"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that time in Belfield a class of spiteful people, who, doubtless, being inspired by envy at beholding the felicity of the happy pair, affected to laugh and sneer a good deal at what they jeeringly called Jack Bugbee's marrying his grandmother. But, as if it had been specially ordered on purpose to confound these ill-natured jokers, this union, the object of their ridicule, was most signally prospered, and in due time the Doctor himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... liked against you in the other Race at the University—meaning, old boy, your Degree. Nasty, that about the Degree—in the opinion of Number One. Bad taste in Sir Patrick to rake up what we never mention among ourselves—in the opinion of Number Two. Un-English to sneer at a man in that way behind his back—in the opinion of Number Three. Bring him to book, Delamayn. Your name's in the papers; he ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... before that her mother, in her fear and bewilderment, had brought her own cloak instead of her daughter's, and this circumstance also did not seem to her foe too trivial for a sneer. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... held out his hand with frank forgiveness. "Your apology is ample, Sieur Deschenaux. I am satisfied you meant no affront to my sister! It is my weak point, messieurs," continued he, looking firmly at the company, ready to break out had he detected the shadow of a sneer upon any one's countenance. "I honor her as I do the queen of heaven. Neither of their names ought to be ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples intelligible to him. To every remonstrance he listened with a cynical sneer, wondering within himself whether those who lectured him were such fools as they professed to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... might be, however, Mrs. Lee was too much in earnest to be conscious of them, or, indeed, to care for anything but what she was saying. There was a moment's pause when she came to the end of her speech, and then the thread of talk was quietly taken up again where Sybil's incipient sneer had broken it. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... those who persecute for opinion's sake, are the only traitors. There, nothing is considered infamous except an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty, and joy. The church contemplates this republic with a sneer. From the teeth of hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. She is filled with the spite and spleen born of intellectual weakness. Once she was egotistic; ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... about that," said the spider; "for I have never lived in houses, being an independent insect; but it is possible you may be right. At any rate, it is not of much consequence. You had better go up into the window, old toad." Now this was a sneer on the ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... sneer at and depreciate goods, and exceedingly discourteous to the salesman. Use no deceit, but be honest with them, if you wish them to be honest ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... ye ragged few; A beggar goes a-wedding; The people sneer, the thing's so queer, And tears ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... Prun, with an ugly sneer. "Well, he can't now put his daughter on her guard, or inflame her with the magnificent spirit ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... their grandchildren waiting for them. I told how I had seen them, in our New England coast towns, covered, as a ship is covered with barnacles, by grandchildren who rode on their shoulders and sat astride of their necks as they walked down the village streets. And now at last the sneer left my old man's loose lips. He had grandchildren somewhere. He twisted uneasily in his seat, coughed, and finally took out a big red handkerchief and wiped his eyes. ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... nothing very violent, but that it was not heard. The Duke of Richmond had spoken to the point of order, and said in a very marked way 'he saw a noble Earl sitting by a junior Baron.' This was Lyndhurst, who was offended at the sneer upon his want of anciennete, and who retorted that before the noble Duke made such speeches on points of order he would do well to make himself acquainted with the orders of the House, of which it was obvious he knew nothing. The ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Will any one deny, that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Jameson was dead and that the farm was run by his widow. Turner felt a pang of disappointment. What satisfaction was there in wreaking revenge on a dead man? But at least his wife and children should suffer. That debt of his to Jameson for an ill-won victory and many a sneer must be paid in full, if not to him, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Ladislaw could have overheard some of the talk at Freshitt that morning, he would have felt all his suppositions confirmed as to the readiness of certain people to sneer at his lingering in the neighborhood. Sir James, indeed, though much relieved concerning Dorothea, had been on the watch to learn Ladislaw's movements, and had an instructed informant in Mr. Standish, who was necessarily in his confidence on this matter. That Ladislaw had stayed in Middlemarch ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... with faint praise, assent with evil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer. Pope, Prologue ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... The sneer at St. Luke's Square was his characteristic expression of an opinion which had been slowly forming for some years. The Square was no longer what it had been, though individual businesses might be as good as ever. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... next. Come, you don't know what you refuse. That old hall is my uncle's own, and he has nobody else to leave it to. As soon as he's dead I shall throw up farming and start as a squire. And now,' he added with a bitter sneer, 'what a fool you are to hang back ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... emollients, fireside novels, canned edibles, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco. The money was no doubt legitimately earned. The patent-medicine man and the millionaire tailor have my entire respect. I do not sneer at honest wealth acquired by these humble means. The rise—if it be a rise—of these and others like them is superficial evidence, perhaps, that ours is a democracy. Looking deeper, we see that it is, in fact, proof of ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... urged, with high encomiums upon his character, that he should be invited to retain his post. The sentiment of the Assembly was wavering in his favor. Danton, excessively annoyed, arose and said, with a sneer, "I oppose the invitation. Nobody appreciates M. Roland more justly than myself. But if you give him this invitation, you must give his wife one also. Every one knows that M. Roland is not alone in his department. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... her," was the contemptuous Cornelius. Even Vavasor, who soon became a frequent caller, if he chanced to utter some admiring word concerning the pretty deft creature that had just flitted from the room like a dark butterfly, would not in reply draw from him more than a grunt and a half sneer. Yet now and then he might have been caught glowering at her, and would sometimes, seemingly in spite of himself, smile on her ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... with a sneer: "He's pushin' the yellow stuff at us, Heinie," he said; and to me: "You get yours all right. I don't know what it is, but you get it, same as me an' Heinie an' Duck. I don't know what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe it's dough; maybe it's ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... every day after we meet the cannibals, make no suspicious moves. Do not speak harshly. Do not laugh or sneer at them. They are unreasoning and easily insulted, and lifelong foes when angered. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... was his friendship for de Tobar. There were many young gallants about the vice-regal court who, jealous of Alvarado's favor and envious of his merits, had not scrupled in the face of his unknown origin to sneer, to mock, or to slight—so far as it was safe to do either of these things to so brave and able a soldier. Amid these gilded youths de Tobar with noble magnanimity and affection had proved himself Alvarado's staunchest ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... friend, that you your error see, Of sneering where you cannot understand: You've owned your fault: let by-gones by-gones be; Past blows from Punch forgetting—there's my hand. Lick whom you list—creation if you please: Let those who choose laugh at me: let them sneer; I earn, before I eat, my bread and cheese; I love my language; and I like my beer. Content with what I have, so that it come Through honest sources: happy at my lot, I seek not—wish not—for a fairer home. Hard work: my Bible: children: wife: a cot: These are my birthright, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... as a witness, and then toss it over into the pile." He smiled, showing a line of white teeth beneath his moustache. "Nice little pot, gentlemen—the Judge must hold some cards to take a chance like that," the words uttered with a sneer. "Fours, at least, or maybe he has had the luck to ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... a smile that was half a leer and an intonation that was little less than a sneer—"here is a spot that will scarce have enough attraction for your worship to merit ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... buggy, leaning forth, one hand extended as Barry hurried toward her, her black eyes flashing eagerness, her full, yet cold lips parted, her olive-skinned cheeks enlivened by a flush of excitement as Houston came to her, forgetful of the sneer of the man at her side, forgetful of the staring Ba'tiste in the background, forgetful of his masquerade, ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... is quite in accordance with the spirit and aim of thousands to magnify the charity that confines itself to bodily wants and distresses, to sneer at the relief which religion may bring to the far greater anguish of the spirit, and to look upon love and loyalty to God as superstition. Is it any wonder that such persons have a warm side toward Buddhism? Again, this system has certain points in common ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... who signed the requisition, as in all probability the Bill would be passed the House of Commons before the day of meeting, or at least before the petition could be presented. In fact, both the Sheriff and his hopeful Deputy declared with a sneer, that the necessity of holding the meeting might possibly be set aside, by the House of Commons passing the Bill. Old birds, however, are not to be caught with chaff, and therefore the requisition was drawn ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... was a covert sneer, intended to convey the impression that President Lincoln, in order to secure the support and friendship of the Emperor of Russia as long as the War of the Rebellion lasted, was willing to do all sorts of menial offices, even to the extent of holding ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... a sneer. "I am rather surprised to hear this, not having, to my knowledge, ever had the ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... Dave had hated the storekeeper with a zest and energy which bade fair to become the ruling passion of his life; but except for a few minor disagreeables, that could hardly be said to count, his ill will had thus far not gone beyond sneer ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... alone Citizen-Deputy, I see," he said, with a sneer, as his snakelike eyes lighted ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... The cardinal adopted the style of a prince, commencing with the royal "We," his authority to "rule over" the province to which he was nominated. His vindication of the course pursued by the pontiff was a bitter sneer at English and Protestant institutions, mingled with an insulting defiance of the established authorities of the British nation. He reminded his hearers and the whole British nation (whom he knew would at such a crisis peruse his address) that he had no authority ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... listening with the rest, a sneer on his lips, though his eyes burned with a deep fire. If he had taken a step, hands would have been thrust out to stop him. But he did not move except, in the midst of Liane Devereux's story, to play nervously with an old-fashioned ring of twisted, jewel-headed serpents on the third ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... of her stepfather, who, it was even said, had hastened her death with poison. Otto, overcome with grief, confronted her murderer, heaped abuse on his head, and demanded his share of the property. The only answer was a sneer, and the youth, maddened with grief and indignation, drew his sword and plunged it in his tormentor's heart. A moment later he saw the probable consequences of his hasty action, concealed himself in the woods, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... would come to good, when I heard him attempting to sneer at an unoffending city so respectable as Boston. After a man begins to attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about the Frog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of him. Poor Edgar Poe died in the hospital soon after he got into this way of talking; and so sure as you ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... know what they may be going to try and do"—and Eve endeavored to imitate the sneer with which Reuben had emphasized the word—"but I know that trying with them means doing. There's nobody about here," she added with a borrowed spice of Joan's manner, "would care to put themselves in the way of trying to hinder ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... that you carry all your fortune on your back, therefore," said Alsi, looking at Havelok's gay attire with somewhat of a sneer. ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... talks through the whole set! and although he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so romantic and with so much feeling! Quite a love. No great favourite with the young men, certainly, who sneer at, and affect to despise him; but everybody knows that's only envy, and they needn't give themselves the trouble to depreciate his merits at any rate, for Ma says he shall be asked to every future dinner-party, if it's only to talk to people between the courses, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in the world must also be yours. The good of his church in general, and that of your own family in particular; and O, my son, if you would be rich in comfort, follow the Lord fully, and follow him openly; and if you would do it so as to suffer the least from the sneer of the world, do it ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... any clues yet?" asked the other carelessly, yet always with that hint of a sneer; and innocently Flatray answered, "They seem to be ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... in the middle of the street and let a charging trolley-car destroy him—not instantly, for he would live long enough to whisper, as the stricken pair bent over him: "Now, Julia, which do you believe: your father, or me?" And then with a slight, dying sneer: "Well, Mr. Atwater, is this reckless enough ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... scarcely any other reason than that he proposed to mind his. When I met his Southern mother on the piazza, she looked at me in my uniform at first as if I had been a toad. They are rebels at heart, and yet they stand aloof and sneer at the North, from which they derive protection and revenue. I made his eyes flash once though," chuckled the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... day who sneer at that kind of theology—pretty, indeed, as the pearl or the tear, but like tear or pearl a natural and partly a morbid deposit—a mere human process which, according to them, pretty well explains all religion; the result of man's instinct to see himself reflected ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... to conceal the sneer with which the young man glanced at the brown loaf gracing the platter on the Hegumen's knees. Seeing then a look of pain on the paternal countenance, he continued: "No, I have had breakfast, and came to see how you are, and to apprise you that the city is being stirred ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... point out that a Christianity which induced barbarian masters to release their slaves without payment or condition must have had a reality in it at which the kindred of Anglo-Saxon sugar-planters have no right to sneer. Odd were the absurdities of Maori lay preachers, and knavery was sometimes added to absurdity. Yet these dark-skinned teachers carried Christianity into a hundred nooks and corners. Most of them were honest enthusiasts. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... suffered by the Covenanters and Nonconformists from the Church of England. As the gospel spreads, it humanizes and softens the hearts even of the rebellious. The dread fire no longer consumes the cedars of Lebanon. Still there remains the contemptuous sneer, the scorn, the malice of the soul, against Christ and his spiritual seed. Not many years since the two daughters of an evangelical clergyman, a D.D., came out, from strong and irresistible conviction, and united with one of the straitest sects of Dissenters—the Plymouth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... friend's departure, Pepito sat silent; his brow was knit, and yet a mocking sneer played around his lips; he seemed to be pursuing two trains of thought at once; suspicion and merriment were clearly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... a pity," said the stranger, "to miss it all. You fear this Rosenblatt," he continued, with a hardly perceptible sneer. ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... marriage, I too was for leaving them alone. I developed a dread and dislike for romance, for emotional music, for the human figure in art—turning my heart to landscape. I wanted to sneer at lovers and their ecstasies, and was uncomfortable until I found the effective sneer. In matters of private morals these were my most uncharitable years. I didn't want to think of these things any more for ever. I hated ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... and commissions that somehow find their way clear to sustain the side holding membership in the race to which they belong. The Negroes, therefore, meet in groups and exchange accounts of outrages and bitterly sneer when they read in the white newspapers of the South accounts of the ideal ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... and was fresh from a prison. He assured his father that he knew nothing of all this. This was true; but after all Oscar knew too much of the character of Ned to believe him to be a good boy, or a safe companion. He had heard him swear and lie. He had also heard him sneer at virtue, and boast of deeds that no well-ordered conscience would approve. And yet he courted his company, and considered him a "capital fellow"! ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... disarmed. Mr. DEVLIN of course talked of Ireland—"the only country with which the Empire is at war to-day;" and little Capt. WEDGWOOD BENN rebuked Mr. CHURCHILL for his unfilial sneer at "pious America," and was himself advised "not to develop more indignation than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. It is inadequate even in criticising things that may really be inferior to the things involved here. It is far better to laugh at a negro for having a black face than to sneer at him for having a sloping skull. It is proportionally even more preferable to laugh rather than judge in dealing with highly civilised peoples. Therefore I put at the beginning two working examples of what I felt about America before I saw it; the sort ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... assuredly not the Chaplain; even our Professor's scientific surmisings are vain. On that point, the smallest cabin-boy is as wise as the Captain. And believe not the hypochondriac dwellers below hatches, who will tell you, with a sneer, that our world-frigate is bound to no final harbour whatever; that our voyage will prove an endless circumnavigation of space. Not so. For how can this world-frigate prove our eventual abiding place, when upon our first embarkation, as infants ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... of that as we please, I suppose," observed the carpenter's wife, with a sneer. "Mr. Wood," she continued, in an authoritative tone, seeing her husband ready to depart, "one word before you set out. If Jack Sheppard or his mother ever enter this house again, I leave it—that's all. Now, do what you please. You know ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... misogynists may sneer at love, and jeer at marriage. So melancholy is this our age that even by some women marriage seems to be doubted. Yet we may believe that there is not a woman in all Christendom who does not dote upon the name of "wife." It carries a spell which even the most rebellious ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... know you," he said doggedly. "And I've done all the running away I'm going to do. You go back and tell Wilkins I'm here and to come and get me. The sooner the better." The sneer faded, and he turned on Bassett with a depth of tragedy in his eyes that frightened the reporter. "My God," he said, "I killed a man last night! I can't go through life with that on me. I'm ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the other one cried, "That Mary would venture there now." "Then wager and lose!" with a sneer, he replied, "I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side, And faint if she saw a ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... With a sneer the Madagascan turned and went to the other side of the partition where the wheel was by which the noose was tightened, strangling ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... most unfeigned respect for the memory of Falkland. Carlyle's sneer at him has always seemed to us about the most painful thing in the writings of Carlyle. Our knowledge of his public life is meagre, and is derived mainly from a writer under whose personal influence he acted, who is specially responsible for the most questionable ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... caught on. I was out of breath, really I was ashamed of myself, but I wasn't just sure then whether I'd ever let him put his arm around me again or not. But Fairy turned over, and began to talk. Professor," she said solemnly, "Fairy and I always pretend to be snippy and sarcastic and sneer at each other, but in my heart, I think Fairy is very nearly as good as Prudence, yes, sir, I do. Why, Fairy's ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer, Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... lightning shot from beneath Wilford's eyelashes, and a taunting sneer curled his ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... your old spying tricks, I see!" exclaimed Joe, with a sneer he could not forego. "Have you summoned ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... Davis, as the pressure from Richmond since the 18th of December had been for immediate aggressive action, and had been so emphatically put that to speak of it as creating only "an impression" sounded very like a sneer, and was unfortunate if ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... should not recognize so plain a duty. I have no patience to argue it. The moral logic of this movement is as patent as the simplest rule in arithmetic. Every argument brought against it resolves itself into a sneer at woman's capacity, or an anxiety lest the distinction God has established between the sexes will not bear testing; or, what is more common still, though covered up in a thousand ways, the brutish assertion that "might makes right." There is but one answer to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... things to my house!" repeated the miser with a sneer. "Mebbe he does. What sort of things does he kerry there? Chickens and turkeys, and surlines and ribs of beef, and sech truck! He knows I don't want sech things, and he does it jest to aggravate me. If he wants to do anything for me, why don't he gim me the money he ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... not from any scientific spirit or scientific acumen that this materialistic coterie avoid psychometric and spiritual facts. The newspapers which ignore or sneer at such knowledge are easily gulled in matters of science. A writer in the Open Court upon the possibilities of the future, which he presents as being confined "strictly to legitimate deductions from present knowledge," exhibits an amount and variety of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... filled with indignation at the sneer, and facing him with all her native courage; "yes, ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... tightly down upon his forehead and strode out of the Court House and past the speakers' stand, across whose front twin flags were being leisurely festooned. Back in his own office he picked up the story he had finished an hour before. With a sneer he tore it across and trampled it under foot. Then, jerking a chair forward to his typewriter, his brow dark, his jaw set, he began to ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... these men are! Be it so. Here is irony face to face with agony; a sneer mocking the death-rattle. They are all-powerful. Perhaps so; be it so. We shall see. Behold! I am one of them; but I am also one of you, O ye poor! A king sold me. A poor man sheltered me. Who mutilated me? A prince. Who healed and nourished ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Miriam, with a quiet sneer. 'This is the gospel and good news of salvation, according to the doctrine of ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... repeated the doctor. "Well, for my part I feel by no means inclined to sneer at a sea-serpent. Its existence cannot be proved, yet it cannot be pooh-poohed. Every schoolboy knows that the waters of the sea were once filled with monsters more tremendous than the greatest sea-serpent that has ever been imagined. The plesiosaurus, with its ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... about ten o'clock, he hastened to his friend Huckaback. That gentleman (who seemed now virtually recognized by Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap as Titmouse's confidant) shook his head ominously, exclaiming—"Blarny, blarny!" and a bitter sneer settled on his disagreeable features, till he had read down to the postscript; the perusal of which effected a sudden change in his feelings. He declared, with a great oath, that Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap were "perfect ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... alone, will he?" he said, with a sneer. "Say, d'you know what he was doin' around this house last night when he saw those hoss-thief guys, or ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... took you to be a better seaman than to overset our chaise in such fair weather. Blood! didn't I tell you we were running bump ashore, and bid you set in the ice-brace, and haul up a wind?"—"Yes," replied the other, with an arch sneer, "I do confess as how you did give such orders, after you had run us foul of a post, so as that the carriage lay along, and could not right herself."—"I run you foul of a post!" cried the commander: "d— ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... was very gay: some people did sneer at the match, but where was there ever a match without a sneer? There are always and everywhere people to be found who will envy the happiness of others. Some talked about the private marine; this attack was met with the 4,000 pounds (or rather 8,000 pounds per annum, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... very quickly realized at Briarcroft that Gipsy was in ill favour at headquarters; and though most of the girls were sorry for her, with a certain number her changed fortunes undoubtedly lessened her popularity. Maude Helm never lost an opportunity of a sneer or a slight, and could sometimes raise a laugh at Gipsy's expense among the more thoughtless section of the Form. Gipsy generally responded with spirit, but the gibes ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... your experts!" exclaimed the priest with a sneer. "Only a fool needs experts! One must be more of a brute than the Indians, who build their own houses, not to know how to construct four walls and put a roof on top of them. That's ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Bullen, was more or less under the spell of the Arch-Deceiver, or they would have caught the sneer in the rich full voice, even ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... said Phoebe, shaking her head. "Indeed I did not approve. Personalities never advance any cause. I said so to him. Don't you think the Church has herself to blame for those political Dissenters, Mr. May? You sneer at us, and look down ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... than it was prudent to have divulged in Vienna, and his enemies were also those of Wallenstein. A defeat might have been forgiven in Vienna, but this disappointment of their hopes they could not pardon. "What should I have done with this madman?" he writes, with a malicious sneer, to the minister who called him to account for this unseasonable magnanimity. "Would to Heaven the enemy had no generals but such as he. At the head of the Swedish army, he will render us much better ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... Besides those who sneer at dream study, because they have never looked into the subject, there are those who do not dare to face the facts revealed by dream study. Dreams tell us many an unpleasant biological truth about ourselves and only very free minds can thrive on such a diet. Self-deception ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... Father Fouchard shrugged his shoulders with a contemptuous sneer. Why, yes, of course he sold them carcasses that had never been near the slaughter house; that was all they would ever get to eat from him. If a peasant had a cow die on his hands of the rinderpest, or if he found a dead ox lying in the ditch, was not the carrion good ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... and her daughters were vastly too philosophical to think of diamonds,' said Lady Isabel to her mother, with a sort of sentimental sneer in her voice and countenance. 'But it is some comfort to me to find, in these pattern-women, philosophy and love do not so wholly engross the heart, that they "feel ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... white," echoed Molly with a sneer. "Do you mean to try to choke it down my throat that my whiteness would save me should your people rise up against Niggers in Wilmington? Honestly, Ben Hartright, do you mean that?" Molly arose from the sofa and ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... class. It seemed that he had been deeply envious of Davidson all that year. With a quick turn of the head he surveyed for a moment the haughty expression and narrowly drawn postures of the boy beside him. There was a trace of a sneer on that face, and again Keith's heart was flooded with resentment. But this mood changed abruptly into contriteness. Perhaps he was being punished by some one, by God—he hesitated at that thought—for grudging his schoolmate the place and ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... guarded the strawberry were lost. He added that, into whatever paradise I might stray, I must beware of tasting any of the food of the departed. All who yield to the temptation must inevitably remain where they have put the food of the dead to their lips. "You," said my guide, with a slight sneer, "seem rather particular about your future home, and you must be especially careful to make no error." Thus admonished, I followed my guide to the river which runs between our world and the paradise of ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... in straw hat and shirtsleeves, presently appeared. He grinned when he saw me, and the thick snub of his nose would have seemed like a sneer at ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... needn't sneer. You're such a wooden-headed, solid chap, nothing ever shakes you; but it was a very ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... with a triumphant sneer. He turned to Tommy, who was standing near with half a dozen men who had just come out from breakfast. "Here you, Tommy, get a couple of teams ready and all the buffalo robes you need and be ready to start in an hour. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... if we are," replied Raymond, with a sneer. "One thing is plain enough; they can't go to sea ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... may have been. Men who have endured the lifelong laceration of taunt and sneer and suffered the loss of well nigh all things, there have been not a few. Though the fires of persecution have burned with fiercer intensity in other parts of China, yet we have not escaped having our garments singed in some of ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... folk of his own class in the places where they gathered—the public houses—the churchly scandal-mongers called him "a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners"—precisely as in the old days they used to sneer at the Socialists for having their meetings in the backrooms of saloons, and precisely as they still denounce us as free-lovers ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... a sneer; "you all time talking 'bout you know all 'bout job; you 'bout the womanishest little girl they is. Now I know job 'cause Miss Cecilia 'splained all 'bout him to me. He's in the Bible and he sold his birthmark for a ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... for an answer, but walked up and down the room, laughing angrily to herself. "Yes, soap! He cannot sneer at Lucy's ancestral saddles, now. Nor my father's saws! His rank is the only thing he has to give for Lucy's millions, and now she ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... glanced triumphantly at his wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to sneer. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... from further speech. That very morning in the lobby of the Granada Thompson had heard one man sneer at another for a slacker—and get knocked down for his pains. He did not want to inflict that indignity on Tommy, and he felt that he would if Tommy made ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... serious attention of the house to public affairs was more imperatively demanded, and he boldly maintained that it was the duty of their lordships to lay the true state and condition of the country before his majesty. After indulging in a quiet sneer at the care the council had bestowed upon horned cattle, he remarked, that he was glad to hear that the king had reason to believe the peace of the country would be preserved, since peace could never be more desirable to a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... He was obliged to slacken his pace before he could understand what I said. When he had heard me repeat my injunction, which I did with no little vehemence, he looked at me first in astonishment, then with a sneer, and was raising his whip to lash the horses forward with fresh fury. Olivia caught him by the arm, and I immediately called with a voice of thunder, 'By G——, Sir, if you either injure or terrify the lady, I will pull you ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... while Matthew Blake, with the huntsmen and whipper-in, was riding along in search of a gap to lead the horses through. Before I put spurs to Badger to face the hill, I turned one look towards Hammersley. There was a slight curl, half-smile, half-sneer, upon his lip that actually maddened me, and had a precipice yawned beneath my feet, I should have dashed at it after that. The ascent was so steep that I was obliged to take the hill in a slanting direction; and even thus, the loose footing ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the breaking of old ties, and the loss of dear friends, and perplexities about their own position. The anxiety, the sorrow at differing and parting, seem now almost extravagant and unintelligible. There are those who sneer at the "distress" of that time. There had not been the same suffering, the same estrangement, when Churchmen turned dissenters, like Bulteel and Baptist Noel. But the movement had raised the whole ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... but of the honest belief of any one, I am sure he never felt or spoke otherwise than most tolerantly, most tenderly. As often as he spoke of religion, and his talk tended to it very often, I never heard an irreligious word from him, far less a scoff or sneer at religion; and I am certain that this was not merely because he would have thought it bad taste, though undoubtedly he would have thought it bad taste; I think it annoyed, it hurt him, to be counted among ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... help his friends. He's a kind man and lots of fun. It's not his fault if you don't get on. It's your own fault. You don't have to work in a fish market if you don't want to, or sit there and sneer at a man who doesn't care what you think of him. Abraham Lincoln ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... also, to adopt a uniform method for indicating stage-directions and abbreviations of the names of characters. There can be no gain to the reader in reproducing, for example, Sheridan's different indications for the part of Lady Sneerwell—LADY SNEERWELL, LADY SNEER., LADY SN., and LADY S.— or his varying use of EXIT and EX., or his inconsistencies in the use of italics in the stage-directions. Since, however, Sheridan's biographers, from Moore to Fraser Rae, have shown that no authorised or correct edition of ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... When in order to explain what they themselves concede to be "the absence from the popular ranks of the best of the priesthood," Nationalist writers find it necessary to denounce Cardinal Cullen and Cardinal M'Cabe as "anti-Irish "; and to sneer at men like Dr. Healy as "Castle Bishops," it is impossible not to be reminded of the three "patriotic" tailors of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... But no, he knew her better than that. He could trust her on that score, and so the dastardly coward affected to sneer at what he called her primness, charging 'Lina to be careful what she did, if she did not want a lecture, and asking if there were any ragged children in Kentucky, as she would not be happy unless she was running ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... their usual soothing spell over the Princess. It was plain that she had taken a momentary distaste to her own resolutions; for she continued to oppose her counsellor, looking upon him out of half-closed eyes and with the shadow of a sneer upon her lips. "What boys men are!" she said; "what lovers of big words! Courage, indeed! If you had to scour pans, Herr von Gondremark, you would call it, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... self-defence. It's the only way I can keep her from making me utterly ridiculous." And he proceeded to read from the secretary's telegram. "'Shopped all morning. Lunched at Martingale's with man and woman unknown to me—Martingale's,'" he repeated with a sneer—"'Motored through Park with Mrs. Wilmer until five.' Mrs. Wilmer," he exclaimed, "there's a woman I've positively forbidden ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... great fish there?" asked Jacobi from Henrik, with an impatient sneer, "and what matters it to him whether your sister ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... hers, quivering with excitement, and ever and anon casting quick looks towards her brother, who stood behind the chair of state observant and watchful, but without betraying his feelings either by word or look. Raoul Latimer was there, a sneer upon his lips, a malevolent light in his eyes, which deepened as they rested upon Llewelyn, whilst Arthyn watched the twin brothers with a strange look in her glowing eyes, her lips parted, her white teeth just showing between, her whole expression one of tense ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and let's agree, Then of the booze-ken you'll be free; [5] No sneer from cully, mot, or froe [6] Dare then reproach my Bess for Joe; For he's the kiddy rum and queer, [7] That all St. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... not say that," answered he, with a half sneer—and then, "Farewell, friend Leigh—farewell, gallant Dick Grenville. God send I see thee Lord High Admiral when I come home. And yet, why should I come home? Will you pray for poor ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... time for him to go—unless he chose to ask Quarrier for an explanation of that sneer which he found distasteful. But there was too much noise, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... it sounding like a sneer, if you did. The desire is hopeless, of course. It's because I know that, that I have made up my mind to travel for a year or two; it'll help me on towards the age when I shall regard all women with indifference. We won't talk ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... your son-in-law's benefit," with an insolent half smile, half sneer. "He was to explain them to you. There have been accommodations for the mills occasionally. You were away: what else ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... wisdom. He who striveth, having commenced anything, till it is completed, who never wasteth his time, and who hath his soul under control, is regarded wise. They that are wise, O bull of the Bharata race, always delight in honest deeds, do what tendeth to their happiness and prosperity, and never sneer at what is good. He who exulteth not at honours, and grieveth not at slights, and remaineth cool and unagitated like a lake in the course of Ganga, is reckoned as wise. That man who knoweth the nature of all creatures (viz., that everything is subject to destruction), who is cognisant ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... ago. Somewhere in this great, multitudinous mass of humanity he is sinning and sinning and reduplicating and extending the sin that you did. You touched the faith of some believing soul years ago with some miserable sneer of yours, with some cynical and sceptical disparagement of God and of the man who is the utterance of God upon the earth. You taught the soul that was enthusiastic to be full of scepticisms and doubts. You wronged a woman years ago, and her life has gone out ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks |
