of age and situation which it had not been in their power to destroy. The main body of the building, by following and adjusting itself ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... travellers, disembarking in Provence, pursued their way by land. One day, heated and weary, they sought shelter from the sun in the forest of Arden, and chance directed Angelica to the fountain of Disdain, of whose ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... sarcastic lip of the priest curled into an expression of irony and contempt; his brow, which was naturally black and heavy, darkened; and a keen, but rather a ferocious-looking, eye shot forth a glance, which, while it intimated disdain for those to whom it was directed, spoke also of a dark and troubled spirit in himself. The man seemed to brook with scorn the degrading situation of a religious quack, to which some uncontrollable ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... back on to the doorstep, lest the inferiority of her stature should mar the effect of her disdain. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... neighbourhood of Selby or Howden continue to produce more corn than is sufficient for its population; or as may regard its importance in an agricultural view, a sight of which should never be lost, nor whatever can promote its advancement, be treated with disdain or neglect, but quite the contrary; for upon the best, the cheapest, and most skilful method of causing the earth to bring forth abundantly, depends in a great measure our national prosperity; it gives ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee
... of an old man, who dares to love you? Your beauty and your fascinations have conquered and bewildered me. I know that the proposal coming from me, is madness—I know that you will reject my suit with disdain—yet hear me Julia; I am an old, rich and solitary man—I need some gentle ray of sunshine to gild my few remaining years—I need some beautiful creature, like yourself, to preside over my gloomy household, and cheer me in my loneliness by her delightful society and the music of her voice. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the look of a couple of angry dogs waiting to be let loose and fight; the two lads in a puzzled manner, as if ready to shake hands, and held back by some invisible chain; and their fathers with a haughty look of anger and disdain. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... I'm thinking, would like to offer you a bed," said the woodman; "at least, if you don't mind sleeping in this clean kitchen, I think that we could toss you up something of that sort that you need not disdain." ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... youth, even to the least so, offers moments of considerable happiness, for they are not only disposed but able to enjoy most things within their reach. With what trifles at that period are we content; the things from which in after- life we should turn away in disdain please us then, for we are in the midst of a golden cloud, and everything seems decked with a golden hue. Never during any portion of my life did time flow on more speedily than during the two or three years immediately succeeding the period to which we arrived in the preceding ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... things were within his reach, he would not disdain the means to reach them," said Miss Ironsyde. "I do think if the boy felt his own possibilities more—if we could waken ambition—he would grow larger-minded. Hate always runs counter to our interests in the long run, because it wastes our energy and, if people only knew ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... sole avowal had been a look exchanged in a crowded ball-room; and while they danced together their trembling hands revealed through the scented gloves the depth of their love. From that day they had both of them taken great delight on those trifles which happy lovers never disdain. One day the young man led his only confidant, with a mysterious air, into a chamber where he kept under glass globes upon his table, with more care than he would have bestowed upon the finest jewels in the world, the flowers that, in the excitement of the dance, had fallen from ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... grief that I am brown, For all brunettes are born to reign: White is the snow, yet trodden down; Black pepper kings need not disdain: White snow lies mounded on the vales Black pepper's ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... them shocked her, for she was his cousin-german; or, whether she apprehended that an intrigue with a person of his rank and character, must necessarily in a short time come to the king's ears; whatever was the cause, she refused so long to admit his visits, that at last indignation, rage, and disdain took place of love; and he resolved to ruin her. When he took this resolution, he had her so narrowly watched by his spies, that he soon discovered those whom he had reason to believe were his rivals; and after he knew them, he never failed to name them aloud, in order to expose the lady ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... where he chooses, and it will be strange if he cannot find something hard enough for him. The excuse is, however, one of the lips only; for every painter knows, that when he draws back from the attempt to render nature as she is, it is oftener in cowardice than in disdain. ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... we see King Amenhetep II., with his skin blackened to a parchment, drawn tightly over his chiselled aristocratic features. In the dome-shaped forehead, the Roman nose, and the tightly compressed lips there is an expression of infinite disdain, as if he, in his time the mightiest ruler in the world and the leader of civilisation, knew that now he was exposed to the gaze of a party of outer barbarians whose national histories were but of mushroom growth. This king struck ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... it was, boisterous without vulgarity, free without familiarity. There were no covert glances of dislike or envy, no shrugs of disdain, no whispered innuendoes. The social lines which breed these things did not exist. Every man considered his neighbor and his neighbor's wife as good as himself and his genuine liking was in his frank glance, his hearty tones, his beaming, friendly smile. Men and women looked at each ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... The first and fairest of the sons of God, How long hath this been law, That Earth by angels must be left untrod? Earth! which oft saw 520 Jehovah's footsteps not disdain her sod! The world he loved, and made For love; and oft have we obeyed His frequent mission with delighted pinions: Adoring him in his least works displayed; Watching this youngest star of his dominions; And, as the latest birth of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... which their souls called tyranny, having struggled madly and shed blood in tearing themselves free, turned stern backs upon their unconquered enemies, broke all cords that bound them to the past, flinging off ties of name, kinship and rank, beginning with fierce disdain a ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... character, alliteration was known to the Latins, especially in early times, and Cicero blames Ennius for writing "O Tite tute, Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti.'' Lucretius did not disdain to employ it as an ornament. We read in Shakespeare:— "Full fathom five thy father lies: Of his bones are corals made.'' In Pope:— "Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.', ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... fifty thousand hates, Greeds, cruelties; such barbarous tortured days A tiger would disdain;—for all my kind! Not my one mother, not my own of kin,— All, all, who wear the motley in the heart Or on the body:—for all caged glories And trodden wings, and sorrows laughed ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... say the Chinee— you have freed from the fear of invasion, Should he presently seem in a posture to be which is open to Moral Persuasion,— How you take him in hand, a philanthropist band! how you toil to improve his condition, With a noble disdain of the trouble and pain of a ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... however, some danger that parents should go into extremes in their behaviour towards their governesses. Those who disdain the idea of assuming superiority of rank and fortune, and who desire to treat the person who educates their children as their equal, act with perfect propriety; but if they make her their companion in all their amusements, they go a step too far, and they defeat their own purposes. ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... this vessel being just the worst-looking hooker I did ever sail in. Still she was tight, strong enough, and not a very bad sailing vessel. But, for some reason or other, externals were not regarded, and we made anything but a holiday appearance on the water. I had seen the time when I would disdain to go chief-mate of such a looking craft; but I now shipped in her ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... said the girl with a level look of disdain, "it might be far better if you were to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... hypocrite must perish.—When the factitious beauty has laid by her smiles; when the lustre of her eyes, and the bloom of her cheeks, have lost their influence with their novelty; what remains, but a tyrant divested of power, who will never be seen without a mixture of indignation and disdain? The only desire which this object could gratify, will be transferred to another, not only without reluctance, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... Strength for the daily task, Courage to face the road, Good cheer to help me bear the traveller's load, And, for the hours of rest that come between, An inward joy in all things heard and seen. These are the sins I fain Would have thee take away: Malice, and cold disdain, Hot anger, sullen hate, Scorn of the lowly, envy of the great, And discontent that casts a shadow gray On all the brightness of the common day. These are the things I prize And hold of dearest ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry; Still, as they run, they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... drowned in the louder and more obstreperous strains of Balmawhapple, now dropped the competition, but continued to hum, Lon, Lon, Laridon, and to regard the successful candidate for the attention of the company, with an eye of disdain, while ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... out upon a comforting breast all of her hideous adventures; she was reading the tall headlines in the newspapers; she was commenting on them with simulated flippancy to Georgia and Ernestine; she was meeting Mr. Gratton for the first time again, treating him to such haughty disdain as put hot blood into his white face; she was standing erect in the morning, confronting Mark King fearlessly, demanding her rights, commanding that he take her home. And, piteously lonely and frightened, she was longing to have him come to her now, to put his arms about her, to hold ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... complain, Of this damsel's disdain, Why thus in despair, do you fret? For months you may try, But believe me a sigh, ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... His sensitive lip curled in disdain. "To use your hands upon a man!" He shuddered in sheer disgust. "To one of my temperament it would be impossible, and men of my temperament are plentiful, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... and I know not how many other old scholars. Pooh! Hopelessly out of date. But I could never feel that. I have a deep affection for Graevius and Gronovius and the rest, and if I knew as much as they did, I should be well satisfied to rest under the young man's disdain. The zeal of learning is never out of date; the example—were there no more—burns before one as a sacred fire, for ever unquenchable. In what modern editor shall I find such love and enthusiasm as glows in the annotations of ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... faded grass matting, the shallow, standing wardrobe.... He liked the house, however. It had a real bath-room! He could, for the first time in his life, splash in a tub. Perhaps it would not be regarded as modern to-day; perhaps effete souls would disdain its honest tin tub, smeared with a paint that peeled instantly; but it was elegance and the Hesperides compared with the sponge and two lard-pails of hot water from the Ericson kitchen reservoir, which had for years been his conception of luxurious ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... feathers are thus modified, no bird possesses higher courage, or a more gallant carriage. The attitude of the cock is, indeed, singularly proud; and he is often seen to bear himself so haughtily, that his head, thrown back as if in disdain, nearly touches the two upper feathers—sickles they can scarcely be called—of his tail. Half-bred birds of this kind are not uncommon, but birds of the pure breed are not to be obtained without trouble and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Franklin gazed on in keen sympathy for the girl and bitter disdain of the cruel woman, but he did not dare to utter a word lest ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... life they are parsimonious to a degree of nastiness. I saw in one of the vastest palaces of Rome (that of the Prince Pamfilio), the apartment which he himself inhabited, a bed that most servants in England would disdain to lie in, and furniture much like that of a soph at Cambridge. This man is worth 30,000l. a year." Italian nature has changed so little in a century, that all this would hold admirably true of ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... and cruel gaze stabbed all three. He ignored Theodolinda with contempt. His disdain was so complete that (as the unhappy girl said afterward) he seemed more like a younger brother than a father. There were no chairs: they were forced to stand. In a small mirror fastened to the edge of his desk the sneering potentate could note the dial-reading of the instrument without turning. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Pleasure! my Pride! disdain not to grace my Labours with a kind Perusal. Suspend a-while your more momentous Cares, and condescend to taste this little ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... for to waxen in grace and virtue. It is nearest in nature; and readiest in grace: for it is the same grace that the soul seeketh, and ever shall seek till we know verily that He hath us all in Himself enclosed. For he hath no despite of that He hath made, nor hath He any disdain to serve us at the simplest office that to our body belongeth in nature, for love of the soul that He hath made to His own likeness. For as the body is clad in the clothes, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Johnstone, and Murray, and Yates mixed jest and stave—here Kean revelled and rioted—and here the Roman Kemble often played the Greek from sunset to dawn. Nor did the popular cantatrice or danseuse of the time disdain to freshen her roses, after a laborious week, amidst these ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... all the acuteness of the Yankee, with a genuine bonhomie which brightens the most ordinary incidents of life. New conditions have called into play valuable qualities which were torpid until touched by the wand of necessity. The old families no longer regard honorable toil with aversion or disdain; on the contrary they are workers, and work is the passport to respectable recognition. The Southern whites are getting along very well with the colored people, and look on them as not only useful, but indispensable to the South. "If the negroes ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... lover, and you pale For fear lest he disdain a love so kind: The seeker may find fortune, or may fail; But how could fortune, ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... easy to understand how the customary disdain of the Englishman for the Yankee turned to hatred in the heart of Hatteras; he made up his mind, at any price, to beat his bold rival, and ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... alone. Moreover, we have learned the bitter lesson that international agreements, historically considered by us as sacred, are regarded in Communist doctrine and in practice to be mere scraps of paper. The most recent proof of their disdain of international obligations, solemnly undertaken, is their announced intention to abandon ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... "Oh!" in disdain, "that thing!" With some effort Bernie fished it from the capacious depths of a pocket, disentangling the sharp corners from the torn and ragged lining ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... calm and collected among the musketeers, supporting a woman about his own age, who I trow was his wife. To do her justice she shewed no signs of terror, though she rolled her eyes on those around her with a look of disdain, less suited, methought, to her situation than the dignified patience of her companion. I asked him if he had been a bishop, and he answered, No; but was still a minister of the Christian church. 'Then,' said I, 'perhaps ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... live in the abomination of desolation, as far as regards society—crowds of ill-bred men who adore her, 'a genoux bas', betwixt a puff of smoke and an ejection of saliva—society of the ragged red, diluted with the low theatrical. She herself so different, so apart, so alone in her melancholy disdain. I was deeply interested in that poor woman. I felt a profound compassion for her. I did not mind much even the Greek, in Greek costume, who 'tutoyed' her, and kissed her I believe, so Robert said—or the other vulgar man ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... a tall man, clad in a dark overcoat bordered with fur; he looked like a wealthy Englishman or American travelling for pleasure. His features were fine and commanding; his eyes gleamed with a gentle disdain as he coolly met my resentful gaze. When he spoke his voice was rich and mellifluous, though his accents had a touch in them of ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... sir! It is really very kind of you, for if you went off to-morrow people might say that you only came here to shew your disdain for us. Tomorrow the general gives a ball, and I hope you will ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... should matters come to extremities, they would have the support of a Papal army of mercenaries. That fact, my young friend, as much as any other circumstance, has made me, as a patriotic Englishman, feel not only a repugnance for their scheme, but a hatred and disdain of principles which can so blind their eyes, and induce them thus to act. Should the plot be successful, one of the first things which Alva would do would be to make a descent on the English coast; thus, as he would hope, preventing ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the valley. Many eager spirits would have liked to stop and blow up some of these fine places. But the Government terms had been complied with and the columns moved slowly by, eyeing the forts, which were covered with the white and blue clad figures of their defenders, with a sour disdain. ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... Britain's sons with proud disdain Survey'd the gay Patrician's titled train, Their various merit scann'd with eye severe, Nor learn'd to know the peasant from the peer: At length the Gothic ignorance is o'er, And vulgar brows shall scowl on LORDS no more; Commons shall shrink at each ennobled ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe
... hair, bore a vague resemblance to a block of granite. A few gray locks on either side of his head fell straight to the collar of his greasy coat, which was buttoned to the chin. He resembled both Voltaire and Don Quixote; he was, apparently, scoffing but melancholy, full of disdain and philosophy, but half-crazy. He seemed to have no shirt. His beard was long. A rusty black cravat, much worn and ragged, exposed a protuberant neck deeply furrowed, with veins as thick as cords. A large brown circle like a bruise was strongly ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... of peace and justice the footsteps of those who looked towards them. He did more: he caused the lives of those his servants whom he sanctified and almost glorified in this world, to be recorded by their followers; and his own Spirit did not disdain to inspire the men who executed a work so salutary to mankind. From Adam to Noe, from Noe to Abraham, from Abraham to the days of Christ, what period is not marked by the life of some eminent saint; and what portion of the Old Testament has always been and still is most ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... idiot enough to disdain that invitation?" he asked; "well, Fitz, I have repented. I am willing to do penance in any agreeable way we can conjure up, and to commence by calling tomorrow, if you can ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... remuneration of a thousand pounds. She must, however, have mortified the poets by subjoining the sarcastic prohibition that "no verses should be inserted." Johnson adds, "Glover, I suppose, rejected with disdain the legacy, and devolved the whole ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... costume he created a great sensation in the little fishing town, strutting about flourishing a thin cane, and surveying everybody and everything with disdain. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... at least make the effort, Dorothea! I notice that most of the people who disdain diamonds generally possess three garnets, two amethysts, and ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... colour which surged so readily to his temples began to amuse her; she leaned back against the bridge rail and contemplated him with smiling disdain. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... utterance of those opinions, social or religious, which he addressed to the public in the truculent journal to which, under a nom de plume, he was the most inflammatory contributor. Whether it was that he shrank from insulting the ears of the pure virgin whom he had wooed as wife with avowals of his disdain of marriage bonds, or perhaps from shocking yet more her womanly humanity and her religious faith by cries for the blood of anti-republican traitors and the downfall of Christian altars; or whether he yet clung, though with relapsing affection, to the hold which ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to the German nation, you will agree, I think, with me, that he did well and not ill; you will not sacrifice his great name to the disdain of a shallow philosophy, or to the grimacing of a dead superstition, whose ghost is struggling out ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... even the amusements of these great barons and nobles, were all military. They looked down with great disdain upon all the useful pursuits of art and industry, regarding them as only fit occupations for serfs and slaves. Their business was going to war, either independently against each other, or, under the command ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... churlishly flung, at evil time, In wrongful place, to base recipient, Made in disdain or harsh unkindliness, Is gift of Tamas, dark; it ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... of man's all-containing soul; Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains, Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole? Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove,[19] 45 Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Speak but a word to me, nor let thy love Among my boughs disdain to perch ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... luck had come to them in the very shape they would have chosen; besides the advantages of a benefice such as the Countess Charolois would not disdain to give, there was the feminine delight at having a priest, a holy man, in their own family. "He will marry Cornelis and Sybrandt: for they can wed (good housewives), now, if they will. Gerard will take care of you and Giles, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... The saucy songster is an especial favorite with American poets. Bryant does not disdain to write a long poem that has him as ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... drawing attention to their statuesque contour. She staggers beneath a load of impedimenta belonging to her princely father: bags, bundles, and a heavy cloak. Javanese parents of exalted rank treat their daughters with disdain, the approved discipline of family life consisting in stamping an impression of abject insignificance deeply on the plastic mind of girlhood. Fertile plain and wooded slopes are alike destitute of domestic animals. The sheep was unknown to native races in this pastureless ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... down to the Valley; For I see, on a snow-crowned peak, The glory of the Lord, Erect as Orion, Belted as to his blade. But the roots of the mountains mingle with mist. And raving skeletons run thereon. I shall not go hence, For here is my Priest, Who hath broken me in the waters of Disdain. Here is my Jester, Who hath mended me on the wheels of Mirth. Here is my Champion, Who hath confounded mine ancient ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard was inclined to evade the small complications of existence. This trait of his character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, and a shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity—like a man who would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse with the meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had amused him rather ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... sensible, he felt equally the sneer of the great man at the magnificence of his attempt and the ridicule of the farmer at the misapplication of his paternal acres." The "sneer of the great man." is perhaps an allusion to what Dr. Johnson says of Lord Lyttelton:—that he "looked with disdain" on "the petty State" of his neighbour. "For a while," says Dr. Johnson, "the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... avails him nothing. If they discover at the distance of fourteen[G] or of forty years[H] an action for which the law ordains that his life shall be the forfeit, though the interval should have been spent with the purity of a saint and the devotedness of a patriot, they disdain to enquire into it. What then can I do? Am I not compelled to go on in folly, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... room and presently Miss Catherwood came forth alone. She held her head as haughtily as ever, and regarded him with a look in which he saw much defiance, and he fancied, too, a little disdain. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... interested in that special attitude towards the universe which is now loosely called "mystical," find themselves beset by a multitude of persons who are constantly asking—some with real fervour, some with curiosity, and some with disdain— "What is mysticism?" When referred to the writings of the mystics themselves, and to other works in which this question appears to be answered, these people reply that such books ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... of disdain was Robur's only reply. In a few minutes the "Albatross" had attained the height of 8,700 feet, and extended the range of vision by seventy miles, the ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... cried, with superb impatience and magnificent disdain, 'if I have to relate the subject to you, we ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... over land and wave; I sharpened his breath and gave him power To crush and destroy every herb and flower; He obeyed my voice, and is rending now The sallow leaves from the groaning bough; And he shouts aloud in his wild disdain, As he whirls them down to the frozen plain: Those beautiful leaves to which Spring gave birth Are scattered abroad on the face of the earth. I have visited many a creek and bay, And curdled the streams in my stormy way; I have chilled into hail ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... whole Arabian waste in fee With raging pride from sea to sea, That every lesser tribe would fly Those armed feet, that hooded eye; Till preying on himself at last Manticor dwindled, sank, was passed By gryphon flocks he did disdain. Ay, wyverns and rude dragons reign In ancient keep of manticor Agreed old foe can rise no more. Only here from lakes of slime Drinks manticor and bides due time: Six times Fowl Phoenix in yon tree Must mount his pyre ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... relates to Pomona how Anaxarete was changed into a rock after her disdain of his advances had forced her lover Iphis to hang himself. After the death of Amulius and Numitor, Romulus builds Rome, and becomes the first king of it. Tatius declares war against him, and is favoured by Juno, while Venus protects the Romans. Romulus and Hersilia are added ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection ...
— The Federalist Papers
... addressed to this voluminous female she would answer in a shrill voice accompanied by a rather disagreeable gesture of disdain. Leaving the den of this woman-cannon to one side, you would proceed; at the left of the entrance began the staircase, always in darkness, with no air except what filtered in through a few high, grated windows that opened upon a diminutive courtyard with filthy walls ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... witness that I also thoroughly despised those who laughed at the simplicity of the blind people, those who furnished piously considerable sums of money to buy prayers. How horrible this monopoly! I do not blame the disdain which those who grow rich by your sweat and your pains, show for their mysteries and their superstitions; but I detest their insatiable cupidity and the signal pleasure such fellows take in railing at the ignorance ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... sweetening influence, the soul Of nature's bard were like a sunless plain, Or summer garden destitute of flowers, A winter day ungladden'd by the gleam Of flowing sun, or river searching wild Through desert lands for ne'er appearing trees, Or peaceful flowers that sandy scenes disdain. No thought the philosophic mind imparts To an enraptured world, but bears thy power, And owns thee as the agent of its birth. O'er the sweet landscape of the poet's mind Thou sunlike shed'st the gladness of thy ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... shoulders and went up to the footmen. Mary could not hear what he said, but the Casino servant's answer was distinctly audible. It was politely spoken, yet there was, or seemed to be, in the man's manner a slight indifference, and even disdain, which would not have been there in addressing a successful, not ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... notion that her first flashing glance at him was accompanied by a flashing thought of how her adopted son would too surely be ranked by her more discriminating husband with the "bounders" of his implacable disdain. On the platform—while explaining that he knew it was not the proper thing to do in a public place—he embraced the majestic figure in the splendid sable cloak. Deb said, "Bother the proper thing!" and kissed him ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... to-day but imperfectly felt, and to-morrow perhaps shall be disregarded. When at length this unwelcome truth is received into the mind, we at first reject, with disgust, every appearance of good, we disdain to partake of a happiness which we cannot always command, and we not unfrequently sink into a temporary despair. Wisdom or accident, at length, recal us from our error, and offers to us some object capable of producing a pleasing, yet lasting effect, which effect, ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... order with a feeling of apathetic wonder as to what new freak he was expected to countenance and aid. At the entrance of the street in which the old house stood, he involuntarily pulled up his horse. Then, with an air of ineffable disdain, he drove slowly on, and proceeded to the number at which he had ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... mouth of the Tyrrhenian Sea with the waters of Ocean. Gaiseric, still famous in the City for the disaster 168 of the Romans, was a man of moderate height and lame in consequence of a fall from his horse. He was a man of deep thought and few words, holding luxury in disdain, furious in his anger, greedy for gain, shrewd in winning over the barbarians and skilled in sowing the seeds of dissension to arouse enmity. Such was he who, 169 as we have said, came at the solicitous invitation of Boniface to the ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... were, To dancing booth and village fair! The first she everywhere must shine, He always treating her to pastry and to wine. Of her good looks she was so vain, So shameless too, that to retain His presents, she did not disdain; Sweet words and kisses came anon— And then the ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... homage, and with skirts wiped his trail from off the plain. But threatening disgrace rose the Crescent in the sky * Like the paring of a nail yet the light would never wane: Then happened whatso happened: I disdain to kiss and tell * So deem of us thy best ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... have wandered from the highway And found with hearts reborn This swift and unimaginable byway Unto the hills of morn, Shall not our love disdain the unworthy uses ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... larger than catboats that skim around the lakes! Imagine such a corporation as the Northern Steamship Company, with its big fleet of steel steamers, attempting to handle its freight business in sailing vessels of a size that the average wharf-rat of the present time would disdain to pilot. What a rush of business there would be at the Marine Post-Office in Detroit, if some day this company would decide to cut off three of its large steamers and send out enough schooners of the size recommended by the English ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... shook her head in great contempt, when she heard such old-fashioned talk from the lips of a mere chit of a girl. She went away in disdain. But whatever might be my answer at the time, such words as these left their poison; and the venom was never wholly got out of the soul, when once they ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... received him very coldly, his parents had it not in their power to do more for him. In a word, the countenance of the world frowned upon him, and everybody treated him with that disdain and contempt which his foolish behaviour deserved. However, instead of reclaiming him, this forced him upon worse courses. His wife, it seems, either died in his absence, or was dead before he went abroad, and ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... will resume our play," she added to the ladies who had followed her on the scene, and turned her back in lofty disdain on Mlle. de Montluc and her concerns. But though some of the company obeyed her, a curious circle ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... follow nature, and you cannot err." But nature is as broad as the universe, as high as the heavens, and as deep as the seas. It is but a small portion we can condense even on hundreds of pages of foolscap paper. If that portion be of love, the cold philosopher turns away in disdain and talks of romantic maids and moonstruck boys, as if the subject were fit alone for them. And yet love is the great motive principle of nature, the burning sun of the social system. Blot it out, and every other feeling and passion would sink in the darkness of eternal night. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... did not pay sufficient deference to human nature to hide. It was inevitable that the self-love of many should be offended by the arbitrariness and imperiousness with which he overrode their opinions, and still more by the unequivocal disdain manifested for them. It must be conceded, also, that to those for whom he felt indifference or dislike, he had in no slight degree that capacity of making himself disagreeable which reaches, and then only in rare instances, the ripened perfection of offensiveness ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... the men who have done most for the world have taken very little heed of influence. They have sought light, and left their influence to fare as it might list. Can we not imagine the mingled mystification and disdain with which a Spinosa or a Descartes, a Luther or a Pascal, would have listened to an exhortation in our persuasive modern manner on the niceties of the politic and the social obligation of pious fraud? It is not given to many ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... of as such,—watching days and months sometimes for a few facts; correcting still his old records,—must relinquish display and immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation he must betray often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept—how often!—poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of treading the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... cunning; it has nothing to do with elevation of mind, or purity of soul, or knowledge, or breadth of view; it is the lowest, basest part of the intellect. It is the trait of foxes, monkeys, crows, rats and other vermin. It delights in holes and subterranean shelters; it will not disdain filth; it is capable of lying, stealing, trickery, knavery. Let me ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... the consulship of 647. There he amply retaliated on his general the wrong which he had suffered, by criticising before the gaping multitude the conduct of the war and the administration of Metellus in Africa in a manner as unmilitary as it was disgracefully unfair; and he did not even disdain to serve up to the darling populace—always whispering about secret conspiracies equally unprecedented and indubitable on the part of their noble masters— the silly story, that Metellus was designedly protracting the war in order to remain as long as possible commander-in-chief. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen |
