"Contumelious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the whole course of his political conduct selfish considerations have never been out of sight. His opposition to Canning's Corn Bill was too gross to admit of excuse. It was the old spite bursting forth, sharpened by Canning's behaviour to him in forming his Administration, which, if it was not contumelious, certainly was not courteous. When at his death the Duke assumed the Government, his disclaiming speech was thrown in his teeth, but without much justice, for such expressions are never to be taken literally, and in the subsequent quarrel with Huskisson, though it is probably true that ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... or despised than another in any country under the sun, connected by such ties as the United States are with Britain, there can be no doubt that the condition of the Jews under King John, as far as hatred and unexpressed contumelious feeling goes, was preferable to the feeling which native Americans, of the ultra Loco-foco or ultra-federal breed, entertain towards the labouring Catholic Irish, and would, if they could with safety, vent upon them in dreadful ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... if not the "music," yet the "harsh and grating cry" of suffering humanity. Fielding's merit is of the same kind; but the sympathies which he excites are more general, as his scenes are more varied, than those of Defoe. His coarseness is everywhere redeemed by a genuine feeling for the contumelious buffets to which weakness is exposed. He has the practical insight of Dickens and Thackeray, without their infusion of sentiment. He does not moralise over the contrast between the rich man's law and the poor man's, over the "indifference" of rural justice, over ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... is impious. If perpetrated in deed, it may offend justice properly so called; if it occasion sin in others, it is scandalous; if it drive the victim to excesses of any kind, the guilt thereof is shared by the contumelious agent. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... great House of Malatesta was represented by Pandolfo—Roberto Malatesta's bastard and successor—a degenerate so detested by his subjects that he was known by the name of Pandolfaccio (a contumelious augmentative, expressing the evil repute in which ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Brussels gate, but was answered by the fire of the besieged, which made great havoc amongst the Spaniards. It increased, however, rather than discouraged their ardor, and the insults of the garrison, who mutilated the statue of a saint before their eyes, and after treating it with the most contumelious indignity, hurled it down from the rampart, raised their fury to the highest pitch. Clamorously they demanded to be led against the bastion before their fire had made a sufficient breach in it, and the prince, to avail himself of the first ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of mankind; he was still jealous of his reputation, and anxious to be well thought of. Quite different is the tone in which the Publican, who felt himself a sinner, asked for mercy. He heard the contumelious expression of the Pharisee, "this Publican." With no resentment, he meekly bore it as a matter naturally to be taken for granted—"he did not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven;" he was as a worm which turns in agony, but not revenge, upon the foot which treads ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... of the queen. He begged her to discontinue this sad perusal. He wanted to gather up again the contumelious writings, but Marie Antoinette ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... that which diminishes or excuses a sin is not, seemingly, the greatest of sins. Now unbelief excuses or diminishes sin: for the Apostle says (1 Tim. 1:12, 13): "I . . . before was a blasphemer, and a persecutor and contumelious; but I obtained . . . mercy . . . because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." Therefore unbelief is not the greatest ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... about this period an incident recorded by Holinshed, and vaguely stated to have occurred soon after "the stir of Wyat" and the troubles of Elizabeth for that cause. A servant of the princess's had summoned a person before the magistrates for having mentioned his lady by the contumelious appellation of a jill, and having made use of other disparaging language respecting her. Was it to be endured, asked the accuser, that a low fellow like this should speak of her grace thus insolently, when the greatest personages ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... his goodness and wisdom (manifested in part by his own deprecatory protests against the wealth of which, nevertheless, he is apparently unable to rid himself) I was at first greatly pained to observe the contumelious manner of the Golampis toward this class of men, carried in some instances to the length of personal violence; a popular amusement being the pelting them with coins. These the victims would carefully gather from the ground and carry away with them, thus ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... which usually is in following at such affairs, beside the little troop of horse which was my escort, and my brother and Parson Downs riding on either side. Parson Downs, though some might reckon him as being somewhat contumelious in his manner of leaving the tobacco-cutting, yet was not so when there was anything to be gained by his service. He was moreover quit of any blame by his office of spiritual adviser, though it was not customary for a criminal to be attended to ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... which he could not answer, he would decline to speak, so that his instructors were unable to state whether or not he was in ignorance as to the point under discussion, and could mark him down conscientiously as contumelious only. Hence it was that he stood well in his studies, but was never remarkable for deportment. His favorite plaything, barring his brother Joseph, was a small brass cannon that weighed some thirty odd pounds, and which is still to be seen on the island of Corsica. Of this ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... few Subscribers gave me inexpressible satisfaction; several of our nobility honoured me with their names, and others, my patrons, were of the very first class of literature. Nevertheless, I encountered much contumelious reception; and after an irksome and unavailing perseverance of a month's continuance, I was at last compelled to relinquish all ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... harm? Or sees he aught that with a bashful awe Fills him? the bashful poor are poor indeed. To whom, Eumaeus, thou didst thus reply. He hath well spoken; none who would decline The rudeness of this contumelious throng Could answer otherwise; thee he entreats To wait till sun-set, and that course, O Queen, 700 Thou shalt thyself far more commodious find, To hold thy conf'rence with the guest, alone. Then answer thus ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... by piece-meal: keeping them alive (if it may be called a life) ut sentiant se mori, that they may be the more sensible of their dying" (p. 56.). Sir Walter Scott quotes a curious tract in Woodstock, entitled Vindication of the Book of Common Prayer against the Contumelious Slanders of the Fanatic Party terming it "Porridge." The author of this singular and rare tract (says Sir W.) indulges in the allegorical style, till he fairly hunts down the allegory. The learned divine chases his metaphor at a very cold scent, through a pamphlet ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... terrified lest his unavoidable connections with such people should make him appear to be indolent or perfidious himself. Is this a time for the wife of his bosom, his dearest most intimate friend, to add to his vexations and increase the fever of an overburthened mind, by a contumelious tongue or a discontented brow? Business, in its most prosperous state, is full of anxiety, labour, and turmoil. Oh! how dear to the memory of man is that wife who clothes her face in smiles; who uses gentle expressions, and who makes ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... subject to injury in divers ways, and so may yield a fruitful grievance even apart from offences against the person or property of the nation's businessmen; as, e.g., through neglect or disregard of the conventional punctilios governing diplomatic intercourse, or by disrespect or contumelious speech touching the Flag, or the persons of national officials, particularly of such officials as have only a decorative use, or the costumes worn by such officials, or, again, by failure to observe the ritual prescribed for parading the national honour ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... the Book of Common Prayer, against the contumelious Slanders of the Fanatic Party terming ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... profession, and politic by practice. But it happened he had given Phoebe unintentional offence by speaking of her under the classical epithet of Rustica Fidele, the which epithet, as she understood it not, she held herself bound to resent as contumelious, and declaring she was not fonder of a fiddle than other folk, had ever since shunned all intercourse with Dr. Rochecliffe which she could ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... me o'er earth's chosen heroes—they were souls that stood alone While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone; Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... less contumelious, less annoyant, less tormenting?—His advocate, his abettor, his adulator, with me only she was scrupulous and severe. I generously and almost instantly forgot all former resolves, and would have thrown myself into her arms—Unconditionally—I, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... earth's chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the Hotel de Cuylembourg, covered the same site. Beneath its roof the Protestant Confederates, in 1566, drew up their memorable "Request" to Margaret of Parma; and at one of its windows these "Beggars," being dismissed with such contumelious scorn from the presence of the Regent, nobly converted the stigma into a war-cry; and, with the wallet of the "Gueux" slung across their shoulders, drank out of wooden porringers a benison on the cause of the emancipation of the United Provinces. So prompted to think of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... which, as they all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all religion. Boerhaave sat and attended silently to this discourse for some time, till one of the company ... instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument began to give a loose to contumelious language and virulent invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that at last he could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... passed through that early period when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I have attempted to address audiences that, for no other crime than that of free speech, visited me with all manner of contumelious epithets; and now since I have been in England, although I have met with greater kindness and courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I perceive that the Southern influence prevails to some extent in England. [Applause and uproar.] ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... effort which constituted an automatic obstacle to extortion. The lands and people of the uji were governed by the Emperor but were not directly controlled by him. On the other hand, to refuse a requisition made by the Throne was counted contumelious and liable to punishment. Thus when (A.D. 534) the Emperor Ankan desired to include a certain area of arable land in a miyake established for the purpose of commemorating the name of the Empress, and when Ajihari, suzerain (atae) of the region, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that the chamber of justice, according to the frank old usage of Germany, was still open to all comers. Of this notion they were speedily disabused by the sudden retreat of the few who had penetrated into the first ante-chamber. These persons were harshly repelled in a contumelious manner, and read to the astonished citizens another lesson upon the new arts of darkness and concealment with which the Landgrave found it necessary to accompany ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not like our inflammable Spanish pride: they stood not much upon the pundonor, the high punctilio, and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes; but their pride was silent and contumelious. Though from a remote and somewhat barbarous island, they believed themselves the most perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the Lord Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. With all this, it must be said of them that they were marvelous good men in the field, dexterous ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... the reigning dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little disguise both in his works and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborate Dictionary he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, inserted bitter and contumelious reflections on the Whig party. The excise, which was a favorite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the Commissioners of Excise in language so coarse that they ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... his individuality, he remained to the end an imitator of Leech. Perhaps that was the reason that he drew so small a salary from Punch; at any rate, he always resented what he considered to be the contumelious and shabby treatment meted out to him by Mark Lemon. But for such money as he did receive, it must be admitted that he gave full value in the fierceness of his cartoons on Louis Napoleon. He did much book illustration, besides drawing for the Press, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Moslems like themselves. But against this was the declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was nothing for it but the strong hand. They—that is to say the corsairs—knew right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves and their vessels was ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... having offered armed resistance to the British troops acting in support of the Ameer, who had put himself under their protection. Of the five prisoners first tried, condemned, and duly hanged, two were signal criminals. One of them, the Kotwal or Mayor of Cabul, was proved to have superintended the contumelious throwing of the bodies of the slaughtered Guides of the mission escort into the ditch of the Balla Hissar. Another was proved to have carried away from the wrecked Residency a head believed to have ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... conceit, sought an excuse for his transgression, and retorted the whole fault on his Lord. For when he said, "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she deceived me," he threw all the fault on his Maker. His Lord, more angry for such contumelious conduct than for the transgression of his command, called four most cruel executioners, and commanded one of them to cast him into prison, another to afflict him with grievous torments; the third to strangle ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... defend their borders from the Paulistas. Everyone forgot that Fathers Montoya and Del Tano had obtained special permission from the King for the Indians of the missions to bear arms; and, as no human being is grateful for anything but contumelious treatment, the Spanish settlers conveniently forgot how many times a Jesuit army had saved their territories. The body of three thousand Guaranis sent at the expense of the Company to assist the Spaniards against the Portuguese at the attack upon the Colonia del Sacramento*5* on ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... in no contumelious sense, and certainly not because I have lived in Guernsey and only visited Jersey. To the impartial denizen of either, the rivalry of the two is as amusing as is that of Edinburgh and Glasgow, of Liverpool and Manchester, or of Bradford and Leeds. But, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... so speaketh any opprobrious or contumelious wordes in reuiling or cursing one another, for so oftentimes as he hath reuiled, shall pay ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... accepted. For certeine sonnes of Beliall, set vpon nothing but mischefe, troublers of common peace and quietnesse, wrought so with them, that no conditions of peace (were the same neuer so reasonable) could content them, so that without effect this communication brake vp, but not without contumelious words passed betwixt the parties, insomuch that the earle of Leicester (who being put from all his aid in England, was come ouer to the French king to purchase aid at his hands) could not refraine but giuing credit to the ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... step from it. If all that I can urge be ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call of pride prevail with you. You know how you feel at the iron gripe of ruthless oppression: you know how you bear the galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence, and character, on the one hand; I tender you civility, dependence, and wretchedness, on the other. I will not insult your understanding by bidding ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... history, as it shaped itself before His 'pure eyes and perfect judgment,' was one long series of divine favours and of human ingratitude, of ample preparations for righteous living and of no result, of messengers sent and their contumelious rejection. We wonder at the sad monotony of such ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... waved his hand, and there was silence. He saw the yellow gleam of a Jew's head in the crowd, and called upon him to fling him his cap. It was hurled from hand to hand. Fra Giuseppe held it up in the air. "Men of Rome, Sons of Holy Church, behold the contumelious mark we set upon our fellow-men, so that every ruffian may spit upon them. Behold the yellow—the color of shame, the stigma of women that traffic in their womanhood—with which we brand the venerable brows of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... adorned with a huge pair of horns. From it hung a black cloak or shirt, out of which protruded a goodly and substantial tail. No one could discover this ruthless disturber of their sports. Every attempt was unavailing; he shot through their fingers as though they had been greased, and a loud and contumelious laugh was the only reward of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Unfortunately he allowed himself to employ contemptuous epithets towards Cappel, such as "innovator" and "visionary." Cappel speedily prepared a second edition of his work, in which, besides replying to the arguments of his opponent, and fortifying his position with new ones, he retorted his contumelious epithets with interest. Owing to various causes, however, this second edition did not see the light until 1685, when it was published at Amsterdam in the edition of his collected works. Besides this controversy, Buxtorf engaged in three others with the same ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to Man! ... of horrid things Most horrid; midst stupendous highly strange: Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs; Pride brandishes the favours he confers, And contumelious his Humanity. What then his vengeance? hear it not, ye Stars, And thou, pale Moon, turn paler at the sound: ... Man is to Man the ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... canon!" said Des Hermies, when Durtal had related to him the details of the Black Mass. "It's a veritable seraglio of hystero-epileptics and erotomaniacs that he has formed for himself. But his vices lack warmth. Certainly, in the matter of contumelious blasphemies, of sacrilegious atrocities, and sensual excitation, this priest may seem to have exceeded the limits, to be almost unique. But the bloody and investuous side of the old sabbats is wanting. Docre is, we must admit, greatly inferior to Gilles de Rais. His works are ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... but others have heard the fall of the tree, which seems the signal of its coming. Mr. Donat was once pearling on the uninhabited isle of Haraiki. It was a day without a breath of wind, such as alternate in the archipelago with days of contumelious breezes. The divers were in the midst of the lagoon upon their employment; the cook, a boy of ten, was over his pots in the camp. Thus were all souls accounted for except a single native who accompanied Donat into the woods in quest of sea-fowls' eggs. In a moment, out of the stillness, came the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
