"Derision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recapitulated his "damnable faces," "strange postures," uncouth gestures, and ungainly deportment; imitation followed imitation of the poor actor's peculiar declamation, and the night became noisy with the shouts of mingled derision and execration of his critics; when suddenly, as they came to a gas-light at the corner of a crossing, a solitary figure which had been preceding them, without possibility of escape, down the long ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... They shall hail me with hymning and harping, With eloquent Art and Elysian, - The Singer who sung not but spurned them, The slaves that could sing "Jubilee;" With pinchbeck lyre and tongue, Praising their tyrant sung, They shall fail and shall fade in derision, As wind on ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... Church at the head of the monks, and left the court free for the revellers to work their will. But, wild and wilful as these rioters were, they accompanied the retreat of the religionists with none of those shouts of contempt and derision with which they had at first hailed them. The Abbot's discourse had affected some of them with remorse, others with shame, and all with a transient degree of respect. They remained silent until the last monk had disappeared through the side-door which communicated with their ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... great laugh and uproar in the market, and the stranger was driven from it in derision and ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... convulsed centre to the extremity of the Kingdom. There was talent of every sort in the paper that could have been desired or devised for such a purpose. It seemed as if a legion of sarcastic devils had brooded in Synod over the elements of withering derision." Hook, however, was the master spirit, the majority of the lampoons in prose, and all the original poetry in the early volumes from the "Hunting the Hare," were from his own pen, except, perhaps, "Michael's Dinner," which has been laid ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Falstaff; the Ground-work is Humour, the Representation and Detection of a bragging and vaunting Coward in real Life; However, this alone would only have expos'd the Knight, as a meer Noll Bluff, to the Derision of the Company; And after they had once been gratify'd with his Chastisement, he would have sunk into Infamy, and become quite odious and intolerable: But here the inimitable Wit of Sir John comes in to his Support, and gives a ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... by those who have to navigate vessels in the Mediterranean. Previous to stern measures being taken by the Sultan, it was not at all uncommon for his envoys to the native tribes—for the purpose of obtaining the release of captives—to be received with derision. Often, too, they were maltreated to such an extent that they were glad to escape with their lives. Some of the neighboring tribes continually endeavored to purchase captives for the pleasure of killing them, but it is satisfactory to learn that no sales are recorded, as the anticipated ransom was ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... up "furiously", as Milsom had said; for dense clouds of black smoke were now continuously pouring and billowing out of both funnels of the cruiser, to the outspoken scorn and derision of Macintyre, who had his own ideas upon the subject of "firing", his theory being that to make steam quickly, and keep it when made, one should ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... away; but getting them was not the easiest thing in the world, for they were all running loose. Although they have to come to the pass to get water, there is water for more than a mile, and some come sneaking quietly down without making the slightest noise, get a drink, and then, giving a snort of derision to let us know, off they go at a gallop. They run in mobs of twos and threes; so now we have systematically to watch for, catch, and hobble them. I set a watch during the night, and as they came, they were hobbled and put down through the north side of the pass. They could not ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... guilders to a 'masterless dog'! [Others laugh too, pass by, with pity and derision for the PIPER, and echoes of 'MASTERLESS DOG!' Exeunt WOMEN and MEN to the Minster. Only the children are left, dancing round the motionless figure ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... young men may come to think of time as of a moment, and with the pride of Satan wave back the inadequate gift. Yet here is a true peril; this it is that sets them to pace the graveyard alleys and to read, with strange extremes of pity and derision, the memorials of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Next day there was much beaver laughter over Flat Tail's repairs on the strong part of the dam, and the name that before had been a credit to him was turned into a reproach, for from that day the beavers called him, in derision, "Mud Dauber's son, the best ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... her violet eyes were profoundly serious, and her lips were as resolutely set as Joan of Arc's might have been, for Sally Miller had come only ostensibly to have her corn ground to meal. She had really come to speak for the absent chief, and she knew that she would be met with derision. The years had sobered the girl, but her beauty had increased, though it was now of a chastened type, which gave her a strange and rather ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... widening as the narrative increased in power. To my surprise, the mature child listened to this nonsense with the utmost gravity and interest. No shadow of derision played on her attentive features. When I had ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Quilty cried in derision. "Hear till him! And Ireland the owldest civ'lization in the wurruld, barrin' none, and the best! Faix, we was givin' lessons in it to all mankind whin th' dom raggety-britched tattherdemalions iv Scotchmen ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... With derision and foul objurgations he slashed at protruding arms and hands, thrust his sword again and again through the port into that close-packed, weltering mass, until at last the shipwrights backed away the boat to escape the ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... Star upon star, moon, Sun; And let his God-head toil To re-adorn and re-illume his Heaven, Since in the end derision Shall prove his works and all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... you may see how one who preferred the world's esteem to a good conscience lost both the one and the other. For now may the eyes of all men read what she strove to hide from those of her lover, and so, whilst fleeing the derision of one, she has incurred the derision of all. Nor can she be held excused on the score of simplicity and artless love, for which all men should have pity, but she must be condemned twice over for having concealed her wickedness ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... blessing! And shame on the light race, unworthy its good, Who, at Death's reeking altar, like furies, caressing The young hope of Freedom, baptized it in blood. Then vanished for ever that fair, sunny vision, Which, spite of the slavish, the cold heart's derision, Shall long be remembered, pure, bright, and elysian, As first it arose, my lost Erin, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... 'rt perfect mad, said he, with scorn, And full of foul derision quit the place. The skie did rattle with his wings ytorn Like to rent silk. But I in the mean space Sent after him this message by the wind Be 't so I 'm mad, yet sure I am ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... chronic diseases because its theories and practices are entirely opposite to those just described. However, when the Nature Cure physician claims that he can cure cancer, tuberculosis, epilepsy, paralysis, Bright's disease, diabetes or certain mental derangements, the regular physician shows only derision and contempt. He will not even condescend to examine any evidence in support ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... that these numerous and important events were brought to so happy an issue, some persons in the palace of Constantius, disparaging Julian in order to give pleasure to the emperor, in a tone of derision called him Victorinus, because he, modestly relating how often he had been employed in leading the army, at the same time related that the Germans had received ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... threats, and where thy glorious boast, That propp'd alone by Priam's race should stand Troy's sacred walls, nor need a foreign hand? Now, now thy country calls her wonted friends, And the proud vaunt in just derision ends. Remote they stand while alien troops engage, Like trembling hounds before the lion's rage. Far distant hence I held my wide command, Where foaming Xanthus laves the Lycian land; With ample wealth (the wish of mortals) ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... make, fighting against butterflies or snails, and undergoing the most ridiculous experiences; for example, in MS. 10 E iv. and 2 B vii. in the British Museum, early fourteenth century; the caricaturists derive their ideas from French tales written in derision of knighthood. Poems with the same object were composed in English; one of a later date has been preserved: "The Turnament of Totenham" (Hazlitt's "Remains," iii. p. 82); the champions of the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Son the Christ, and the Holy Mother, and the Angels and deserving men and women have taken up my heart and imagination, and in serving them I have not aspired to other happiness. A wife I might become, not from temptation of gain or power, or in surrender to love—I speak not in derision of the passion, since, like the admitted virtues, it is from God—nay, Sheik, in illustration of what may otherwise be of uncertain meaning to him, tell Prince Mahommed I might become his wife could I by so doing save or help ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... were detained a moment by conjugal affection. A lady, who had already kept the boat waiting, stopped midway up the gang-plank to kiss her husband in parting, in spite of the captain's loud cries of "Allez! Allez!" and the angry derision of the passengers. We were in fact all furious, and it was as much as a mule team with bells, drawing a wagon loaded with bags of flower, and a tree growing out of a tower beside the lake, could do to put me in ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... approach of the speaker. Three or four men suddenly appeared from some concealed door and entered upon the stage. One of them, a short man with a full red beard, we recognized at once,—"The prophet of San Francisco" as he was then called (in fine derision) was not a noticeable man till he removed his hat. Then the fine line of his face from the crown of his head to the tip of his chin printed itself ineffaceably upon our minds. The dome-like brow was that of one highly specialized on lines of logic ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... but four between Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,—who, when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"—a scientific mechanic,—a leader ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... well thought out,' said Rachieff, as he smiled in derision at its failure. 'Paul Somaloff, you have broken your oath to the Czar, and I swear you ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... golden serpent into the bosoms of the initiated, and drew it downwards; but this etymology is too far-fetched: the people who gave the name of sabbath to the assemblies of the sorcerers wished apparently to compare them in derision to those of the Jews, and to what they practiced in their synagogues on ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... the Vision Come to him in beggar's clothing, Come a mendicant imploring, Would he then have knelt adoring, Or have listened with derision, 105 And have turned away with loathing? Thus his conscience put the question, Full of troublesome suggestion, As at length, with hurried pace, Toward his cell he turned his face, 110 And beheld the convent bright With a supernatural light, Like a luminous cloud ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... slightest use, and sometimes it was all Richard could do to keep his hands off her. Now she would look as stolid as if she did not understand a word he said; now pucker up her face into a most unpleasant grin of derision and ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... credentials were thus discredited, even while he stood by the mercy-seat, as priest of the Most High, so when he performed the social part of his pastoral functions, his visits to his flock exposed him to derision and insult. The smile of respectful affection, and the salute of humility and gratitude, no longer greeted His Reverence; his charity was received as a right, and the legal maintenance which the law allowed him was grudgingly ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... do care for one another. Life is so full nowadays, there are so many things to care about, that any concentration of the affections is impossible. Love is the derision of the modern world. It has not even the respect ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... profess, yet every day you quote your English poet, and believe him when he says: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.' But I am accustomed to derision, and it does not offend me. Let me prove my power, so that even the most resolute skeptic dare doubt no longer. Judge of my skill to read the future by my ability in reading the past. I have come here—I have taken a long journey to look into the future of your new-born son. Before I begin, let ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... some two or three times, and it was generally believed that he composed; but he had not written any piece without which no orchestral programme could be considered complete, and the mere suggestion that his place might possibly be far above Gounod would certainly have been received with open derision. However, when his fame became great and spread wide on the Continent, he became so important a man in the eyes of English musicians that Cambridge University thought fit to honour itself by offering him an honorary musical degree. Tschaikowsky, simple soul, good-humouredly ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... be met with derision. It could hardly be wondered at, for as he stood before them, John Lansing looked the personification of fastidiousness, and his face, although it surmounted a strongly proportioned and well developed body, suggested the mental characteristics ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... support of ineffectual strains, And modesty forbids me to essay A theme whose weight would make my powers give way. Officious zeal is apt to be a curse To those it loves, especially in verse; For easier 'tis to learn and recollect What moves derision than what claims respect. He's not my friend who hawks in every place A waxwork parody of my poor face; Nor were I flattered if some silly wight A stupid poem in my praise should write: The gift would make me blush, and I should dread To ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... sketched a caricature of Medusa, the anguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness. You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how the Roman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited the uproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines—with results that were no ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... sweetened with Persian glucose, go out to the timber with a lantern, hew down the giants of the forest, with the snow up to the pit of his stomach, till the gray owl in the gathering gloom whooped and hooted in derision, and all for $12 per ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... oftener, perhaps, than he would provided no such attachment existed. Were he to pursue an opposite course before he had acquired either the reputation of a warrior or a hunter, and suffer his attachment to be known or suspected by any personal attention, he would become the derision of the warriors and the contempt of the squaws. On meeting, however, she is the first, excepting the elderly people, who engages his respectful and kind inquiries; after which, no conversation passes between them, except it be with the language of the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... qualities of Negro soldiers. There were various doubts expressed by the officers on both sides of the line. The Confederates greeted the news that "niggers" were to meet them in battle with derision, and treated the whole matter as a huge joke. The Federal soldiers were filled with amazement and fear as ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... formally dismissed, but her place as companion was a sinecure and a derision; and her company was the fat spaniel in the drawing-room, or occasionally the discontented Firkin in the housekeeper's closet. Nor though the old lady would by no means hear of Rebecca's departure, was the latter regularly installed in office in Park Lane. Like many wealthy ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you, sir!" said the leader of the gang, with a devilish smile of derision, as he stuck his arms akimbo and squirted some tobacco-juice from his filthy mouth across the cabin table at the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... thief and murderer, Hugh slunk out and attended to the trunks and bags, watching all the time for the dreaded plain-clothes man and his cohorts, trembling with a nervous fear so unbecoming in a strong man that the baggage master smiled in derision and imagined he was looking upon a "greenie" who was making his first voyage and was afraid of the sea. Offering up a prayer of thankfulness, he bolted into his own stateroom soon afterward and came forth later on in dry clothes and a new frame of mind. He was exuberant, ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... could be imagined. He had refused to govern as a lawful prince, and he saw himself deprived of even his legal authority. He became of no sort of consequence in his kingdom; he was held in universal contempt and derision; he fell into a profound melancholy. It was in vain that he had recourse to the Pope, whose power he had found sufficient to reduce, but not to support him. The censures of the Holy See, which had been fulminated at his desire, were little regarded by the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... me! but had the Vision Come to him in beggar's clothing, Come a mendicant imploring. Would he then have knelt adoring, Or have listened with derision, And have turned away ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... worship of virtue and truth, his intense love of purity and justice, he has got a treasure which is more to him than riches or honour, or even than human love. He speaks as though this passion for holiness had been the very thing that had cost him so dear, and that exposed him to derision and dislike. Perhaps he had refused to fall in with some customary form of evil, and his resistance to temptation had led him to be regarded as a precisian and a saint? I have little doubt myself that this was so. He speaks as one might speak who had been so smitten ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... kept the cane from charring, though there were accidents at times, when a whole fish would go into the fire, amidst shouts of derision from Dick. ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith! So ascend the feet of worth on the ladder of life; so reaches a high purpose a place beyond the derision of ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... as chaplain at the hospital, and when he had finished the reading of his first prayers he could see that he had lived down some of the derision due to his adventure with the old woman. That poor old bag of bones was sinking and could not last ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... a passage which is not lacking in emphasis: "Of course, incidentally, we have earned contempt and derision by our conduct in connection with the hundreds of Americans thus killed in time of peace without action on our part. The United States Senator or Governor of a State or other public representative who takes the position that our citizens should ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... pretence of zeal and religious enthusiasm, to throw discredit upon the whole proceedings. It was this vile crew, who, by having recourse to the aid of mock miracles, fancied they could turn the matter into derision and contempt, and who, by affecting to be cured of their complaints, with a view of having their own imposture, when detected, imputed to want of power in Father Matthew;—it was this vile crew, we say, that first circulated the notion that he could perform miracles. Unfortunately, many of ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... parts of France dissenters similar to the Albigenses were called Bulgarians, in Italy they were called Paterens and in Germany were called Catherists, and in derision were called "Good Men." How is it that these dissenters, by the testimony of their enemies, appear to have lived better and holier lives without the sacraments than their persecutors did ...
— Water Baptism • James H. Moon
... Thersites we know only too well—that dour spirit required more potent draughts to make him forget his misery and laugh. It took Swift or Smollett to move his mirth, which was always, three parts of it, derision. Lamb's elaborateness, what he himself calls his affected array of antique modes and phrases, is sometimes overlooked in these strange days, when it is thought better to read about an author than to read him. To read aloud the Praise of Chimney Sweepers without stumbling, or halting, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... why this seeming derision!" I cried in my anguish: "O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten - That ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... stocks at a few minutes past one o'clock, and as the church clock, immediately facing him, chimed each quarter, he uttered expressions of thankfulness, and seemed anything but pleased at the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four hours having passed, Tuck was released, and by a little stratagem on the part of the police he escaped without being interfered with by ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... to this hazard draw With speed what force is left, and all employ In our defence; lest unawares we lose This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill. To whom the Son with calm aspect and clear, Lightning divine, ineffable, serene, Made answer. Mighty Father, thou thy foes Justly hast in derision, and, secure, Laughest at their vain designs and tumults vain, Matter to me of glory, whom their hate Illustrates, when they see all regal power Given me to quell their pride, and in event Know whether I be dextrous to subdue Thy rebels, or be found the worst in Heaven. So spake the Son; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... at both of the men with astonishment. "Tell me, my worthy friends, which of us is crazy?" asked he, smiling, partly in derision, partly in pity. "I am called on to protect Berlin, and ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... But had the Vision Come to him in beggar's clothing, Come a mendicant imploring, Would he then have knelt adoring, Or have listened with derision And have turned ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... piteous and tearful hero of "The Marseillaise" moves us even more than does the old priest. The poor fellow cannot grasp the reason for the ferocity of stupid fate, which unrelentingly preys upon him. Arrested by mistake as a revolutionist and condemned to deportation, he becomes an object of derision to his comrades. However, gradually, he finds the strength to share the severe privations of his companions who have sacrificed themselves to their ideal of justice and liberty. And, on his death-bed, he is elated by all that he has ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... and went out again to the street in a dazed and bewildered way. And then suddenly a smile of bitter self-derision crossed her lips. She had been a fool! There was no softer word—a fool! Why had she not stopped to think? She understood now! On the night the Adventurer had confided that telephone number to her as Gypsy Nan, he had had every reason to believe that Gypsy Nan would, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... old man, in a peculiar tone, between surprise and derision. "And so you have come to ask my consent to your marriage with ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... was given by Dr. Johnson in derision, because of the fantastic form of Donne's poetry—is often applied to all minor poets of the Puritan Age. We use the term here in a narrower sense, excluding the followers of Daniel and that later group known as the Cavalier poets. It includes Donne, Herbert, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... The derision and scorn incurred by the movement because of the unwise zeal of some of its advocates had not yet passed in the fifties. In Canada, the question of higher education for women was avoided, or regarded with doubt or ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... nature to hold back that cheer which went up from the camp of the Boy Scouts. Possibly there was considerable of irony in it too, the kind that smarts with all lads. Those who were in full flight seemed to consider that they were being held up to derision, for they sent back answering cries of scorn, accompanied by not a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... star leers from the sky An' in derision, rudely mutters, "Yah!" The moon, Night's conkerbine, comes glidin' by An' laughs a 'eartless, silvery "Ha-ha!" Scorned, beaten, Day gives up the 'opeless fight, An' drops 'is bundle in ...
— The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke • C. J. Dennis
... latter into his boat. Spike saw his visiter off in person, tending the side and offering the man-ropes with his own hands. For this civility Wallace thanked him, calling out as his boat pulled him from the brig's side—"If we 'pull away,'" accenting the "pull" in secret derision of the relict's mistake, "you can pull away; our filling the topsail being a sign for you ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... occupies a wholly different ground from the Bible. If it merely gratifies curiosity or enlivens pastime, if it awakens emotion without directing it to useful ends, if it rallies the infirmities of human nature with no other design than to provoke our derision or increase our conceit, it shoots very, very wide of the object which the sacred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in scornful derision. "Nonsense, I say! Money is all there is to you, Ogden. In other things, the real things of this world, those you can't buy with money, you're a perfect imbecile. You know nothing ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Hail"—literally, Oh the joy! (Matt. xxviii:9.) What joy must then have filled His loving heart as He met His own again. Oh the joy! thus they had mocked Him when they crowned Him with a crown of thorns and bowed the knee and in derision shouted "All hail"—"Rejoice"—"King of the Jews." But in the resurrection He shouts "Oh the Joy!" The victory is won. Satan, Sin, Death and the Grave are vanquished. And what joy is His now! What joy will be ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... greeted this brief announcement, and some twenty pairs of gentlemanly shoulders were shrugged in token of derision. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... to abide by the Monroe Doctrine and to insist upon it as the one sure means of securing the peace of the Western Hemisphere. The Navy offers us the only means of making our insistence upon the Monroe Doctrine anything but a subject of derision to whatever nation chooses to disregard it. We desire the peace which comes as of right to the just man armed; not the peace granted on terms of ignominy to the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the Fighting Instructions and came to the conclusion that the whole conception of naval tactics therein contained was wrong, that decisive actions could be fought only by concentrating superior forces on inferior. One can imagine the derision heaped on the landlubber who presumed to teach admirals their business, but there was no dodging the force of his point. Of course the mathematical precision of his paper victories depended on the enemy's being passive while the attack was carried out, but fundamentally he was right. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... in suffocating sighs. I stared full at him, and laughed scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... varied. In places on the Coast where there is, or has been, much missionary influence the trouble is greatest, for in the first case the natives carefully conceal things they fear will bring them into derision and contempt, although they still keep them in their innermost hearts; and in the second case, you have a set of traditions which are Christian in origin, though frequently altered almost beyond recognition ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... family. As to the friendship with which you were pleased to honour me, the prison, which I have just left, has exhibited a scene to cancel it for ever. You may possibly be merry with your companions at my weakness, as I suppose you will term it. I give you leave for derision. You may affect a triumph, I ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... his hostility at the Meetings held in the street, whether in Whitechapel or any of the other poor parishes to which the work had spread, and was not often content with mere cries of derision either. Dirt and garbage would be thrown at us, blows and kicks would come, especially on dark evenings, and the sight of a policeman approaching, so far from being a comfort, was a still worse trial, as he would very rarely show any inclination ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... greater and smaller by Napoleon. Under this reign of splendid matter, the ideal had received the strange name of ideology! It is a grave imprudence in a great man to turn the future into derision. The populace, however, that food for cannon which is so fond of the cannoneer, sought him with its glance. Where is he? What is he doing? "Napoleon is dead," said a passer-by to a veteran of Marengo and Waterloo. "He dead!" ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Westminster Hall as well as at Doctors' Commons. Coke turned away with hatred from an advocate who, with the skill of a great lawyer, exerted all the courage. The Attorney-General sought every occasion to degrade him, and, with puerile derision, attempted to fasten on Dr. Cowel the nickname of Dr. Cowheel. Coke, after having written in his "Reports" whatever he could against our author, with no effect, started a new project. Coke well knew his master's jealousy on the question of his prerogative; and he touched ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... she even turned her head his self-control would shatter. It was weakening now and the sweat broke out in heavy drops on his forehead as he strove to crush an insidious inward voice that bade him forget the past and take what was his. "Only one life," it seemed to shout in mocking derision, "live while you can, take what you can! What is done, is done; only the present matters. Of what use is regret, of what use an abstinence that mortifies yet feeds desire? Fool, fool to set aside the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... grunting and squealing, and then a sudden scampering, like that of small, hard hoofs over a marble floor, while the voices of the mistress and her four handmaidens were screaming all together, in tones of anger and derision. Eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast. Chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift its shape, as formerly, nor looked either ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... was covered with the white frost; and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone very comfortably, for two or three hundred years. He was sitting perfectly still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at Gabriel Grub with such a grin as only ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... royne, voyre avec danger." In other parts of France, as well as in Bearn, Jeanne's reformatory movements were looked upon with great disfavor. Upon a glass window at Limoges (made about the year 1564, and still in existence, I believe) she is represented, by way of derision, as herself in the pulpit, and preaching to a congregation of eight Huguenots seated. ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... they cut and stabbed him and he cried out "O Lord! O Lord!" They called for his book of accounts and ordered him to cross out all the Indian debts, he having traded much with them. Then one and another gashed his naked breast, saying in derision: "I cross out my account." Then cutting a joint from a finger, one would say: "Will your fist weigh a pound now?" This in allusion to his having sometimes used his fist as a pound weight in buying and selling. And so they proceeded to torture him to death with ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... doubt that this absurd explanation would be received with scorn and derision; but the friar knew his audience, and I did not. His statement was not really accepted as true, but it was not cast aside as utterly absurd. I saw that it ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... the Union of Utrecht, 1579. When they were expelled the Low Countries by the Duke of Alva, they retired to England; and having equipped a small fleet of forty sail, under the command of Count Lumay, they sailed towards this coast—being called, in derision, "gueux," or beggars of the sea. Upon the duke's complaining to Queen Elizabeth, that they were pirates, she compelled them to leave England; and accordingly they set sail for Enckhuysen; but the wind being unfavourable, they accidentally steered towards the isle of Voorn, attacked the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... bound up with the philosophic and scientific teaching of the age that its abandonment meant little less than a complete revolution in the world of learning. As yet the vast body of those who were specially versed in the subject treated the new theory with derision, while the arguments put forward by Galileo in its defence were so weak and inconclusive that most of them have been long since abandoned. The hostile attitude, too, of the Lutheran divines could hardly fail to exercise some influence on the Roman consultors. In 1615 Galileo appeared before the ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... with him, came toward them from the field; Alison watched him curiously as he turned this way and that to answer the insistent questions with which he was pelted, and once she saw him stride rapidly after a dodging delinquent and seize him by the collar amidst piercing yells of approval, and derision for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... required vigorous support, he was admonished in a dream to search for, and found under the pavement of the church, the remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and Protasius. The applause of the vulgar was mingled with the derision ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... guard was to be borne down by sheer weight of blows. I contented myself with tapping his blade aside, and when at length, after essaying every trick in his catalogue, he fell back baffled, I laughed a low laugh of derision that ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... gun was coolly standing near the great dovecot and shooting at the pigeons. Dominique threw open the window and shouted. The answer was a gesture of derision. ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... not beheld a thin-veiled mockery in her look? Why, poor fool, has she not mocked you from the first? You dream of her lips. Were not their smiles but coquetry and derision? ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... deliberately employing the Canienga expression with a fierce scorn that, for a moment, made his noble features terrible. Then he spat as though to wash from his mouth the taste of the hated language that had soiled it, even when used in contempt and derision; and he said in the suave tongue of his own people: "Pray to your white God, Holder of Heaven, Master of Life and Death, that into our hands be delivered these scoffers who mock at Him and at Tharon—these Cat-murderers of little children, these pollutors ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... simply be comforts to him though they would be luxuries to her. When her mother told her, shaking her head rather sorrowfully as she heard Florence talk, that she did not like long engagements, Florence would shake hers too, in playful derision, and tell her mother not to be so suspicious. "It is not you that are ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... for, if the seigniors took his life, they would destroy the best friend they ever had. This villa, where most of his plans were matured and his state papers drawn up, was called by the people, in derision of his supposed ancestry, "The Smithy." Here, as they believed, was the anvil upon which the chains of their slavery were forging; here, mostly deserted by those who had been his earlier, associates, he assumed a philosophical demeanor which exasperated, without deceiving ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The time began to pass slowly. The Irishmen on the other roof, now definitely abandoning hope of further entertainment, proceeded with hoots of derision to climb down one by one into the recesses of their ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... you drive to the Church of the Transfiguration, at all?" she asked him, with a smile upon her face that had something of derision in it, for she plainly saw that Duncan was floundering badly in his effort to explain. When he hesitated for a suitable reply, she continued: "Why, may I ask, did you leave the box at the opera-house, in such a surreptitious manner? ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... considered it to be merely a boat entrance, and did not examine it. While he was at breakfast, the look-out man at the mast-head—a man named Jackson—reported that he saw the entrance to what seemed a good anchorage; and so the captain, half in derision, named it "Port Jackson." The Heads seemed to me only about four hundred feet apart from each other, the North Head somewhat overlapping the South. The rocks appear to have broken off abruptly, and ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... parts of Asia and Africa which lie on that sea. Their inveteracy, however, was principally directed against the Roman commerce, and the Romans themselves. If any of their captives declared himself to be a Roman, they threw themselves in derision at his feet, begging his pardon, and imploring his protection; but after they had insolently sported with their prisoner, they often dressed him in a toga, and then, casting out a ship's ladder, desired him to return home, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... made prisoners, together with five Europeans and forty-seven topasses, while sixty men were killed and two gallivats lost. The wretched topasses had their noses cut off, five European heads were stuck up in derision before the factory, while Midford and Hill were alternately cajoled and threatened to induce them to take service with ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... Von Kettler stood glaring; then, with a laugh of derision and a gesture of the hands he vanished from view. And, though they might have expected that denouement, the members of the Council leaped to their feet, staring incredulously at the place where he had been. Nothing of Von Kettler was visible, not even the eyes, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... pacifism of his time was revolting. It was fortunate for his own peace of mind that he could here count on the Secretary of State. No argument based on fear of pain would meet in Seward with anything but derision. "They tell us," he had once said, and the words expressed his constant attitude, "that we are to encounter opposition. Why, bless my soul, did anybody ever expect to reach a fortune, or fame, or happiness on earth or a crown in heaven, without encountering resistance and opposition? What ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... send her Son home to our Lady.' He heard jokes even made about the priests when consecrating the elements at mass, repeating in Latin the words 'Bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain: wine thou art, and wine thou shalt remain.' He often remarked in later years how they would apply in derision the term 'good Christian' to those who were stupid enough to believe in Christian truth, and to be scandalised by anything said to the contrary. No one, he declared, would believe what villanies and shameful doings were then ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... there was too much foundation for the representations of those satirists and dramatists who held up the character of the English Nabob to the derision and hatred of a former generation. It is true that some disgraceful intrigues, some unjust and cruel wars, some instances of odious perfidy and avarice, stain the annals of our Eastern Empire. It is true that the duties of government and legislation were long wholly neglected or carelessly performed. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I detected a covert smile of derision passing over the speaker's face as he said this, and I turned to see whether I could detect anything of the kind on that of his companion, but I found he had withdrawn to the gangway, apparently to call his people up out of the boat, for they were just coming up ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... own, else I should infallibly have broken my neck in confronting perils which brought me neither honor nor profit, and in accepting defiances which, issue how they might, won self-reproach from myself, and sometimes a gayety of derision from him. One only of these defiances I declined. There was a horse of this same guardian B.'s, who always, after listening to Cherubini's music, grew irritable to excess; and, if any body mounted ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... man went clean shaven, or only had side whiskers, a full beard being unknown, and moustaches were confined to foreigners and to a few cavalry regiments, so that for a working man to sport them (although now so exceedingly common) would probably lead to derision and persecution, as in the following police case reported in ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... Holiness' priestly heart, even to those senseless traditions which forbid a cardinal to go out on foot, and make it scandalous for him to visit the poor in their houses. It is the spirit of immobility which, by straining to preserve what it is impossible to preserve, exposes us to the derision of unbelievers; and this is a great sin in the ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... and devil, All their pow'r Can no more Do than mock and cavil. Let derision now employ them, Christ e'en here Will appear ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... imagination. The Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace—the handcuff, the lash—the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives—the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labour of body, the despair of mind, the sickness of heart—these are the realities which belong to the system, and form ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... that I perceived a little derision of countenance on his face as he said this, nevertheless I sunk dumb before such a man, aroused myself to the task, seeing he would not have it deferred. I approved of it in theory, but my spirit stood aloof from the practice. I saw and was convinced ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... passed around a large jar of these insects, and made every teacher take one and hold it while I was speaking. If any one dropped the insect, I stopped till he picked it up. This was at that time a great innovation, and excited much laughter and derision. There can be no true progress in the teaching of natural science until such ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... the floor. Even then there was no uproar, no rush or push, no sharp cries or frenzied shouting; but from the crowd, which was largely made up of elderly men, there rose a sort of surd, rich hum, deepening ever, and never breaking into a shriek of torment or derision. It was not histrionic, and yet for its commercial importance it was one of the most moving spectacles which could offer itself to the ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... kingdom of France the war raged with intense violence, brother against brother, and father against child. Farm-houses, cities, villages, were burned mercilessly. Old men, women, and children were tortured and slain with insults and derision. Maiden modesty was cruelly violated, and every species of inhumanity was practiced by the infuriated antagonists. The Catholic priests were in general conspicuous for their brutality. They resolved that the Protestant heresy should be drowned ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... did—and was he going away because discomfort and fatigue had cooled and disgusted him—perhaps even made him feel that he was playing the part of a sensational idiot who was laying himself open to derision? That would be like ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... instrument for the more refined torment of the unhappy victim, conjoin to constitute a masterpiece of this lower form of poetical composition;—poetry it is not. While Flecknoe's pretensions as a dramatist were fairly a subject of derision, Shadwell was eminently popular. He was a pretender to learning, and, entertaining with Dryden strong convictions of the reality of a literary metempsychosis, believed himself the heir of Jonson's genius ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Desolation had set a heavy hand over it all. The buildings no more resembled those he had known than daylight resembles darkness. The stable, wherein he had received his last thrashing from his father, had sagged to one side, its roof seeming to bow to him in derision; the corral fence was down in several places, its rails in a state of decay, and within, two gaunt ponies drooped, seeming to lack the energy necessary to move them to take advantage of the opportunity for freedom so close at hand. They appeared to ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer |
